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The Anambra Horror: A Diabolical Process In A Cultural Web

Mike Ikhariale

About a week ago, platoons of armed policemen raided some of the most dreaded shrines in Anambra state and in the process unearthed chilling sediments of horrors that would certainly find a good space in the Guinness Book of Horrors. For a long time to come, anthropologists, sociologists and criminologists would have their hands full trying to unravel the mysteries and, indeed, the essence, of such horrendous practices. According to shocking reports that made the headlines across the globe, the police, following a tip off, raided these shrines where they discovered several corpses at varying stages of decomposition, human skeletons and body parts.

While the stockpile of human remains found at the various shrines may be offensive to our conscience and human decency, in fact, violative of Nigeria’s criminal laws, there are however ample evidence that this is a practice that has been condoned and, indeed, patronised, by the community over the years. My candid take therefore is that, while we deal with the problems presented by the horrendous find, we must also not lose sight of the fact that the very idea of maintaining shrines, their consultation by disputants as extra-judicial fora as well as the notion of “evil forest” are as old as these people.

Anyone that has read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart would no doubt recall the concept of Evil Forest as a hideous place in the wild where bodies of people associated with grave criminality and strange diseases are dumped or dropped off to die. It was also a receptacle for innocent twins. If we did not take Achebe serious enough to want to investigate a little deeper into the provenance of such deep-rooted cultural practices, it must then ring a little hypocritical now if we are sounding as if the shrine system in the life of the traditional Igbo man, nay, most of the rest of the traditional society, has been any better than the horrors of Anambra.

It should be noted that even though the “finds” are truly outrageous and, indeed, suggestive of barbaric practices, they remain more of a cultural enigma than just another case of indigenous barbarism and criminality. While contemporary abuses must have infected the ancient practice, there must still be a lot in it than that which meets the eyes, especially those that are tainted with Western pictures of morality and justice. The harsh review that the discovery has received across the world is well deserved but I think we should go a little deeper to find out how such a practice could have endured so for long in communities that claim to be civilised.

I recall that as students, we read with awe, topics like the application of English law to Nigeria and the condescending attempts by the colonial authorities to use their notion of “justice” to determine what would be acceptable to them from the natives’ customs and norms. They evolved the concept of “equity and good conscience” as juridical parameters for determining what customary practices would be compatible with the incoming English common law or repugnant to it. Accordingly, practices like the killing of twins, prosecution for witchcraft, trial by ordeal, the caste system, etc, became outlawed. But because it is jurisprudentially imperative that laws, for them to be effective, must seek ways and means to connect with the way of life of the people concerned, certain of those practices did not immediately vanish because the new laws did not seek any harmony with the volksgiest. For example, the Osu caste system has remained strong in Igboland in spite of the various statutes against it, western education, Christianity and modernity. Other groups also have their peculiar taboos; the only difference is the degree to which such taboos or esoteric practices impact negatively on the rights and privileges of fellow citizens nowadays.

As we ponder these terrible developments, it is important for us to understand that the worldview of our people is still largely superstitious. It is a fact that the people who patronise these shrines also actively profess Christianity or Islam. It is significant to note that most Nigerians attend places of worship simply in search of “miracles” or “divine intervention”, the same motive for patronising cultic shrines. The fear of God and the love of fellow human beings are out of their religious practice. It is all about their material wellbeing and personal ‘protection’. Students, sportsmen, businessmen and single girls all have their reasons to desperately seek after “miracles” in response to their material realities. Our leaders are not left out as they openly hire marabous, prayermen, spiritualists, Imams, and prophets at huge public expense to look over the ‘spiritual arm’ of the State House. Some pastors, especially those of Pentecostal sects, like the biblical Nicodemus, are known to also crawl into these shrines at night for ‘empowerment’ in their ‘soul-winning ministries’. So, in the interval between the wholesale adoption of these alien faiths and the subsequent renunciation of our traditional belief systems, there are bound to be contradictions, hypocrisy and multiple identities.

All said, the reaction of the Ohaneze scribe, Mr. Joe Achuzia, may not be the whole story as he sought to glibly rationalise the unfolding revulsion as part of the determination of the police to mock the Igbos. According to him, "Unless the police have no other job to do, 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 Hausa, go to Yoruba, go to every part of Nigeria , there exists one shrine and another. These things are in the Nigerian tradition. So, unmasking one in Ihiala is not new. These skulls have been there for long ago and I do not see anything new about it except that the police want to portray the Igbo as cannibals… ".

Mr. Achuzia may be right about the history. However, his seemly inter-ethnic blame-rationing approach is not a valid alibi to the dilemma confronting the nation as exemplified by the Anambra horrors. I think it is far more than that. One can, for example, see indications of the crime of trial by ordeal, extortion, cannibalism, etc, in their modus operandi. It is conceded, that most civilizations, including those of Europe , had had their fair share of such trials particularly when they tried witchcraft and sorcery in which victims were then publicly burnt at the stakes or killed by other cruel methods. The critical difference here is that those societies were soon able to analytically confront their problems and deliberately move their people to higher moral pedestals that are both rational and consistent with contemporary notions of justice, equity and good conscience. Pointing to other equally guilty parties, as the Ohaneze scribe has tried to do over this matter, has never been an effective defense. It is shameful. Rather than shed positive light on the bizarre practice, he has unwittingly implicated all those he claims to represent.

We must admit that most of our people do not, and probably never, really trusted the Western notions of justice in which lawyers and witnesses hold on tightly to technicalities at the expense of the truth and reconciliation. The reality, unfortunately, is that ‘trials’ and rituals at these fetish shrines are not necessarily free of abuses. For a start, they usually subject parties to extreme ordeals, brutal esotericism, endless extortions and the administration of concoctions that are usually deadly to the human system, guilty or not. And since whoever succumbs first to the potency of these concoctions is automatically the guilty party, it is obvious that the outcome can never meet modern standards of justice. The fact that ‘shrine justice’ is assured death for the ‘guilty’ party, unlike the case with the government courts where endless appeals and technicalities hold sway, has also been quite alluring to a people vengefully seeking after supernatural forms of justice. These shrines are probably their own idea of the Supreme Court, not so much for the justice that they dispense but for the fatality they portend.

For those that officiate in them, the shrines are just goldmines of sorts; and for a people that love money so badly, this could just be another form of “business”. This much has been confirmed by the claim that some of these shrines actually have certificates of incorporation issued by the Corporate Affairs Commission, the same way trading businesses are licensed! Apart from those who see them as businesses, there are those, indeed, the ignorant majority, who sincerely believe in the efficacy of these gods or deities and are therefore scared stiff to say anything about them. So, they live with it.

Accordingly, not many indigenes would have mustered the courage to enter those dreaded shrines, not to talk of arresting their priests. Only ignorant strangers, as suggested by the fictional Obierika in Things Fall Apart that could take such a suicidal plunge. Now that the deities have been dared right in their dens, the countdown has begun for all those ‘fools’ involved in the sacrilege. It may also mean the final disgrace of those malevolent spirits, especially if nothing serious happens soon. I would bet my last dime to say that nothing untoward would happen to the policemen and others who unmasked these evil masquerades. It would not be surprising that any mishap in these communities from now on would be falsely linked to the scandal; be it late rain or early rain, flood or fire, for that is their tricks for which our superstitious people have fallen for over the ages.

Gov Ngige once told the nation that godfather Ubah took him to a shrine. Little wonder that all earthly interventions have so far failed to resolve the dispute. It would be interesting to know in which of the shrines they signed their famous political Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and whether it was also a part of the deal that their bodies should be dumped therein if and when the presiding deity gives its verdict.

The only way to put a halt to all these fetish practice whenever they are discovered is to punish all those involved as severely as possible and then genuinely embark on the massive education of the people about the stupidity of their continuous association with those superstitions of yore. Perhaps the best solution to all these would be quality of education that would open their eyes to the scientific side of life and a cultural re-orientation that redirects them from current misguided materialism in which all that matters in society is money, irrespective of how it is made.