Kenya

Traditional Spiritualists Turn to Advertising in Kenya to Attract Urban Clientele

As Nairobi’s population expands, purveyors of traditional spiritual guidance and healing are turning to modern communication tools to reach their urban clientele.

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Traditional Spiritualists Turn to Advertising in Kenya to Attract Urban Clientele

Sharif Ayub draws clients through newspaper advertisements and his website.

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NAIROBI, KENYA – In the pages of the Star, a major daily newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, an advertisement shows a man in Islamic garb. The man is 38-year-old Sharif Ayub, who calls himself the “East African Astrologer.”

“Here, you will find all answers and solutions to some of the world’s oldest questions,” the advertisement reads. “Marital problems, erectile dysfunction, getting your partner back, getting married, success in business and job, recovering debts and winning political seats.”

The advertisement lists Ayub’s mobile phone number and the address to his website. His website also publicizes the services he offers, which include casting good luck spells, breaking love spells and exorcising evil spirits.

In Nairobi, spiritualists’ services are popular, Ayub says.

 

“Even after people moved to the big city and adopted modern lifestyles, they still believe in our powers,” he says.

But it is challenging for spiritualists and clients to connect in urban areas.

“In the past, I relied on word of mouth,” Ayub says. “Clients who were happy with my services would bring others to me. But there’s a lot of secrecy in this trade, so they were not very many.”

Taking up modern advertising methods turned Ayub’s business around, he says. Before advertising, he received no more than five clients per month, most of them referred by former customers.

“When I started advertising in the newspapers and posters, the numbers increased,” he says. “I now see at least 15 clients every month.”

His office is easy to find. A big signpost directs clients to a one-story building, about 2 kilometers (1 mile) east of Nairobi’s central business district.

The front room feels like a typical office reception area, except for the strong smell of incense. There is a flat-screen television, cozy sofa seats and a thick, flowery carpet. Three men lounge in the seats waiting their turn to see Ayub.

“I receive all sorts of visitors here – from politicians, to businessmen and to housewives,” Ayub says as he emerges from a back room to receive his clients.

Flags of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania stand against a wall. They represent the scope of his domain, he says.

“I’m the greatest astrologer in the whole of East Africa,” he says.

Like many Kenyan citizens, spiritualism – a trade once confined to Kenya’s rural villages – has moved to the city. As urban migration increases, spiritualists in Nairobi are using new ways to connect with clients in cities, where social ties are looser. Spiritualists now advertise in newspapers, through posters and online.

At least five spiritualists advertise in the Star every week, says Peter Ogembo, a marketing executive and advertising planner for the paper. The Star started publishing spiritualists’ advertisements seven years ago. Other newspapers such as the Daily Nation, where Ogembo worked previously, and The Standard soon followed.

Between 1948 and 2009, Nairobi’s share of the country’s urban population increased from 5.2 percent to 32.4 percent, according to GRID-Arendal, a center located in Norway collaborating with the United Nations Environment Programme. The urban population of Nairobi more than doubled from 1990 to 2009, when the figure reached 3.1 million people.

Witchcraft is illegal in Kenya. Any person professing knowledge of witchcraft or the use of charms is guilty of an offense and liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, according to the Witchcraft Act, which was revised in 2012. But the Ministry of Sports, Culture and the Arts and the City Council of Nairobi license traditional healers such as Ayub as spiritualists, psychics and astrologers.

Even after people move to cities and adopt modern lifestyles, they still believe in the powers of spiritualists or witch doctors because that is the culture they grew up in, says Oriare Nyarwath, a lecturer in philosophy and religious studies at the University of Nairobi, in a phone interview.

“The beliefs are ingrained in them,” he says, “so even if they take up modern lifestyles and convert to Christianity, they still seek for the traditional spiritualists.”

People in villages are likely to know about local spiritualists or witch doctors by word of mouth, he says. But in the city, where social bonds are looser, spiritualists have to use media and the Web to find clients.

Technology offers a way to connect.

“Technology has changed the world,” Ogembo says. “I’m not surprised that witch doctors too have gone digital. This trade has been around since the days of our ancestors, and it has been changing to adapt to modernity.”

Although Ayub has been offering spiritual services in Nairobi since 1998, he began advertising through his website and in the newspaper just three years ago, he says. Each newspaper advertisement costs him 48,000 Kenyan shillings ($565) per day and appears six days a week.

Ayub also maintains information about his work on his website, hoping to appeal to Web-savvy customers. He writes blog posts about his astrological predictions of local and national elections and features testimonies from satisfied clients. He records his rituals and exorcisms on video and uploads them to his website and YouTube channel, with permission from his clients.

His Web marketing has added transparency to his work and has demystified his services, he says. Unlike during the past, when it was difficult to explain to clients what he does, now people can watch him at work from any part of the world.

Although he does not have a degree in medicine, he refers to himself as “Dr.” because he is a healer, he says. He does not consider his work to be a business, declining to reveal how much he earns. Rather, he calls his offerings a service to humanity.

Spiritualists’ clients in Nairobi say they are happy to locate the healers through their advertising.

Eunice Chepkoech, 36, visited Ayub in April after suffering for two years from a disease doctors could not diagnose, she says in a phone interview.

“I was growing thin every day,” she says. “If you had seen me then, you would have thought I was suffering from AIDS. I had nightmares every night. I was admitted in [the] hospital twice, but I did not recover.”

A friend suggested she seek spiritual healing, but she did not know of any spiritualists.

“Then I saw an advert of Dr. Sharif in the Star newspaper, and I contacted him,” she says. “When I traveled to Nairobi and met Dr. Sharif, he performed some rituals and recited the Quran. He also told me a neighbor had cast a spell on me.”

Within a week of the visit, her health improved, she says.

“I no longer have the nightmares and have gained weight,” she says.

Even though Chepkoech is a Christian, she did not mind going through Ayub’s Islamic rituals – he recites the Quran while burning incense in order to exorcise evil spirits – as long as he healed her, she says.

“After all, we worship the same God,” Chepkoech says.

Ayub emphasizes in a note on his website that his service “works for all religions.”

But some religious leaders disapprove of the spiritualists’ popularity.

The Rev. Priscilla Mbugua, a pastor at a Pentecostal and evangelical church she founded in Nairobi, has asked her followers to tear down spiritualists’ advertising posters whenever they come across them, she says.

“It is sad that these liars continue deceiving people that they have a solution to their problems,” she says. “The government should stop licensing them.”

But traditional healers and modern religious figures may have more in common than they think, Nyarwath says.

“The spiritualists are like religious leaders who claim they can bring your problems to an end by praying for you,” he says. “Like in religion, there’s a very strong element of belief.”

Ayub acknowledges there are con artists who fraudulently claim to have supernatural powers and witch doctors who use supernatural powers to harm others. But he uses his spiritual powers to solve problems, he says.

“I’m not afraid of the competition from those con men,” he says, “because even if people go to them, they will not find solutions there and will eventually come looking for me.”

And thanks to his new methods of advertising, city residents can find him.

Editor’s note: Mary Wairimu also reports for the Star but works for different departments and in different offices as Peter Ogembo.