The Ritual Killing Arrests

By

Abdulsalam Olatubosun Ajetunmobi

Abdsalm@aol.com

 

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 Nigeria ’s tertiary institutions are spreading while the casualty rates appear to be increasing unabated. Granted that a culture of endemic ritualism is a common knowledge in the country – “Go to Hausa, go to Yoruba, go to every part of Nigeria , there exists one shrine or another. These things are obsessed with Nigerian tradition,” the Colonel thundered  – but, shouldn’t the whole nation, including its law enforcement agents stand up against any unpleasant culture that shows no repugnance to ritualistic killings?

 

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 30 July 2002 in the Guardian newspaper, for example, elaborated: "The violence associated with the cults currently can be attributed to the general breakdown of values which we once held sacrosanct. The premium attached to human life has plummeted so badly that youths can now kill without flinching ... We therefore cannot combat the cults menace without paying attention to the problems of the larger society."

 

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