HELEN UKPABIO: THE CHILD EXORCIST – A CLEAR CASE OF RELIGIOUS PSYCHOSIS?

Circa 1992, 28-year-old Helen Ukpabio would start a gospel ministry, an evangelical franchise in Calabar, Cross River State. In thirty-two years, this ministry would become an organization. Its wings, views, and beliefs about the gospel would spread across Nigeria and Africa. Today, she is 60. Authorities have banned her from the U.K. She is among the most controversial gospel preachers in West Africa. By exploiting local superstitions, she has incited evil against many children, women, and the elderly. A vulnerable set of people.

HOW DID SHE SUCCEED AT THIS?

To ask how Helen Ukpabio spread harmful beliefs, in the name of the gospel, would be to ask how a poisonous flower can pass for a harmless, fragrant one. First, her backstory was interesting, believable to the gullible (which happens to be a large set of Nigerians), and nothing short of a masterpiece. She claims to have been a teenage witch, “betrothed to Satan” before being “set free by the gospel.” How else can you convince a naive mass of your experience in spotting demon-possessed children? Children who, in most cases, happen to be the offspring of your members. She and her organization believe that Satan has the ability to manifest himself in the bodies of children by demonic possession, thus making them his servants in the form of “witches and wizards.”

As bizarre and cynical as this story may sound to unfamiliar ears, with the level of religious fanaticism in this country, it gets worse. Not only did she manage to convince people that the kids they birthed were demon-possessed, she was also able to convince them to either kill or dump these kids, believing that their existence was somehow responsible for their misfortune. According to her, “if a child under the age of two screams in the night, cries, and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan.” How uninformed and gullible can one be to believe that it is anything out of the ordinary for an infant child to cry and scream at night?

How she was able to make her stories believable is one thing; how she was able to make them mainstream is another thing. Helen Ukpabio produced movies that shaped Nigeria’s, then West Africa’s, view of spirituality. One of her movies, End of the Wicked, featured popular Nollywood stars and child actors. They played witches and wizards who caused havoc in their homes and fed on their parents’ flesh. If you’ve heard a tale of kids getting initiated by sweets, cake, or biscuits, it likely came from a Helen Ukpabio film or ministration. However terrible this appears, this case and so many others in the country can be attributed to religious psychosis, a condition that appears to affect a large percentage of religious people in Africa.

WHAT IS RELIGIOUS PSYCHOSIS?

A psychosis is a condition of the mind or psyche that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Religious psychosis, also known as religious delusion, is defined as a fixed belief not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence, involving religious themes or subject matter. It is usually characterized by irrational, extreme, or obsessive beliefs related to religion. People with religious psychosis may have delusions that they are divine beings, prophets, or chosen by God to carry out a specific mission. They may also have hallucinations or believe they are hearing voices from God or other religious figures. This can lead to harmful or dangerous behaviors, especially if they believe they are acting on divine instructions.

The dictionary meaning of religious psychosis may lead one to believe that only religious leaders exhibit these traits. But this has only managed to succeed because the mass, their followers, accept their teachings as the gospel truth (pun intended). Often, even followers are complicit. They believe their beliefs are real and justified. So, they find it hard to see that ordinary things are not supernatural.

In Nigeria, inasmuch as we do not like to admit it, so many people may be suffering from this condition. Either that or we may have a blatant disregard for making use of our sixth sense, especially when the facts are glaring. What else explains throwing infants in dumps, believing they cause our misfortune? How do we explain going to religious leaders before doctors when we are ill? Or even attributing discomfort in our lives to “village people”?

It is high time we understand that religious fanaticism and extremism are the birth children of religious psychosis. These delusions are a known driving force behind fanatic behavior, which tends to be violent and harmful. Religion in itself is not a bad thing; it is only human to want to ascribe your existence to a divine being. However, allowing that belief to drive you to harm yourself and others in the name of religion is misguided.