The Barbarous Acts of Okija

On November 15, 1957 , during colonial Nigerian time, a group of Nigerian policemen from the Criminal and Investigation Department (CID) of Northern Nigeria and Lagos surreptitiously descended on Abakaliki, Eastern Nigeria , posing as ordinary people. They were trying to find out about the murder of one lady called Nwamgbo Igbeagu, the first among more than one-hundred wives of one prominent , local chief, 64-year-old Nwiboko Obodo. Originally the key-holder of monies kept in hundreds of safes in Obodo's care by various people in the society, Nwamgbo had not only aroused the suspicion of her husband when some of the money got stolen, but was also suspect when Obodo's son Sunday by another woman died mysteriously. A tribunal under the superintendence of Nwiboki found Nwamgbo guilty. However, the traditional executioners, unwilling to carry out the capital punishment because "We cannot take the life of our dear chief", were relieved by Obodo himself, who strangled his own wife with a bicycle chain.

It was this heinous act - reported by Nwamgbo's mother who had reported her daughter to be missing - that brought the CID into Abakaliki six-months later, with one Mr. Anoruo posing to Obodo as a medicine-man able to prevent the police from arresting Obodo.

On February 28, 1958 , Anoruo arrested Obodo and seven members of what turned out to be the Odozi Obodo Society. It turned out that Nwaegbo's murder was the mere tip of an ice-berg: flaunting several "juju houses", the Odozi Obodo Society had terrorized Abakaliki and the environs for nine years, allegedly killing as many as 400 people in the guise of exacting punishment for sundry evil deeds of those people. Nwobiko's Odozi Obodo Society was allegedly the "watchdogs" of Abakiliki, to "safeguard [its] peace and morals. It punished severely any person who stole, committed adultery or was guilty of any anti-social activities." Chief Obodo had naturally became rich in the process.

A few months after their arrest, the criminals were sentenced to death by hanging, and after exhausting their appeals, were hanged by their necks until their death in about June 1959.

So ended one phase of the Odozi Obodo Society.....until these latest murderous discoveries of the Ogwugwu Shrines of Okija.

I shall spare the reader the gory details, but the brief sketch is as follows: on August 5, 2004, Nigerians woke up to the horrid news that the Nigerian Police had recovered as many as 20 human skulls, 50 corpses, some still fresh and headless and in their coffins. Thirty suspects were also arrested including the priests of two of the shrines - Ogwugwu Isiula and Ogwugwu Akpu.. [Other shrines are Ogwugwu Mmili, Ogwugwu Apunama, Ogwugwu Ahaya Afa, Ogwugwu Idigo and Ogwugwu Idimgo in various hamlets strewn around Abakaliki.] The 80-man-strong police operation led by the Commander of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in the state, CSP Mr. Gabriel Haruna and the state commissioner of police, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu. The case blew open at the specific instance of a modern-day Anoruo, but this time not a policeman but a Hare Krishna convert posing as a medicine-man: Chukwumezie Igwe of Umuhu Village , Okija.

The general reaction of people in Nigeria and the world who have read the Okija story and seen the pictures has been one of profound horror. For example, the Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, himself of Eastern Igbo stock, has endorsed the raid on Okija shrines asking Ndigbo to rise against shrine worshiping. Nevertheless, there have also been some talk of defence of traditional religion, the most prominent (and shocking to this writer) being from one ex-Colonel Chief Joseph Oseloka G. Achuzia, Secretary-General of the pan-Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze. Hopefully speaking for himself and not for the respectable group, Achuzia, of Western Igbo stock, dismissed the police raid as “ridiculous” and stating that “worshipping at shrines is not a new thing in Nigeria .”

According to newspaper reports, Achuzia [a former Biafran military commander with the aliases “ Hannibal ” and “Air Raid” for exploits in the Midwest and later Okigwe inside Biafra ] stated as follows:

He said the issue portrayed the Igbo as cannibals, alleging that the police were out to rubbish the Igbo.

"Unless the police have no other job to do, then they can go on making further discoveries on things that are in consonance with ancient history. Everybody in Igboland and

Nigeria

knows about the existence of shrines everywhere. Go to Hausaland, go to Yorubaland, go to every part of

Nigeria

, there exists one shrine or another. These things are part of Nigerian tradition. So, unmasking one in Ihiala is not new. These skulls have been there long ago, and I do not see anything new about it except that the police want to portray the Igbo as cannibals. But this is not what the police should be involved in.

He said the issue portrayed the Igbo as cannibals, alleging that the police were out to rubbish the Igbo.

"Unless the police have no other job to do, then they can go on making further discoveries on things that are in consonance with ancient history. Everybody in Igboland and

Nigeria

knows about the existence of shrines everywhere. Go to Hausaland, go to Yorubaland, go to every part of

Nigeria

At one level of analysis, Achuzia speaks for many people: on the one hand, the traditionalists, who see nothing wrong with swift justice rendered within traditional religion, and on the other hand, the genuinely non-pagan adherents of different faiths, who see the occasion as an opportunity to blow the lead off the hypocrisy which is practiced by the syncretic adherents of their own religion. The latter worship Allah on Friday and Jesus Christ on Sunday, and then crawl to the caves of Ogwugwu Isiala and other favored shrines on other days to swear oaths and drink hemlock potions before babbling “dibias” and “babalawos.”

At another level, he is wrong: whatever we wish to say, in modern days, tradition has its limits.

Much as I respect many aspects of tradition and local mores, particularly as they relate with respect for fellow men, there MUST be a limit, and that limit stops at LEGAL and CAPITAL issues: matters of LAW and matters of DEATH. These two aspects are inter-twined, actually.

With respect to LAW, yes, I am in support of CUSTOMARY LAW as agreed to be locally enforced by the participants, provided the usual steps of appraising the defendant of his alleged crime, confronting him with his accusers, giving him or her an opportunity to defend himself or herself, and exerting predictable and appropriate - not cruel, disproportionately unusual and capricious punishment. The caveats however must be as follows:

(1) it must not include capital punishment; that must be left to the CONSENSUALLY AGREED LAW OF THE LAND; is that not why we are vexed about Sharia (and the amputation of hands) and its threats of capital punishment for adultery and the like?

(2) every case, particularly those involving capital punishment, must be APPEALABLE to a higher court - and again particularly those involving capital punishment - including to the highest court of the land: the Supreme Court, unless it declines to hear the case.

There are many reasons for these caveats: All these practices that involve both DEITIES and HUMAN BEINGS (as dibias and babalawos, etc.) are fraught with DANGERS of HUMAN FRAILTIES and subject to abuse. Like the modern polygraph test, it depends on who is applying a legal test and to who it is being applied. Suppose the potion drinker is so frightened that he dies of a heart attack contemplating a wrong outcome, even if he is innocent? Suppose the "dibia" favors one of the two "contestants" and unrighteously mixes different potions, killing the innocent one? Suppose even the questions asked are wrongly framed - and hence wrongly answered to?

(2) to the dead victims: if their corpses are so mistreated by being exposed to the elements and the like, then justice to the dead is ALWAYS miscarried. If in fact the tradition of a particular place is not to bury such "bad" people in their forests, then who knows whether there are some more "tolerant" places in Nigeria or elsewhere who might accept to bury these bodies with dignity? After all, the world now extends beyond Okija.

(3) to those who do not come from this area, but who, with the world being told that such terrible things are happening in " NIGERIA ", assign all of Nigeria to such barbarous deeds. Yes, I consider them barbarous, no matter what anybody says, even if they don’t agree, which they have every right not to.

Here is the point: If Okija, or Anambra State, or Igboland were one country of its own - let us call it, for the sake of argument "Biafra" - and such barbarous acts were carried out, then it would be announced to the world that "Thousands of headless, unburied corpses were found in shrines at Okija, Biafra" . Achuzia and the rest of his co-defendants of tradition could then defend the practice as being the ridder of evils in their country. Fine. But for me to be in the same COUNTRY where such barbarous acts are being carried, and to have them hailed when I so FUNDAMENTALLY disagree with them, is violent to every instinct in me. I oppose it with tremendous vehemence. It is with that same feeling that I oppose not Sharia but Sharia’s imposition of deadly punishment to victims in Nigeria .

In the very recent and apt words of Achuzia himself, “We are either one country – or no country.” And to amplify his statement: “We are either one country – or many countries.”

I hope and I trust that full justice will be carried out against all of those who engaged in murderous acts in Okija and environs, like was done to those in the Odozi Obodo Society. One hopes that the major crime-busting witness – Maazi Chukwumezie Igwe of Umuhu Village – will be adequately protected to give outstanding testimony against any perpetrators, although with Chief Bola Ige’s assassination trial and the ongoing comical saga of the Ibori identification trial, our justice system is once again on trial. The police should not rush to destroy evidence of crime, nor allow anybody to “sanitize” the scenes.

Nigeria: Police Arrest Witchdoctors After Finding 50 Mutilated Bodies in 'Evil Forest'

Anambra: 4 Fresh Bodies, 10 More Skulls Found Police to Raid Other Shrines Today As Villagers Flee