In many African communities, people still live by old traditional religious practices. Often branded as witchcraft, or "voodoo", these occult practices remain a developmental challenge. Their leaders have large followings and influence how people live their daily lives.

Benin, a country on the West African coast, is one of the hotspots for these occult practices. Here, many fortune tellers, exorcists and traditional healers earn their livelihood by practising witchcraft and voodoo. The situation is worse in the rural areas. There is inadequate access to electricity and lighting, which is a perfect disguise for the traditional healers and Dangerous superstition faith-based entrepreneurs. They abuse the desperation of the poor people to promote their business.

Both traditional practitioners and Christian faith-based clerics in temples, convents, mosques and churches actively advertise their services on radio and television. They offer 24- hour service for deliverance from poverty, health challenges, family- and relationship-based problems. They broadcast testimonies from people who claim to have been freed from their challenges by the faith healers.

A young man in Cotonou, who prefers anonymity, says that "witchcraft is really a gangrene that is eating up Benin's social fabric". He says it stands in the way of development, too.

Individuals seeking to introduce developmental projects are attacked and sabotaged by people who practise witchcraft and believe in the supernatural.

One of the most affected areas is health care. People in rural areas prefer to deal with traditional healers as opposed to mainstream medical service providers. Stories, such as the one of a freshly married woman in a nearby village who thought she was going to give birth to a strong healthy baby, only to deliver a calabash (a kind of melon) containing all kinds of weird objects, are famously told, which push many to run to traditional healers for deliverance.

To shed light on the situation, Father Pamphile Fanou, of Saint Rita Catholic Church in Cotonou, has published a book.

It lays bare the nonsense of witchcraft and warns of the continued damage that the practice is bringing on the lives of the people.

Fanou claims to have interfaced with witchcraft while still a teenager growing up in Benin.

One day, he writes, an old owl looking terribly scary landed on their rooftop and began to howl. Expectedly, Fanou and his brothers were all terrified, but not his dad, who immediately grabbed his hunting rifle and shot it. Suddenly, an old woman came, wailing and begging Fanou's dad to hand over the dead animal. "You've just shot my husband," she said.

A version of this article appears in the print on June 23, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.