The Ritual Killing Arrests By Abdulsalam Olatubosun Ajetunmobi
I was incensed by the reaction of Secretary-General
of the pan-Igbo organisation, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Col. Joe Achuzie
(rtd) to the ritual killing arrests of 32 priests earlier this week
by police at a shrine in the Ihiala Local Council of Anambra State where
several human skulls and other body parts were discovered (“Ohanaeze's
scribe faults police raid on Anambra shrine,” Guardian
newspaper, Friday, August 06 2004). While
the discovery in September 2001 of a young boy whose mutilated
body was found in the River Thames in London caused shock and
outrage throughout Britain and to which £50,000 reward is still on
offer for information leading to the conviction of the boy's killer(s),
it is sad that the unmasking of a similar macabre in Ihiala, albeit on
large scale, by police (50 bodies, 20 skulls, genitals and other body
parts were reportedly discovered) could be so denounced as a non-issue
by one of us. Colonel Achuzie (rtd), in the newspaper interview
allegedly accused the police of insensitivity and lack of awareness of
Igbo traditional rites and ceremonies: “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 had said. The Colonel also asked
the police to release, without delay and without prosecution, the
priests who are being detained in connection with this incident. For
decades, the country has been plagued with the menace of student cults
who visit violence on their rivals, shooting and killing innocent
students, lecturers and members of the public alike. Day by day, the
cult wars in The
campus cults perfectly reflect the elaborate
system of ritual activities that take place in many of the shrines
across the country. In fact, there is interplay between superstitious
beliefs and these macabre rituals. An editorial on The
existence of traditional ancestral cults (or 'culture') in Nigeria,
in this modern age underlines the extent to which we have cultivated a
paranoid view of cultural activity in the country. “Okija Shrine,”
may be “reputable in Igboland,” and in fact “the whole world”
may also be aware of its existence in the south-eastern Anambra state as
suggested by the colonel, but who actually monitors and regulates the
performances in that shrine, or any other shrines for that matter in
the country? The established religious movements like Islam and
Christianity have hierarchical controls that monitor and also bring into
line any deviation from the established scriptural and theological
norms, however, the esoteric organisations appertaining to shrines in
Nigeria have no mechanisms in place to monitor the activities of the
priests who have
the authority to perform certain rites and who administer certain
sacrificial functions with impunity.
There
needs to be some kind of reformation, some kind of rethinking about the
old, archaic systems of religious worship that ritualise the murder of
fellow human beings. Those who subscribe to shrine activities in the
country need to synchronise their beliefs, behaviour and attitude in
line with civilised procedures, i.e. they need to act in accordance with
what is acceptable by today’s standards in the performance of their
external rites and ceremonies and what is not. At this stage of the
country’s development, there is a need for us to liberate ourselves
from political, economic, and ritualistic oppression that, ipso
facto, devalues human life. Let us find a common ground for a
spiritual truth which can then be shared with one another based on
logic, reason and rationality. Abdulsalam
Olatubosun Ajetunmobi London,
UK
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