In Nigeria, Afikpo’s police blamed dysfunctional vehicles for inaction in witch hunt, claims AfAW
by Piyush Mathur
Having waited in vain for weeks for Afikpo’s police to take action on a witch hunt incident in the area, Dr. Leo Igwe, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW), decided to call the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) to enquire about the pending complaint. To his shock and disbelief, the IPO claimed that he had not had access to a functional vehicle—and thus he could not visit the place where the alleged witch hunt is to be investigated.
So, earlier today, July 29, Igwe took to Facebook—making the following text post (with a dark background)—to vent his frustration to his friends and followers regarding Afikpo police’s inaction and unconvincing excuse: ‘Witch hunts: Police Area Command in Afikpo has no functional vehicle to effect arrest of suspects..so how do we end witch hunting?’
This is a digital download of Dr. Leo Igwe’s Facebook post made on July 29, 2025.
Thoughtfox reached out to Dr. Igwe about his Facebook post, and he responded by mentioning that his organisation had ‘petitioned the police in Afikpo regarding a witch hunt incident but weeks after they have not made any arrests’.
He added: ‘I called the IPO, that is the officer investigating the case today and he explained that their command had no functional vehicle to effect the arrest…I was dumbfounded and embarrassed.’
Afikpo police’s lack of action on this reported incident is bitterly ironical given that the World Day Against Witch Hunts—established via a German declaration on August 4, 2020 (and celebrated on August 10 every year)—is fast approaching, and AfAW has big plans for it.
Dr. Igwe was interviewed by Thoughtfox last year regarding his socio-philosophical organising and activism. His organisations have been promoting anti-witch hunt and pro-critical thinking workshops and events for several years in Nigeria and beyond.
Notably, in January, a man called Uromchi Okorocha was burnt to death in Enohia Itim village of the Afikpo Local Government Area after being suspected and accused of witchcraft.
That incident, which the Afikpo police had failed to prevent, would quickly prompt Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to issue a warning to the citizens against participating in mob justice. (Egbetokun has had to issue this type of a nation-wide warning previously also—if in part because it conveniently shifts the blame to the citizenry for policing inefficiencies and corruption.)
Previously, in 2022, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) had accused Afikpo’s police and the Ebonyi State government of covering up the abduction of the NELAN company’s engineers.
Afikpo is locally also called Ehugbo, which is the region’s traditional name.