Contributing to the November 22 Sunday Monitor letters, one Elias Biryabarema wondered why child sacrifice seemed common in Uganda's Buganda region, which according to official statistics was the most economically prosperous region in Uganda, and where people are supposed to be rational and scientific in their approach to life. Why were the same people so obsessed with superstition, witchcraft and the occult?

Well, even if official statistics in Uganda were always reliable, Buganda Kingdom has its "Bafuruki (foreigners)", so the wealth in the region is not necessarily predominantly enjoyed by the indigenous people. Moreover, the last report (I heard about) named President Museveni's western region as the area recording the fastest growth in people's incomes. Indeed, the perception in Buganda is that her people are actually experiencing more poverty today than they did a few years back. And in difficult times, a lot of people turn to their gods and to magic.

In mainstream Christianity, God's direct intervention in the human drama reached one of its highest points with a human sacrifice, when the "Son of God" was crucified to pay the price for man's serious sins. But the theme of blood sacrifice also runs through the other two Abrahamic religions; Judaism and Islam, albeit involving the blood of unblemished animals rather than humans; thanks to the example of Abraham, who resolved a spiritual dilemma as hard as any prophet was likely to face and spared his son.

Of course, thousands of years later, as we marvel at the sheer scale of the universe, a god who used to prowl around mountain bushes and haunted the neighbourhoods of ancient tribesmen, demanding blood sacrifices, does not look so big after all. The great religious thinkers of our time understand this, conjuring up increasingly abstract conceptions of God.

Enter your Born Again Christian pastors. From ranting in their sprawling churches and on their radio stations, they have now recruited apprentices to carry their antics to every street corner, verbally molesting incredulous passers-by. And their message? "You are all sinners! You are doomed! There are demons roaming all over the place, working on your soul. God is the most powerful spirit in the universe. He will gouge the eyes and rip through the bellies of the demons and any rival gods. You refuse to follow him at your peril."

This account of the power of gods and spirits rhymes with the witchdoctor's. The client is brainwashed to enter a dangerous spirit world where the pastor and his God are the agents of escape. But what if God, who showed mercy with Abraham's child only to have his own son sacrificed later; what if God is sometimes revisited by the craving for human blood? Or, what if, in extreme circumstances, God 'understands' when other spirits insist on human blood before they can be appeased?

The Born Again fanatic's primitive spiritualism validates the witchdoctor's mindset, and Uganda's central region is the hub of Born Again fanaticism. Buganda's masses may be more literate than those in the regions where Mr Biryabarema claims there are no cases (at all?) of human sacrifice, but enlightenment is relative. Average Baganda are "enlightened" enough to recite favourite passages from the Bible and the pastors' sermons, but they may not be erudite enough to follow a philosophical discourse leading out of the traditional faith systems.

Uganda's famous 19th century martyrs no doubt thought they were very enlightened, and their deaths have been glorified over several centuries. To the critical outsider today, they were probably more naïve than enlightened. And, as far as I know, they were all Baganda. This paradox of enlightenment and darkness is repeated in Nigeria, which boasts Africa's largest concentration of writers and Intellectuals, is home to thousands of Born Again churches, and yet witnesses an astonishing number of cases of human sacrifice. Perhaps you sometimes catch up on God at your peril!