The okija shrine: Death and life in Nigerian politics

Journal of African History

Volumn 49, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 445-466

  Ellis, Stephen ^a  

^a LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

Ethnicity; Nigeria; Politics; Power; Ritual

Indexed keywords

COLONIALISM; CULTURAL HISTORY; CULTURAL TRADITION; ETHNICITY; MORTALITY; NATIONAL POLITICS; POLITICAL POWER;

AFRICA; ANAMBRA; NIGERIA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WEST AFRICA;

EID: 62849107853     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: 14695138     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853708003940     Document Type: Article

References (139)

1. Most press reports give the figure of about 50 police, although the Anambra State police commissioner later gave a figure of 200 police using 15 vehicles. Insider Weekly, 23 Aug. 2004, 20.
2. It appears from press reports that the corpses were discovered in at least two separate locations. However, as all of these sites were connected, I will generally refer to them as a shrine (singular) rather than shrines.
3. 'The "gods" versus the police', Newswatch, 30 Aug. 2004.
4. Unauthorized possession of a corpse is in principle illegal: Cf. Remigius N. Nwabueze, 'Dead bodies in Nigerian jurisprudence', Journal of African Law, 51 (2007), 117-50.
5. For a fuller discussion, see Gerrie ter Haar and Stephen Ellis, 'The occult does not exist: A response to Terence Ranger', Africa (forthcoming).
6. Daniel Jordan Smith, A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria (Princeton, 2007), 152, suggests that it is unclear whether or not such a murder really did occur in this particular case.
7. Ibid. 140;
8. Daniel J. Smith, '"The arrow of God": Pentecostalism, inequality, and the supernatural in south-eastern Nigeria', Africa, 71 (2001), 587-613.
9. J. Adele Bamgbose, 'The place of deities in African political systems: A case study of Ogwugwu shrine in Okija, Anambra State, Nigeria', Essence: Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 2 (2005), 231-42;
10. see also the remarks attributed to Senator Adolphus Wabara in Ocherreome Nnanna, 'Okija shrines: A fanatic and a fool' (part 2), Vanguard, 16 Aug. 2004.
11. Section 38, sub-section 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999). The full text is available at www.nigeria-law.org/ ConstitutionOfTheFederalRepublicOfNigeria.htm#Chapter_4.
12. See Tekena Tamuno and Robin Horton, 'The changing position of secret societies and cults in modern Nigeria', African Notes, 5 (1969), 36-62.
13. 'The evil forest', Tell, 16 Aug. 2004.
14. Interview with Ohanaeze Ndigbo, president-general Joe Irukwu, Tell 23 Aug. 2004, 18.
15. Press statement, 'Okija: The truth about it all, as presented by Okija royal cabinet', quoted in Vanguard, 23 Aug. 2004.
16. Guardian [Lagos], 29 Aug. 2004.
17. Ibid.
18. Quoted in Newswatch, 23 Aug. 2004, 23.
19. 'Nigeria governor denies cult link', BBC News, 4 Mar. 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-2/hi/africa/7276922.stm.
20. James Ume, 'Trial by press in Abia election tribunal dispute', Vanguard, 16 Apr. 2008.
21. Quoted in Sir Bernard Bourdillon, 'Memorandum on the future political development of Nigeria' (1939), 5, confidential, National Archives, Ibadan, MN/B4A.
22. Quoted in Henry L. Bretton, Power and Stability in Nigeria: The Politics of Decolonization (New York, 1962), 127.
23. Elechi Amadi, Ethics in Nigerian Culture (Ibadan, 1982), 94.
24. A. E. Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria, 1891-1929 (London, 1972).
25. A. E. Afigbo, 'The eclipse of the Aro slaving oligarchy of south-eastern Nigeria, 1901-1927', Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 6 (1971), 3-24.
26. Joseph Anene, 'The Protectorate government of southern Nigeria and the Aros, 1900-1902', Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 1 (1956), 22.
27. Afigbo, 'The eclipse of the Aro slaving oligarchy', 15.
28. Ogbu U. Kalu, 'Missionaries, colonial government and secret societies in southeastern Igboland, 1920-1950', Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 9 (1977), 80.
29. Intelligence report on the Aro by T. M. Shankland, National Archives, Ibadan, CSO 26/29017, 13.
30. Ibid.
31. Afigbo, 'The eclipse of the Aro slaving oligarchy', 17.
32. Tamuno and Horton, 'The changing position of secret societies and cults in modern Nigeria', 36-7.
33. Afigbo, 'The eclipse of the Aro slaving oligarchy', 16.
34. Bourdillon, 'Memorandum on the future political development of Nigeria', 1.
35. Obafemi Awolowo, Awo: The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo (Cambridge, 1960), 162.
36. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC (NARA): Record Group 84, classified general records of the US consulate and embassy, Lagos, 1940-63, box 1: Winthrop S. Greene to Dept. of State, 5 Dec. 1947.
37. Quotation from Resident, Benin Province, to Secretary, Western Province, 15 Sept. 1949: National Archives, Ibadan MLG (W) 1: 17887.
38. See also Philip Aigbona Igbafe, Benin Under British Administration: The Impact of Colonial Rule on an African Kingdom, 1897-1938 (London, 1979), 386-8.
39. NARA, Record Group 59, Nigeria 1964, box 2526, Pol.18: Embassy Lagos to Dept. of State, 23 July 1965.
40. See Audrey Chapman Smock, 'The N.C.N.C. and ethnic unions in Biafra', Journal of Modern African Studies, 7 (1969), 21-34.
41. Eyo O. Akak, Bribery and Corruption in Nigeria (Ibadan, n.d. [1952]).
42. There is an abundant literature on this subject. A contemporary overview is Ronald Wraith and Edgar Simpkins, Corruption in Developing Countries (London, 1963), 11-53.
43. Stanislav Andreski, The African Predicament: A Study in the Pathology of Modernisation (London, 1968), 194.
44. Ibid. 109.
45. Ibid. 108.
46. Obafemi Awolowo, The Path to Nigerian Freedom (London, 1947), 97-8;
47. Akak, Bribery and Corruption in Nigeria, 114;
48. Amadi, Ethics, 87;
49. cf. James S. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley, 1958), 271-3.
50. Intelligence report on the Achalla group, Onitsha Division, by Assistant District Officer W. R. T. Milne, 1933, National Archives, Ibadan, CSO 26/ 29001.
51. Bennet E. C. Ndubisi, Ihiala and Her Neighbours: A Historical and Socio-Cultural Analysis (n.p., 1996), 39.
52. Intelligence report on the Achalla group, Onitsha Division, by Assistant District Officer W. R. T. Milne.
53. Ndubisi, Ihiala and Her Neighbours, 5.
54. M. G. Smith, Report of the Inquiry into Ihiala Chieftaincy Dispute (Enugu, 1963), 20, para.61: Copy in National Archives, Ibadan, CE/S6.
55. Interview with Alexander Ezeugo Ekewuba, Newswatch, 6 Sept 2004.
56. Interview with Emmanuel Ezeokolie, Source, 30 Aug. 2004.
57. Interview with Anthony Okownkwo [sic - Okonkwo?], Newswatch, 23 Aug. 2004, 20-1.
58. Newswatch, 11 Oct. 2004.
59. Interview, Newswatch, 23 Aug. 2004, 25.
60. Guardian News, 5 Aug. 2004.
61. Interviews in Newswatch, 23 Aug. 2004.
62. Intelligence report on the Aro by T. M. Shankland, 13.
63. See, e.g., Andrew H. Apter, The Pan-African Nation: Oil and the Spectacle of Culture in Nigeria (Chicago, 2005), ch.1.
64. Smith, A Culture of Corruption, 14, 30.
65. An authoritative political analysis of the late oil-boom years is Richard A. Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge, 1987).
66. Eghosa E. Osaghae, Crippled Giant: Nigeria Since Independence (London, 1998), 204-6, 314.
67. Peter Lewis, 'From prebendalism to predation: The political economy of decline in Nigeria', Journal of Modern African Studies, 34 (1996), 97. The reference to 'zaïrianisation' is at p. 80.
68. Harvey Glickman, 'The Nigerian "419" advance fee scams: Prank or peril?' Canadian Journal of African Studies, 39 (2005), 472;
69. Smith, A Culture of Corruption, esp. ch. 1.
70. Smith, A Culture of Corruption, ch. 2.
71. Speech delivered on 19 Jan. 2006. Punch, 20 Jan. 2006.
72. Quoted in Source, 30 Aug. 2004, 17.
73. This Day, 6 Aug. 2003.
74. http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/news1999.htm. This is a website maintained by anti-419 campaigners in the USA. I received information about Okafor during a research trip to Nigeria in Mar.-Apr. 2002.
75. Ocherreome Nnanna, 'Okija shrines: A fanatic and a fool' (part 1), Vanguard, 12 Aug. 2004.
76. Isaac Olawale Albert, 'Terror as a political weapon: Reflections on bomb explosions in Abacha's Nigeria', IFRA Special Research Issue (Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique, Ibadan), 1 (2005), 49.
77. Daniel J. Smith, 'The Bakassi Boys: Vigilantism, violence and political imagination in Nigeria', Cultural Anthropology, 19 (2004), 429-55;
78. author's interviews in Anambra State, Mar. 2002.
79. Author's interviews in Awka, capital of Anambra State, Mar. 2002.
80. Author's interview with member of the Security Committee of the House of Assembly, Awka, 21 Mar. 2002;
81. see also Obie Chukwumba, 'Alagbongate: How the police give criminals cover', African Concord, 29 July 1996. Nzeribe's curriculum vitae is available at http://www.nassnig.org/House/Personaldata/Anambra/ nzeribe.htm.
82. This Day Online, 19 Aug. 2004.
83. Quoted in the Daily Sun, 7 Aug. 2004.
84. Interview in Tell, 23 Aug. 2004.
85. 'The evil forest', Tell, 16 Aug. 2004.
86. Statement by Osita Ndukwu, a priest of the Ogwugwu Isiula shrine, in the Daily Sun, 7 Aug. 2004.
87. See interviews in Newswatch, 23 Aug. 2004.
88. Raymond Arazu, interviewed in Insider Weekly, 23 Aug. 2004.
89. Many 'traditional' rulers in this area are colonial creations, following the creation of the so-called 'warrant chiefs'. See Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs.
90. Press statement: 'Okija: The truth about it all, as presented by Okija royal cabinet'.
91. 'The evil forest', Tell, 16 Aug. 2004.
92. E.g. Newswatch, 6 Sept 2004, 49.
93. Smith, A Culture of Corruption, 161. The Okija shrine is discussed on 158-62.
94. Isaac Olawale Albert, 'Explaining "godfatherism" in Nigerian politics', African Sociological Review, 9 (2005), 79-105.
95. Nnanna, 'Okija shrines: A fanatic and a fool' (part 1).
96. A succinct account of the following is Smith, A Culture of Corruption 125-30.
97. Newswatch, 11 Oct. 2004. I was informed during interviews in Awka in Mar. 2002 that Governor Mbadinuju had also required members of his state government to swear an oath at an unnamed shrine, probably Okija.
98. Insider Weekly, 23 Aug. 2004.
99. 'We didn't visit Okija shrine - lawmakers Anambra', This Day, 24 Aug. 2004.
100. '"Kalu's government is a failure"', Tell, 17 Jan. 2005.
101. Ibid.
102. Ibid.
103. Insider Weekly, 23 Aug. 2004.
104. 'Laundering their filthy lucre', Tell, 6 Sept 2004.
105. Ibid.
106. Ibid.
107. Apter, The Pan-African Nation, 228.
108. Peter P. Ekeh, 'Colonialism and the two publics in Africa: A theoretical statement', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17 (1975), 91-112.
109. Ogbu U. Kalu, 'The religious dimension of the legitimacy crisis, 1993-1998', in Toyin Falola (ed.), Nigeria in the Twentieth Century (Durham NC, 2002), 667-85.
110. Ibid. 667.
111. Ibid. 668.
112. Ibid. 670.
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid. 673.
115. 'The evil forest'.
116. Insider Weekly, 23 Aug. 2004, 21.
117. Bridget Obi, quoted in Tell, 6 Sept. 2004, 25.
118. John Lonsdale, 'Moral ethnicity and political tribalism', in Preben Kaarsholm and Jan Hultin (eds.), Inventions and Boundaries: Historical and Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (Roskilde, 1994), 131.
119. This is a useful summary of an argument made at length in ch. 12 of Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa (London, 1992).
120. Interview with Alexander Ezeugo Ekewuba in Newswatch, 6 Sept. 2004.
121. Smith, '"The arrow of God"'.
122. Interview with Alexander Ezeugo Ekewuba in Newswatch, 6 Sept 2004.
123. Interview with Tafa Balogun in Tell, 6 Sept 2004.
124. Steven Pierce, 'Looking like a state : Colonialism and the discourse of corruption in northern Nigeria', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 48 (2006), 888.
125. Ibid. 888-9.
126. See Ruth Marshall, "Political spiritualities: The explosion of Pentecostalism in Nigeria' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 2006), esp. chs. 2 and 3.
127. See Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa (London, 2004).
128. Interview with Alexander Ezeugo Ekewuba in Newswatch, 6 Sept 2004.
129. Ibid.
130. Interview in Newswatch, 23 Aug. 2004.
131. Ibid.
132. Ibid.
133. The phrase is taken from Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge MA, 1982).
134. Insider Weekly, 23 Aug. 2004.
135. Jonathan Haynes, 'Political critique in Nigerian video films', African Affairs, 105 (2006), 511-33.
136. 'Court acquits Mbadinuju over murder of Igwe couple', Nigerian Tribune, 11 Mar. 2008.
137. This Day, 6 Mar. 2007.
138. www.onlinenigeria.com/articles/ad.asp?blurb=201.
139. Personal communication by Johannes Harnischfeger.