Pupils Possessed By Evil Spirits During Maths Exam

from Ugandan Sunday Vision

SEVEN pupils missed their Primary Leaving Exams (PLE) on Friday after they were attacked by evil spirits, writes Elizabeth Namazzi.

The evil spirits reportedly struck in the morning when the pupils of Lwampanga Church of Uganda Primary School in Nakasongola District were halfway through the Mathematics examination. Possessed by the evil spirits, seven pupils rushed out of the examination room, hurling insults at people. Thereafter some rolled on the ground and others danced madly around the school compound as people in the vicinity looked on in awe.

Efforts to get a comment from the headmaster and district education officials were futile. However, the chairman of Lwampanga Sub-county, Kassim Dimba, confirmed the incident.

“The spirits first attacked three pupils three weeks ago. We called our local cultural leaders in charge of spirits and they managed to calm them. We thought they had been appeased but the spirits attacked more pupils on Tuesday”, Kassim said.

A total of nine pupils, seven of them candidates, were attacked by the end of Tuesday, two days before the commencement of the PLE exams.

“By the time of the first exam on Thursday, the evil spirits had been cast out and the pupils were able to write the first two exams peacefully. They were however attacked again on Friday morning during the Mathematics examination, sending the school into a panic,” he said.

A development worker who works at the Nakasongola District Headquarters, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Sunday Vision that she had heard about the incident from a local council official.

However, Sunday Vision could not immediately establish whether the incident was hysteria spell or an evil spirit.

According to Kassim traditional healers who were called in to deal with the spirits forced them to talk through the pupils.

“The spirits said that they were brought by a man in our area and put inside a pot,” he said. The hunt for the pot is underway.