In Calabar, where the estuary meets the Atlantic in a slow, timeless swirl, a different kind of tide has been rising for years.
Quiet but devastating, it gathers in the shadows of crowded settlements, in the narrow alleys where the scent of woodsmoke mixes with the salt wind, and in the whispered fears that turn neighbours into judges.
Here, childhood can be rewritten with a single accusation. A fever, a strange dream, a run of misfortune in the family, and a child becomes something else in the eyes of the people who should love them most. They are renamed, recast, pushed beyond the boundaries of home.
They are called witches.
The phenomenon is not new. It begins softly, almost imperceptibly: a sermon here, a prophecy there, a pastor insisting that unseen forces explain the struggles of the poor. In communities strained by joblessness, illness and enduring hardship, it became easier to see calamity as the work of a child marked by darkness.
And once named, the child is no longer safe. Some flee before the blows land. Others survive exorcisms meant to purge imaginary spirits. Many take to the streets, forming drifting clusters around Calabar’s edges, scavenging at the dumpsite, learning to live with hunger, loneliness and the cold ache of betrayal.
Yet their stories are never simple. Behind every accusation lies a web of fear, belief and desperation. Behind every abandoned child is a family trying to make sense of a world that has given them little certainty. NGOs, activists and a few determined officials have tried to counter the narrative, rescuing children and pushing back against the doctrine that paints innocence as evil. But the stigma lingers, reproduced in sermons, in rumours, in the enduring belief that misfortune must have a human face.
This world, where truth can be twisted, innocence distorted and children’s identity rewritten by forces they do not understand, is the concern of Ejiro Umukoro’s Young Adult fiction, The Distortion of Hadassah.
The novel tells the story of a girl named Hadassah whose life, from the moment of her premature birth with no hair on her head, has been markedly different from that of her siblings or anyone she has ever met.
She has dreams – wild, unusual dreams – and she draws and paints in ways that defy explanation. Her oddities are so striking that people label her a witch or ogbanje. Hadassah, however, simply sees herself as different. But her kind of difference worries her parents, especially her mother. Consumed by concern, her mother eventually takes Hadassah to a pastor, who, instead of offering answers, only makes the situation worse.
When her grandmother takes her to their village in Cross River State after she recovers from yet another crisis, Hadassah’s life takes a terrifying turn. A prophetess brands her a witch, a mammy-water spirit, and a child supposedly bound to a spirit husband who has bewitched her – an agent of ruin within her own family. Under the guise of deliverance from these imagined forces, she is subjected to inhuman treatment.
Eventually, Hadassah is abandoned in a forest where other children, condemned as “evil,” are left at the mercy of the elements: left to fend for themselves and left to die.
In this forest, we meet other children and from there on, the story stops being just Hadassah’s. We hear one child after the other tell the tales of horror that led them to the forest. In all their stories, certain truths are constant: Adults who claim to be agents of God punish children for no sins of theirs and parents are culpable in the abuse and violation of children they at some point, most likely, begged God for.
The novel also offers a pointed critique of religion, particularly the strain of Christianity that labels children as inherently evil and forces them into coerced confessions. It exposes how this brand of faith claims to possess the power to expel so-called demons, yet often ends up inflicting deep psychological wounds on the very children it seeks to “save.”
Instead of nurturing them, it leaves many of them damaged, frightened, and socially displaced and only the intervention of compassionate individuals or dedicated nonprofit organisations help these young victims reclaim their sense of worth and rebuild their lives.
Umukoro blends an authentic voice with emotional honesty, inviting readers into a world that feels both relatable and transformative. The characters wrestle with identity, change, and belonging in ways that resonate deeply.
With strong pacing, vivid settings and meaningful stakes, a reader is bound to be engaged, while themes of resilience, self-discovery and others give the story lasting impact long after the final page.
***Olukorede S. Yishau is the author of two novels: In The Name of Our Father and After The End; a collection of short stories: Vaults of Secrets; and a travel book: United Countries of America and Other Travel Tales. He is concluding work on his third novel. He lives In Houston, Texas.
