The Ekpe Society. By A.J Udo Ema 1938

In some parts of the Efik country, men do not consider their social standing sufficiently high unless they are members of the Ekpe Society. 

The word Ekpe means Leopard. The name perhaps originated from the belief that a leopard being the most ferocious animal in this part of the country is the king of the beasts. This maybe one of the reasons why a dead leopards face is always covered so that women may not see it.

 Membership is open to all irrespective of birth, rank and (in certain cases) sex. Slaves in the olden days could be initiated into the society if they could afford the membership fee. Eldest daughters of parents from respectable families maybe initiated members, but may not attend meeting and ceremonies of the society. Their only privilege is that they can walk and work out doors when the Ekpe game is played, and can walk past any Ekpe masquerader without being molested. 

The membership fees vary from twenty to fifty pounds I understand that in poorer localities the fees are lower.  Although the membership fees are different an initiated member in one locality will be recognized as such in any other locality provided that the he uses the correct watchword, or wears an emblem signifying his rank and section.

A son of a deceased slave wishing to become a member had first of all to pay for his fathers membership before he was allowed to pay his own. This meant paying one hundred pounds where a membership fee was fifty pounds, but, of course, this is not so today. Any person who dislikes paying this heavy membership fee should remember that amongst the other advantages, which members enjoy, there is a kind of insurance amongst them. Anything happening to a member always arouses concern of the society, and if help is required it rendered ungrudgingly.

Two or three days before a prospective member takes the preliminary orders, he has to be in hiding so that no initiated member may find him. If he is found he either has to bribe his finders or be ready for a heavy fine from the society for appearing in public. Even if the man is discovered in the inner most part of his house the result is the same. Some members leave their work and go round the village in search of prospective members with the objective of getting the bribe.

Some parents may tell their members to give their naughty sons lashes on the back, the usual whip for executing such orders is the tail of a stingray; in certain cases a whip prepared with piassava but similar to horse whip is used. 

Ekpe Masqueraders - Messengers of the Ekpe deity. 1956

As in other African societies, there are sections and grades in the Ekpe society. There are 12 such sections, the names of which need not be mentioned.  Each section has its own president. It is possible for a reasonably rich person to compound a fee for all these sections. A poor person has to begin with the lowest section and gradually work his way up and he can afford the fees of the higher grades.  Once a person has been initiated into any one of the sections, he enjoys the privileges of the society, except that he does not attend the functions of the other sections. 

After the preliminary ceremony and seven days before the day appointed day of initiation, a prospective member goes in for fattening. He is fed and treated in much the same way as fattening girls: he has to paint his body with white clay, ground cam wood, or a yellow substance obtained from a plant. This yellow material is similar to the pollen dust of the Gloriosa Superba Flower. Unlike a fattening girl, a prospective member is allowed to move outdoors. He goes on his daily round of visits. He carries a gong which he beats as he goes to attract attention.  Following him about is a boy – an initiated member – with a mat, for during the whole period of fattening he must not sit on anything but the mat. Occupants of the houses he visits have to give him presents.

During the eleven days the prospective member has to observe very strictly to the following rules. A breach of one may result in a fine or the cancelling of all arrangements and preparations.

1.     A candidate on meeting an initiated member must greet him with the watchword of the society. If he fails to do so he is liable to a reasonable fine by that member. 

2.     He must sit on nothing other that the Mbit Ekpe (The mat of the society)

3.     He must neither wade through nor take a bath in a stream, and must not walk in the rain. If he does any of these things he said to wash off his body the mark of society, and it means the termination of membership.

4.     During this period he must not sleep in another village.

5.     He must not hand over his gong to a non-member.

6.     If during his round of visits food is offered, he must not taste it until an initiated member has tasted it first. If no such person is at hand he must refrain no matter how appetizing the food may be.

The final initiation ceremony is an affair for two people. There is a member who takes care of the society shed; he does the necessary cleaning up, and is called Okporo Efe (Sweeper of the Shed) it is an honorable position to hold.  On e of his duties is carrying out the final initiation ceremony. On the day appointed he takes the recruit to the stream at a time when no people are about – it may be very early in the morning or late in the evening, for it is feared that if people observe the recruit while he is going through the bathing ceremony he may be unlucky for the rest of his life. Every initiated member believes this strongly. 

In places like Calabar and Okoyon, if there is to be an Ekpe game, leopard skins will be tied at various places to show boundary limits. A non-member going into that special area after having seen the emblem is understood to be there for a quarrel, and has to be treated, as he deserves. At Oron, cloth is substituted for leopard skin. 

As rule non-members must kept indoor when the society masquerade is going round the village. In Oron this rule does not bind visitors. The Ekpe society in Orun allows women to walk and work outdoors provided they turn their backs to the masquerade when he passes. Other section of the Efik country does not permit this. 

The presence of a member at a deceased members burial is compulsory, whether relatives invite them or not they must attend and demand all the necessary things for the burial rites. They are at liberty to destroy anything but life if their demand is not registered.

Sometimes member orders in his will that certain of his sons and daughters be thrashed for their naughtiness. When he is dead the will must be carried out brutally and mercilessly; and it is not uncommon sight to see a bleeding skin after a funeral. The Efiat people – the fishermen at Tom Shot at the mouth of the Cross River – do not bury deceased Ekpe members in the absence of other members. What they do is prepare two coffins, put the body in one and take it to the grave where they leave it uncovered. When the members come back they take the second coffin, perform the necessary ceremonies, and after breaking it up and throwing it into the grave, the grave is covered up. 

In any locality it is an unwritten law that no Ekpe member should be buried unless some other members are present.

It is interesting to note that if one of the heads of the various sections gives his walking staff to a non-member whom he sends on an errand, the non-member automatically becomes an initiated member. He continues to be a member until the staff is delivered up. Another this is that, only reliable young members, who can be trusted with secrets, are allowed to know what is going on in the inner circle. Such young members are few.

Ekpe Masquerade and young boy 1957

- From the Nigeria Magazine 1938

On This Day: October 19th 1986......

... the Nigerian journalist, founder and editor of NewsWatch Magazine, Dele Giwa was assassinated in his home. 

1949: Mr M. A Nnadozie and four of his pupils from Umulogho School Nsu. Okigwi District.

They were demonstrating an initiative adopted by many schools at the time to introduce various "uncommon handiworks"  like bag weaving, basket making and carving.

In Umulogho school Mr Nnadozie said "The making of long floor mats might well be developed into a village industry to replace the indian and other imported fibre mats now on sale in many of the large stores"

The twine used was made from the bark of a plant botanically called Firmiana Barteri ( Ufuku in Igbo)

On This Day 49 Years Ago: 13th September 1966 - The death of Sir L.P Odumegwu Ojukwu: A sons account by Lotanna P Ojukwu.

"My father died after trying to encourage and convince the would be Eastern Nigerian emissaries to Lagos to seek for a peaceful resolution to the conflict crisis that had already developed, which led to the massacre of Igbos in many parts of the country.

I was home on holidays from the United Kingdom when my father died. Sir Odumegwu had travelled to Nkalagu to see into the affairs of his baby, The Nigerian Cement Company.

Massacres of people from Eastern Nigeria were quite rampant at the time, and there were talks of possible secession. High ranking Eastern Nigerian government personnel and dignitaries were being assembled to go and negotiate with the Federal government of Nigeria for some form of reconciliation.

My understanding of the situation at the time was that the appointed emissaries were all quite reluctant and didn't want to embark on the mission.

Sir Odumegwu took it upon himself to see these emissaries individually and speak with them, encourage and convince them that they had to go and negotiate.

Sir Odumegwu and myself drove to Enugu from Nkalagu to see the emissaries and finally my brother ( Emeka Ojukwu) the then military governor. For a fourteen year old like me at the time, I observed that in most of the places and homes we visited, there was a lot of difficult discussions among the people. Finally, a very unusual and most surprising difficulty was when we visited my brother.

Our attempt to gain entry at the military governors state house gate was hopelessly halted. We were searched and delayed. Normally, Sir Odumegwu was expected and should have passed through when he came to the gate, but there we were. I left the car after a while and was busy running around the gardens of the state house while we waited for whatever difficulty to be cleared up.

One whole hour after we got to the state house,not even a call was put through to the military governor; neither did my brother even call. My father eventually became agitated and started wondering what was going on himself. We were all very anxious as to why the delay and why the military governor would not come down to see us and our father. That night, the delay continued and we did not start our drive back to Nkalagu until about 9pm or 10pm.

With all of that, one would begin to think about it that Sir Odumegwu, who had suffered two previous heart attacks in the last three years, still went around at that difficult time engaging the emissaries to convince them to go and negotiate . This agitated him enough, and the event at the state house capped it all. Through out our drive back to Nkalagu from Enugu, my father was very quiet and by the time we got to Nkalagu, somehow things were not so well anymore with him.

We all went to bed, but by 3 am my step mother woke me up to say that my father was ill and that we needed to call a doctor to come and help him. Apparently he had suffered another heart attack. It wasn't till 6 am that we got into a hospital with the limited medical facilities at the Nkalagu factory complex. My father lived only for a further day and died the next morning of 13th September 1966

So really he died trying to save Nigeria, trying to convince some high ranking civil servants to go for peace negotiations in Lagos

My father was completely detribalised . And for a man who made all his money and had all his properties in Lagos, it must have been a very anxious time for him. I can imagine what he would have suffered thinking that Nigeria would be torn asunder by the developments and seeing things get worse by the minute. It must have been a very anxious time for him"

Culled from the book In Quest of Perpetuity - Bio Sketches of Sir Odumegwu Ojukwu. Written by Ifeze

The Burial of Major General Aguiyi Ironsi 49 years

July 29, 1966.

As part of a nationwide tour. Major General Aguiyi Ironsi visited Ibadan and had earlier hosted traditional rulers from all parts of the country in Ibadan Government House.

His plan was to spend the night at the Government House then continue on his tour, but at 4am his host, Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, Military Governor of Western Nigeria, alerted him to a possible mutiny within the army.

In the early hours of the morning, Government House, Ibadan, was surrounded by soldiers led by Theophilus Danjuma.

Theophilus Danjuma

Danjuma arrested Fajuyi, Ironsi and his ADC and questioned Ironsi about his alleged complicity in the January coup of the same year.

Here is an account from Senator Andrew Nwankwo Ironsi’s Aide-De-Camp in an interview given to Sun News.

“After we were informed that there was a coup, my close friend Lieutenant Sanni Bello assured me that if it was his own people he will protect me, because, there was tension in the land and we knew a coup was imminent. So, we agreed to protect each other depending on where it would be coming from.

The road to the valley of death

After our arrest they marched myself and Ironsi down to where Fajuyi was.

They used telephone cables to tie our hands behind our legs, leaving us with a little space to walk. Ironsi was put in a Land Rover, Fajuyi in a mini bus and myself in another bus. They drove us towards Iwo Road, 10 km from Ibadan, where we stopped by a small forest.
Fajuyi was leading and as he tried to cross a small stream, he fell down, the soldiers were unruly, it appeared some of them had for the first time taken Indian hemp, so when he fell down some of them started beating him.

My escape

As Fajuyi fell down and they were beating him, Sanni Bello (the friend Nwankwo had made a pact with) came to me and tapped me and said, we could do something now.

It was providence, maybe I was not destined to die. I took a few steps from them and jumped into a nearby ditch, all in a split of a second. Bello came and stood by the ditch and was shouting that I had escaped pointing at another direction. So the soldiers ran around that direction shooting into the bush and when they felt they must have killed me, they shot Fajuyi and Ironsi by the side of the stream.

Bello made sure that he was the last to leave the place”.

Major general Ironsi’s body and that of Lieutenant Colonel Fajuyi were later discovered in a nearby forest.

The Video

The funeral of Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the Nigerian Head of State assassinated during the counter coup in 1966.

Music : Harcourt Whyte Nna Chebe Nwa Gi 

Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki

In 1979 Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki was elected a Senator of the Second Republic and became Senate Leader (1979 - 1983) 

He is the father of the current Senate President Bukola Saraki.

Dr Victor Allen's Arrest in Lagos, Nigeria 1964

Dr Victor Allen in disguise when he was arrested in 1964. Source: Times 

June 1964: Dr. V. L. Allen, British sociologist, historian, economist and Professor at the University of Leeds, whilst on a visit to Nigeria, was arrested and formally charged at the Lagos Chief Magistrate's Court under Section 63 of the Nigerian Criminal Code, with the offence of managing / assisting in the management of an unlawful society.

In 1999 the left-wing academic, was formally unmasked as a spy in the unfolding Cold War scandal, but denied acting illegally or betraying his country as he considered what he did was perfectly legitimate because he belonged to a pro-Soviet, pro-East German faction of the group.

He told BBC Two's The Spying Game: "I have no shame. I feel no regrets about that at all. My only regret is that we didn't succeed."

Dr Allen died on 26 October 2014, aged 91.

The Video

The Video is of scenes from outside a Lagos, Nigerian court. 

He had also been accused of being involved in a coup that tried, but failed, to take over the Nigerian government.

Background 

There was on going strikes between 1963 and 1964 regarding The national minimum wage and as admitted by some members there was a deliberate  attempt to overthrow the government and transform the strike into a full scale revolution. (article from Vanguard August 12 2012)

For this, two radical trade unionists Jonas Abam of the Dockworkers Union  and Sidi Khayam of the Seamen Union, along with Comrade Adebayo, a teacher and Victor Lenard Allen an Irish and lecturer from Oxford University were arrested and tried. 

While out on bail, an elaborate plan was hatched to smuggle Allen out of the country.

He was disguised and went all the way to Idi-Iroko, a border area with neighbouring Benin Republic. Unknown to the revolutionaries, the state security agents were involved in the ‘plan’. They simply picked him up at the border.

The unionists were tried and convicted. 

The Labour Movement distanced itself from the conspirators who during their trial got assistance mainly from outside Labour. This was to affect the unity of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in later years when Abam became the Genral Secretary of the powerfull Dock Workers Union, DUN.

The two men in the video (00:08) are Sidi Khayam and Comrade Adebayo. Khayam later fell sick and died while Comrade Adebayo left home for a walk and was never seen again.