Witchcraft and Sorcery among Office Bearers: The Case of Private Universities in Uganda

Having realized that witchcraft and sorcery are a reality in Uganda yet many academicians are reluctant to write and publicly talk about it, the researchers developed interest. The current study was carried out in five private universities located in Central Uganda. Given the nature of the study, social desirability bias was anticipated, thus, indirect oral interviews were used. This method involves collecting information by speaking with individuals who possess indirect knowledge of a subject or topic. This method depends on individuals who have heard about the issue, witnessed related events, or acquired secondhand knowledge through stories, rumors, or shared accounts. Taking a qualitative approach, only 28 people were interviewed to provide qualitative responses to the questions related to the prevalence of witchcraft in universities among office bearers, as well as its causes. The majority of the respondents reported that despite the fact that all office bearers are highly educated, witchcraft prevails to a large extent. Witchcraft is however more pronounced than sorcery. They reported that many Ugandans are religiously syncretistic; believing in imported religions as well as in the indigenous African religion though they don’t want to disclose it. The reasons cited for the prevalence of witchcraft among office bearers were job insecurity, fighting for promotion, fighting the perceived enemies/saboteurs, as well as family background or peer influence. The study concludes that although witchcraft is taken as a secret issue which many people usually avoid talking of publicly, it is highly practiced in universities. The belief is that although God is extremely powerful, he usually takes long to answer prayers. Because of this, many people resort to witchcraft which is believed to work quickly, propelled by spirits of various types such as the jinns, mayembe, mizimu, lubaale, biteega, bikumpuli, etcetera. The witchdoctors who are believed to be experts in causing these spirits to work are usually consulted by clients. In the private universities, job insecurity, the fight for positions and promotions, family backgrounds of the office bearers as well as the desire to harm the perceived enemies on the job, have caused witchcraft and sorcery to prevail. The study recommends that the Parliament of Uganda amends the law on witchcraft so as to make it easy for the perpetrators of witchcraft and sorcery to be punished by law. Otherwise as the law stands now, proving crimes of witchcraft is hard and hence the witch and sorcerers many times go un-punished. Secondly, employees in private universities need to be assured of their jobs; let university founders ensure that the employees are secure, without always being threatened with statements like, “You will be sacked†. Mindset change is also necessary so that people can properly use the intelligence God gave them by for example working hard and strictly following organizational policies. This can do a lot in causing people to be safe on their jobs, be loved and promoted, instead of relying on witchcraft. Therefore, this paper does not praise the power of witchcraft and does not encourage it; it only highlights the extent of its existence in universities. Whether it really works as believed or not, should be another study to be carried out preferably with large samples.