DR Congo and Nigeria at War: Modern Football, Ancient Fears: The Voodoo Narrative Returns

After the match between Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria’s coach accused the Congolese team of using voodoo during the penalty shootout. According to reports from outlets like AllFootball and FootBoom, the coach claimed he saw a Congolese player “doing voodoo” before each kick, as if DR Congo’s victory required supernatural help instead of skill, discipline, and preparation.

This accusation sparked global chatter and triggered a familiar pattern: whenever African success seems unexplainable to outsiders, the explanation quickly becomes “witchcraft.”

This reaction is nothing new. During colonization, Europeans repeatedly labeled African cultural practices as “savage” or “witchcraft” whenever they encountered traditions they didn’t understand. Sadly, those narratives are still alive today, even on a football field.

But something is shifting among young Africans. While our parents and grandparents sometimes distanced themselves from ancestral traditions in order to embrace Christianity, often under colonial influence, today’s generation is increasingly curious about what was lost, erased, or demonized. They’re beginning to question why African spirituality was treated as evil while European religions and philosophies were seen as “civilized.”

Growing Up with Voodoo Stories in Congo

As someone who left Congo at a young age, voodoo was something whispered, not witnessed. Most people in my city identified proudly as Christians. Yet everyday rules and warnings revealed the lingering presence of something older, cultural beliefs that coexisted quietly with church life.

Here are a few examples:

1. Don’t Eat Meat Outside Your Home

Children were strictly warned not to eat at other people’s houses, especially not meat. Parents believed it could be used to initiate a child into voodoo.
Some stories claimed that if the meat “turned into gum” while chewing, that meant the initiation had begun. Whether real or imagined, this fear was deeply woven into community life.

2. When Justice Failed, Spirits Would Handle It

If someone stole property and the legal system couldn't catch them, families sometimes turned to spiritual solutions.
People told stories of going to a voodoo practitioner who would summon heavy rain and thunder. During these storms, it was believed that lightning would strike the thief — punishing them wherever they hid.

These stories weren’t just myths. They were tools parents used to enforce morality when formal justice systems were weak.

3. Bees as Community Protectors

Another widely shared tale involved bees being spiritually directed to chase troublemakers away.
If someone caused harm in the community, bees were said to swarm them aggressively, forcing them to leave the neighborhood.

4. The Funeral Casket That Finds the Killer

The most dramatic story came during funerals. If a person was believed to have been poisoned or killed by “bad voodoo,” elders would perform a ritual with the casket.
They would speak to it, asking it to lead them to the killer. According to the legend, the casket would suddenly become too heavy to lift, until the guilty person confessed. After confession, the casket would lighten and allow the procession to continue.

I cannot confirm or deny these events. But these stories shaped my childhood understanding of spirituality, fear, justice, and community.

So Why Are We Still Using “Voodoo” to Explain African Success?

It is ironic that while the world debates artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology, Congo is being accused of using voodoo to win a football match.

Is it ignorance? A refusal to accept African greatness? Or a fear of African cultural power?

And deeper still:
Should Africans continue ignoring the traditional knowledge systems passed down for generations?
Or is this the moment for young Africans to study these practices with an open mind, historically, culturally, and scientifically?

Because if voodoo were powerful enough to win a football game, wouldn’t Congo have used it to end the thirty-year war devastating the East?

Because here is a truth many avoid:
If Christian nations that once demonized African spiritual practices used their own belief systems to build empires, justify colonization, produce weapons of mass destruction, and dominate global politics, then why shouldn’t Africa explore its ancestral knowledge to pursue its own advancement?

My humble opinion:
No form of knowledge should be dismissed.

Technology, religion, and science have all been used to build and destroy civilizations. African ancestral knowledge, whether spiritual, medicinal, psychological, or symbolic, deserves to be studied with seriousness, not shame.

Perhaps by researching and reclaiming these traditions, Africa can find new ways to protect itself, understand itself, and advance itself, without apology.

Sources:

1. Owusu, Emmanuel Sarpong. “The Provocation by Witchcraft Defence in Anglophone Africa: Origins and Historical Development.”

Oxford Journal of Law and Religion
🔗 https://academic.oup.com/ojlr/article/12/3/476/7235764

2. Owusu, Emmanuel Sarpong. “The Superstition That Dismembers the African Child: An Exploration … of Juju-Driven Paedicide in Ghana.”

International Annals of Criminology
🔗 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-annals-of-criminology/article/superstition-that-dismembers-the-african-child/FCA0ABBAFD39F6F12FA44C1F6E35AFD1

3. Bonsu, Nana Osei. “African Traditional Religion: An Examination of Terminologies Using an Afrocentric Paradigm.”

Journal of Pan African Studies
🔗 https://jpanafrican.org/vol12no6.htm
(Scroll to article)

4. Ikeora, Mary. “The Role of African Traditional Religion and Juju in Human Trafficking.”

Journal of International Women’s Studies
🔗 https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol18/iss4/12

5. Ferrari, Chiara. “Liberation from Juju in Sex Trafficking: What Strategies?”

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science
🔗 http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_6_No_10_October_2016/18.pdf

6. Owusu, E. S. “Self-Defence Against Metaphysical Witch Attacks: A Legal Conundrum in Anglophone Africa.”

International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (Springer)
🔗 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10979-022-09698-3

7. Boaz, D. N. “The Proscription and Prosecution of African Spiritual Practices.”

(Academic paper on how colonial law criminalized African spirituality)
🔗 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3574968

8. Mosaka, T. B. “Proving Witchcraft in Africa.”

University of Nottingham PhD Thesis
🔗 http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43663/

9. Mutungi, O. K. “Witchcraft and the Criminal Law in East Africa.”

(University of Nairobi Law Thesis; foundational historical legal source)
🔗 http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/18018