SOPHIA KHAKASA delves into the dark world of the occult and brings you shocking tales of educated people who bewitch offices and workmates
Have some of your colleagues been disappearing on and off from work without clear explanation?
Everyone knows they are studying for Masters or Doctorate degrees, yes, but are they always away from work under the pretext of exams and group discussions?
Do their moods change inconsistently without reason, sometimes friendly, other times incredibly hostile? Do they fall asleep on their desks, looking dazed, as the boss waits for that time-barred assignment?
Do you have workmates who carry the same bag everyday, mostly yellow or brown in colour even if it is dirty and torn and belongs in the dustbin? And why has this other one been wearing the same green coat for the last ten years, or that greyish old sweater the whole year, whether it is hot or cold?
Do they reject a hug or handshake all the time?
Do they refuse to take office tea and always remove their shoes and walk around the office bare foot? Do they visit the toilet more than three times a day? Do they sneeze whenever the boss summons a colleague to his or her office? What about the male colleagues who never wear socks?
It could be a coincidence, but chances are one or all these people have been visiting a witchdoctor and the witchdoctor has given them strict instructions on what to do to survive at the office.
Instructions may include the colours to wear to work to please or confuse bosses and what to put under his or her carpet to earn promotions, office trips and excessive per diem at the expense of others.
Such workers do not listen to their bosses. They can be outrageously rude, yet nothing happens to them. In fact, bosses apologise and beg them to stay, unlike you who would be fired on the spot — no benefits, nothing.
Zanzibar
Watch out for that lazy colleague who is always traveling to Eastleigh, Pemba, Zanzibar, Mombasa or upcountry and comes back as recharged and energetic as a snake that has shed off its old skin. Soon after, a memo is circulated indicating the fellow’s promotion to deputy head of department.
This, after all, is Africa where those promoted rarely get it through merit. Many, both men and women, sleep their way up. For others, it is juju and powerful tips from the witchdoctors’ bag of tricks that carves their career paths.
How, for instance, would a humble receptionist suddenly become the human resources manager? How else would you explain how a colleague who is so nasty to everyone is the boss’ favourite pet?
Silas Wepukhulu, a manager at a security firm in Nairobi, told Crazy Monday how, when it came to the attention of the management that workers were stealing office items including spoons, cups, tissue and soap from the toilets, it was decided that all bags be checked whenever a member of staff entered or left the building.
Dried chameleons
"We were shocked to find paraphernalia associated with witchcraft in the women’s handbags. Some had geckoe tails, dried chameleons, frog limbs, a baby crocodile’s tooth, monkey hairs, and dolls with plaited hair," says Wepukhulu.
"One senior female officer had an ostrich egg. When we suggested calling the police as most of the items were wildlife trophies, which require a KWS permit, they begged us to forgive them as this was the only way they could keep their jobs. While struggling with one secretary, her skirt fell loose and out dropped hundreds of orange and yellow beads from her waist. She never came back to the office.
Ran away
"Some men, on the other hand, would not allow our guards to check their laptop bags. One of them shoved the security officer to the wall and ran away," Wephukulu told Crazy Monday.
In most of the offices, cleaners, messengers and drivers are believed to be the most dangerous. They are used to plant witchdoctors’ juju and dust, popularly known as mafira, among the practitioners’ circles because they have unrestrained access to boss’s offices.
Many bosses will, therefore, not allow anyone to open their offices before they come. The cleverer ones prefer to keep the office keys and open the doors themselves and when they go on leave, they never surrender their official cars or offices.
Augustine Mjanne, one such boss, noticed that whenever his cleaner, Robert, entered the office, the first place he cleaned was a particular picture placed above the door. All the other pictures were dusty. To confirm his suspicions, Mailu came to the office quite early and hid in the toilet. He waited for the door to open and watched in horror as the cleaner removed a dirty bag tied with a knot and replaced it with another one.
"Stop right there! What are you doing?" Mjanne shouted.
The cleaner fainted. When he came to, he confessed that the boss’ deputy had given him the special assignment six months earlier and paid him Sh10,000 to keep his mouth shut.
Promotion
One messenger confessed to have quickly jumped into matatus at lunchtime and taken letters of promotion to a witchdoctor in Eastleigh.
After the witchdoctor, whose speciality is overturning promotions, sprayed mafira on the letters and spat on them while chanting, "akurufuku tat tat tat tat prrrrr, piew", the messenger delivered them in the afternoon. To everyone’s surprise, the letters were recalled. Some promotions were revoked and several people who had been promoted in the morning were sacked in the afternoon.
In a number of offices, witchdoctors have slaughtered goats in rituals that saw some bosses commit suicide.
In an office in Mombasa, an office manager who had forgotten an important file in the office dashed there at midnight only to find a witchdoctor and four of his male colleagues dancing stark naked in circles around a goat that had been freshly slaughtered. The four had been tied together with the goat’s entrails around their necks and were chanting the manager’s name.
Hanged himself
The manager informed other colleagues the same night, but in the morning he bought a rope and hanged himself in the same office. Although the management moved the office to another street, most of the staff left. The only one who remains to date acts like a mad man and is rather sickly. He reports for work covered in herbs to protect him from his dead boss’ ghost.
But this is no big deal as seeing a witchdoctor is a common practice in many parts of Kenya, nay, Africa. Almost every individual has a personal witchdoctor who manages their lives by clearing the path for success and fending off real and imagined enemies.
Bishop
Neither clerics nor lawyers are exempt. The bishop of an evangelical church in Kakamega recently told Crazy Monday that a pastor of a rival church had visited a witchdoctor to block faithful from attending his services. It is a trick many shopkeepers and prostitutes employ.
Some lawyers, on the other hand, are known to visit witchdoctors before going to court to argue critical cases. These particular lawyers always wear sky blue suits. They do not face the judges directly but position their necks at a 41 per cent degree angle and face the court with one shoulder. They ensure they use court orderlies or clerks to scatter juju dust on the judge’s or magistrate’s seat before the court session begins.
But Kenyan politicians beat them all. Those with good memory may recall that soon after the 2002 elections, an MP who was travelling with his personal female witchdoctor drowned while driving across a flooded river in Ukambani. Police found Sh270,000 and weird paraphenalia in a brown leather handbag in his car.
Politicians are noted to use witchcraft against their rivals and to manage their constituents. The most infamous are homecoming parties where witchdoctors are said to advise some MPs to bath in a basin mixed with herbs and use the dirty water to make stew for the food served to their constituents.
So don’t say you were not warned. Watch out for colleagues who refuse to shake your hand first thing in the morning or receive funny looking guests.
Such people might just be out to finish you!
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