Biafra: We Remember and We Pray #Ozoemena

(By Emmanuel Iduma) – ‘Gone Like a Meteor’: Epitaph for the Lost Youth of the Biafran War

In 1967, Nigeria had been an independent country for just seven years. The declaration of secession that year by an Igbo majority in the southeastern region of Nigeria, and the war that followed when the federal government decided to keep the country as one, was already the culmination of a bloody sequence of events. By May 1967, two coup d’états had taken place, and the Igbos of northern Nigeria had been killed in the tens of thousands. 

The Biafran War, otherwise known as the Nigerian Civil War, lasted from July 6, 1967, until January 15, 1970. The men who led each side—Yakubu Gowon on the federal side and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu of Biafra—were in their mid-thirties. Boys, some barely teenagers, volunteered to fight for the breakaway Republic of Biafra. Many of the civilian casualties were children: in September 1968, the International Committee of the Red Cross estimated that almost ten thousand people died daily from starvation caused by Nigeria’s blockade of Biafra. An entire generation was wrenched from the future.

Of Prophet Odumeje, Pastors, and Sundry MOs

(By Obinna Aligwekwe) – Beyond Odumeje Comics and Theatrics.

First off, let me say I will never be more a fan of Odumeje than I would Adeboye, Oyedepo or Oyakhilome. 

Perhaps I might even be tempted to place him amongst men like Chris Okafor, TB Joshua and Apostle Suleiman who in my personal opinion rank lower in credibility than the first three above.
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I do not subscribe to the opinion that casts out Odumeje and places him on a pedestal of falsehood from the others.

Odumeje is not more false than Oyedepo who once publicly slapped a lady in church during deliverance session.

Why was Oyedepo banned from entering the United Kingdom?

Odumeje is not more false than TB Joshua, who has delivered numerous false prophecies, and once claimed the Holy Spirit misled him.

Odumeje is not more false than Adeboye, who declared that corona virus had nothing to do with members of his church. 

Many still doubt that story of driving a car without fuel, but you who believe, wants to question another’s belief in Odumeje?

Odumeje is no more false than Chris Okafor who was involved in a recent scandal where a woman with a fractured arm was passed from church to church in healing scams.

"I Represent Earth": Religion in Social Media Age

(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu) - Angela Nwosu: Interview with an Ogbanje

In 2016, there was that trending video of a girl with scant hair and no makeup talking sex in vulgar Igbo. While some cheered her bravado, others were deeply offended, yet she released some more. Four years later, the lady, Angela Nwosu, has found some acceptance, pulling perhaps the largest following by any Nigerian using a private account on Facebook: 203,000. How did a random girl with a smartphone become a famous brand inspiring traditional worship in a digital generation?

Was the sex talk a way to get people to listen? I ask her, opening an interview this past Sunday.

“No. I just love talking about sex. I can’t have an adult conversation without talking sex. I had no friends and I needed to talk. When I started, there were so many trolls reporting me, so Facebook banned me.” 

Four times she created new accounts but all were banned, the last time permanently, she tells Nigeria Abroad. Angela moved to YouTube, where she met the same fate.

“I had to hire an IT guy to formally write letters and beg Facebook that I’d be of good behavior.”

Her spiritual nature has always been there since she was a child, Angela says, only she had to “use her available platform to provide solutions to people’s problems.” Today on social media, she sells spiritual items—amulets for luck, scrubs for spiritual cleansing, etc. She also provides free spiritual counseling on how people can use nature to better themselves.

Odumeje Vs Pericoma: Surviving the Gods

(By Mitterand Okorie) - As the Pericomas unleash terror, has night come for Odumeje?

Chukwuemeka Ohanemere a.k.a Odumeje is an internet sensation. Yellow to the soles of his feet and lanky like an okro plant, the self-acclaimed Liquid Metal has given Nigerians so much to talk about in the last few days. Recently also he trended on Twitter and today, dominates discussions on Facebook since the Pericomas came to town. Individuals or corporations pay influencers to trend on Twitter; Pastor Odumeje a.k.a Ikuku a na-afu anya (the visible wind), has remained an organically trending topic on social media Nigeriana. In short, some now called themselves Indaboskians, culled from the pastor’s favourite war chant – “I am Indaboski Bahose”. Apparently, Marlians (fans of the singer Naira Marley) have not only met their match; they have been overtaken by a more exuberant bunch. 

Odumeje is a popular prosperity pastor who, unlike most of his colleagues, found an unconventional route to fame. He is remembered for his antics more than for his preaching. He throws his spiritual patients around like a wrestler in a WWE bout. I once saw a video of him taking a crippled man’s crutches and proceeding to hit the man’s legs with the iron frame in an attempt to heal him. Spirits, they say, work in mysterious ways. 

While pastors of conventional Pentecostal churches call for tithes, Odumeje enjoys people spraying money in his church, sometimes over his head while he jumps around with the flexibility of an excited ninja.

Of Okija Shrine, Unforgiving Deity, & Tech-Savvy Ezemmuo

(By Mark-Anthony Osuchukwu) - Inside Okija shrine with the Goddess who never forgives

In the middle of a forest lies the dreaded Okija shrine, home to Ogwugwu-Mmiri, one of the most powerful deities in Igboland. Leading to the shrine is a dirt road plied by men on a date with spirits, surrounded by vegetation and fear. The shrine is a half-hour journey on okada from Ihembosi, a busy community in Anambra State. Save for the sputtering of the bike and the chirping of birds, the entire world is silent. A two-man journalism crew from Nigeria Abroad, we are on a mission to poke into the shrine’s historical mystery, and separate fact from fiction. 

The okada whines to a halt by a lonely structure where a man in red cap is sitting on a low stool. We pay the rider and approach the good man with pleasantries.

“Clear your throats before you come any further,” he commands. 

 A young man in his 40’s, his charge, a ritual for all who visit the shrine, is larger-than-life, instilling fear and obedience. We clear our throats, unlocking his hospitality.

“I am Ezemmuo Meekaodimma”—Chief priest bent on doing good. “What did you bring for the Alusi?

It is not our first visit. The day before we had come to book an appointment for this interview, and were told of what items to bring along: kolanuts, edo, native male chalk, native female chalk, and dry gin. We present the items.

“Whatever you give to the Gods can never be taken back,” Ezemmuo states, as if reading our rights.

Of Prophets, Showmen & Open-Enterprise Religion

(By Ikeddy Isiguzo) - Odumeje: Onitsha’s Trending Trader

Prophet Chukwuemeka Ohanaemere is testimony that size cannot obstruct one’s determination to excel in a chosen career. The petit fellow, who has seized minds in Onitsha, can easily be lost in a crowd of three. He is that small.

He has put his size to mesmerising acrobatics that hold audiences captive in serial releases of theatrics, some of which you won’t expect in a Christian place of worship. He is him.

He can break into a dance in the middle of his rare conversations about the Almighty: the music could be any trending secular ‘dance all’ number with lyrics that should not be heard in church. He makes his own rules in a business that is doubtlessly lucrative.

Some of his best advertisements are video clips of followers. In testifying to his abilities, they spray him with money, in amounts that confirm he is into serious business, or his visits to businesses, where crowds quickly gather when they hear he is around.

An alliance with Nollywood actors guarantees a sprinkling of popular faces to his church. Whether worshippers go for Nollywood, wrestling, his dance steps or miracles, their expectations are exceeded.

However, he remains his best advertisement with performances that include sporadic leaps into the air as if he intends to fly. The unwritten rule is space, more space, around him for his sprouts of displays.

Of Nollywood and Nigeria's Diaspora Talents

Adesua Etomi

(By Tchidi Jacobs; Additional Reports By Onyinye Ndupu) - Has Nigerian show-biz been high-jacked by the diaspora?

During the 4^th season of Big Brother Naija, which featured Ikechukwu Onyema, Avala, Mike Edwards, and at least 3 other diaspora Nigerians, an online debate ensued over perceived marginalization of local talent. It was not a new debate: the second and third seasons had up to 6 housemates whose following was arguably helped by their diaspora backgrounds. Nollywood has Adesua Etomi, Wereuche Opia, Osas Ighodoro, Adunni Ade, and more. In Nigerian music, Burna Boy, Tiwa Savage, Teni, Davido, Falz, Don Jazzy, Banky W, Naira Marley, and many others have found same privilege. 

The trend is growing, especially in Nollywood, Nigeria’s film industry built with sheer local skill and hard work. From DVDs sold in Alaba and Upper Iweka, to the posh cinemas adorning urban city malls, the industry that started in the early 90’s has been on a steady growth trajectory for almost three decades. With better production expertise and funding has come a limelight drawing diaspora talent. Sometimes it is as though local actors are deemed less screen-worthy.

In our pop music industry, street cred, not foreign swag and accent, is key; but like politicians thrill the Nigerian public when they are found eating roadside corn or akara, the diaspora singer that rolls with pidgin is king. It is as though fans feel lucky the performer shares an aspect of their lives—something taken for granted in the local singer. In Nollywood, it gets more interesting.

Leveraging foreign accents and education, overseas returnees in the industry are bringing a refreshing touch to the screen. They are not necessarily better than their Nigerian-born counterparts, but the foreign allure is an asset. It is no surprise that today, many of the A-List players in Nollywood are either born or educated abroad.

Of COVID-19, Religion, and Conspiracy Theories

(By Farooq A. Kperogi) - Coronavirus and Exploding Conspiracy Theories of Religious Crackpots

Of COVID-19, Religion, and Conspiracy Theories

The novel coronavirus is not only devastating humankind, it is also disrupting the settled certainties and spiritual verities of religious fanatics for whom atavistic and superstitious frames of reference are the only ways to make sense of the world around them. 

I’ll start from fringe members of my own religious community. When the new coronavirus first emerged in China, a lunatic fringe of the Nigerian Muslim community celebrated it and said it was Allah’s punishment against China for mistreating its Muslim minority population.

They said the clearest indication that it was divine pestilence to avenge the persecution of Chinese Muslims could be seen in the fact that all Chinese people were compelled to cover their whole bodies in ways that were reminiscent of the sartorial choices Allah enjoined Muslims, especially Muslim women, to make, which China denies its Muslim minority.

I recall telling a religious crackpot who made this silly argument early this year that it wasn’t the first time that people had covered their bodies in response to a pandemic. The 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed nearly half a million Nigerians and more than 50 million people worldwide, caused people to wear face masks.

COVID-19: Health Crisis and Crisis of Faith

Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church is silhouetted against the rising sun in Kansas City, MO., 

Wednesday, April 8, 2020. With Easter Sunday in several days, many churches are looking for 

ways to celebrate the occasion in light of stay-at-home orders and restrictions on gathering in an

 effort to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

(By Anthea Butler) - Is faith as we know it enough to get us through a pandemic?

(RNS) — This week, Christians will not gather in the streets of Seville, Spain, for the annual Semana Santa processions. There will be no washing of feet on Holy Thursday. Seven last words services on Good Friday will be livestreamed. For Jews, Passover has taken place at tables devoid of physical outside guests. Friday prayers at mosques will not happen. 

It turns out that a virus we cannot see is a more formidable threat to religious faith than secularism, government or unbelief. Catholics and Confucians, Buddhists and Baptists have all seen their piety give way to the coronavirus, which demands a solitary sufficiency that forbids the tactile, communal rituals that one would normally see this time of year.

Covid-19 is a health crisis, but it is also a crisis of faith.

This new normal will have profound implications for religious groups. Some will make it through this time, and their faith will be stronger for it. This is a test for believers — in the face of death, and robbed of their rituals and practices, what remains of their faith? It is a dark night of the soul, the ripping away of the familiar, the comforting, the soothing.

Many around the world have already been tested. In the Detroit area, seven bishops and leaders of the Church of God in Christ have died from the virus. Outbreaks have risen in the Orthodox Jewish community. In South Korea, the coronavirus outbreak began in a church in Daegu; in France, Covid-19 spread through a meeting of evangelicals in Mulhouse.

COVID-19, 5G Conspiracy Theories, & Empire Wars

(By Obinna Aligwekwe) - In all the midst of conflicting theories, conspiracy and otherwise, here are a few things I have been able to gather. 

These facts are verifiable:

1. America won the 4G war, and generated over $100 billion in GDP.

2. There was an intense race for 5G, a race which China has all but emerged victorious.

3. 5G is 20 times more powerful than 4G.

4. 5G has the capacity to generate 3 million jobs, and add $500 billion to GDP.

5. Most importantly, the nation that controls 5G, will control the world via information. Basically, 5G is the new nuclear button.

6. Donald Trump, on realising the US had lost, cancelled a contract with HUAWEI, Chinese tech giant, thereby stunting the progress of the technology in the West.
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Something makes me feel the disinformation regarding 5G is about GLOBAL POWER.

I may be wrong.
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My theory is:

The US may be buying time with which to develop their 5G and keep it at par with the Chinese.

The sad thing for them is... China is already working on 6G!!

Of Money Ritual and Wisdom of A Seasoned Dibia

(By Wayo Guy) - The Igbo Family and the Ruinous Concept of Ogwu Ego 

My grandpa was a local medicine man. He was the earliest untrained psychologist who expanded my understanding of human nature beyond classroom education. A man of few words, grandpa punctuated his rare utterances with aku bu iro (wealth attracts enmity), a reference to his wealthy clientele who were rumored to be ndi ogwu ego.

He was the first person from whom I heard that Nwata kpaa nku karia ibe ya, a si na o kpatara ya n'ajo ohia (when a child brings home more firewood than his peers, he will be accused of fetching them from the evil forest). Looking back, I can clearly see the connection of this proverb to the ogwu ego phenomenon in Igboland.

If you are an Igbo adult, you know what the concept of ogwu ego is; it defies a precise definition simply because it is supposedly located in the realm of metaphysics or the supernatural.

If you appear to have more money than your peers and they are not clued into the secret source of your money, you are in danger of being branded onye ogwu ego. If you and your brothers are in the same type of business but you appear to excel over and beyond them, you are likely onye ogwu ego. If your townsmen and women are backward due to their laziness but you succeed by dint of hard work and industry, it is likely that very soon you will have become onye ogwu ego to some of them.

Of Coronavirus and Africa: The Illusion of Disbelief

(By Reuben Abati) - Corona Chronicles

… Throughout known history, whenever man faces a crisis of such unknowable nature, his tendency is to resort to religion, faith, and ego. … Religion … is precisely what many fall back upon in a season of distress and so it has been. As Corona Virus arrived in Africa, and made its landing in a few countries, the people trooped to places of religious worship in typical default response. Africans, victims of Karl Marx’s often wrongly contextualized statement that “religion is the opium of the people” usually blame God for everything. They regard God as the ultimate solution, indeed as the know-it-all-Being, the invocation of whose name can provide all answers to everything on earth. Richard Swinburne, a theist argues in his book – Is There A God? (Oxford University Press, 2010), that whereas the existence of God is “the ultimate brute fact”, human beings also have “obligations” or what he calls “supererogatory good actions” or “moral truths” to which they must abide even as they profess their love for God.

Africans often mix this up. As the Corona Virus pestilence spreads in the continent from one or two cases to over 1, 500 cases and over 50 deaths, more of the people rely on the assurances of Pastors and Imams who promise a cure or advertise the possibility of it. In Ghana, one Prophet said he had found an anointing oil to cure Corona Virus, and the Chief Imam of the same country reportedly announced that all Muslims are now free to consume alcohol to combat Corona Virus. While Europeans and Asians are in quarantine, Africans rush for anointing oil, alcohol and herbal solutions. When Trump [erroneously and carelessly] proclaimed chloroquine as cure, they obeyed him robotically. In Nigeria, pastors and all sorts have come up with passages in the Bible to justify the pestilence and how the cure is spiritual.

Soyinka Taught Me Traditional Society is Not Evil

"If Soyinka did anything for me, the most important thing he did was to [wean] me off the Christian notion that the traditional society is evil – evil in the sense that if you were not a Christian, whatever else you believe in is considered not so moral or straightforward. Everything about tradition which many people saw rather in distracted ways, Soyinka saw as a part of a very well worked out way of seeing the world and the mystic truth in Soyinka’s analysis of society enabled you to see that traditional society had a philosophical underpinning that was helpful in knowing the ways the world worked. I have my own decision on Soyinka’s position; his not allowing himself to be submerged by the grammar of Christian denunciations and the general Islamic assault on so-called paganism help me relate to my two families. My maternal grandfather was a Christian, who once they abandoned the ‘fetish ways’ of the traditional society, adopted Christianity without looking back. My father’s family, first because my father was a motor mechanic, had to be an Ogun worshipper and if you are an Ogun worshipper, you are required to observe tenets that derive powers from mythology and also indicate ways of treating your fellow human beings in a manner that helps a sense of collectivity in society. Myth making is therefore at the centre of the way Soyinka views traditional society. I have managed because I did not quite accept all the hoopla about Christianity; I learnt to see the interconnection between what was Christianity and what was supposedly traditional religion. All religions are the same – they are based on some form of worship which is to say that you have faith in what those who came before you had seen and done. … Soyinka was a strong critic of the religious ways of doing things. … [He] actually did something out of the usual because he took traditional religion on its face value. He took a philosophy out of it which may discount certain material elements but stuck to its core and its core is that the life we live can be understood by the knowledge that has been condensed from the prehistory to the present and that if we understand them well, we could live a good life in lot of ways."

Odia Ofeimun

Punchng.com, March 22, 2020

Imu Ahia: Traditional Igbo Business School

(By Biko Agozino and Ike Anyanike) - “There is an Igbo saying that the world is a marketplace (uwa bu ahia). This simple worldview can be explained literally to mean that the Igbo think so because trading is a prominent occupation among the Igbo (it could also mean that a market-place is the epicenter of community social and business interaction). That might be why the Igbo weekdays are named after their markets - Eke, Orie, Afo, Nkwo. Children born on any of these market days often assume the default name as in Okeke or Mgbeke, Okorie or Mgborie, Okafo or Mgbafo, Okonkwo or Mgbonkwo for male or female children, respectively, born on the corresponding market days. We are yet to come across another culture for which the market holds such a fascinating centrality in their worldview even while they see themselves as ruggedly egalitarian. The meaning of the thesis statement that the world is a marketplace is deeper than the literal interpretation. The deeper meaning is the suggestion that all the problems we encounter in this world are open to negotiation, haggling and bargaining. Some people come into the market place with greater resources than others and therefore are able to buy more goods and services just as some people are born or raised with greater resources, increasing their bargaining power in the global marketplace. When the Igbo say that the world is a market, they usually complete the sentence by observing that when one buys to one's content, one goes home. The home referred to here is the land of the ancestors to which the Igbo believe the spirits of the dead return to bargain for a better life in their next incarnation. If one's creator dealt one a raw deal in this life, one can still bargain with his/her personal God (or Chi) and haggle for a better break in the next life. In other words, the Igbo intend the paradox that the world is a market as a description of the global world and not simply just the Igbo world. … Are there lessons that other cultures could learn from the Igbo and are there lessons that the Igbo could learn from the social structure of modernist business school? ...

A Dethroned Emir: Neither A Saint Nor A Victim

"Monarchy is way past its sell-by date not just in Nigeria but everywhere. It’s an anachronistic, vestigial remnant of a primitive past that invests authority on people by mere accident of heredity. Any authority that is inherited and not earned, in my opinion, is beneath contempt. Emirship isn’t only a primeval anomaly in a modern world, it is, in fact, un-Islamic. In Islam, leadership is derived from knowledge and the consensus of consultative assemblies of communities called the Shura, not from heredity. Monarchies in the Muslim North, which have constituted themselves into parasitic, decadent drains on the society but which pretend to be Islamic, are grotesque perversions of the religion they purport to represent. Anyone, not least one who makes pious noises about equality, that is denied the unfair privileges of monarchy is no victim.

          Most importantly, though, Sanusi embodies a jarring disconnect between high-minded ideals and lived reality. He rails against child marriage in public but married a teenager upon becoming an emir. ... He expended considerable intellectual energies critiquing polygamy among poor Muslim men, but he is married to four wives. His defense, of course, would be that he can afford it, and poor Muslim men can’t. Fair enough. But transaction-oriented reformists lead by example. Sanusi habitually fulminates against the enormous and inexorably escalating poverty in the north, but even though he is an immensely affluent person, he has not instituted any systematic mechanism to tackle the scourge of poverty in the region in his own little way. Instead, he spends hundreds of billions of naira to decorate the emir’s palace, buy exotic horses, and luxuriate in opulent sartorial regality. And, although, he exposed humongous corruption during Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and dollar racketeering during Buhari’s regime, he is himself an indefensibly corrupt and profligate person."

Farooq A. Kperogi, March 14, 2020

Notes From Atlanta