Custom · 1999–2002
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Ogbakiri got through the civil war without losing a tree. Then, in 1999, its six towns turned on each other. Peace panels and government could stop the fighting, but only a cow, a cup of wine and an old Ikwerre feast could make kinsmen trust each other enough to eat together again.
Ogbakiri is an Ikwerre clan in Rivers State. Its people also call it Wezina, and it is made up of six towns: Rumuoro, Oduoha, Okporowo, Ahai, Rumuada and Rumuokani. The six are believed to have come from different parts of Rivers State to live together on the same stretch of land.
In 2002 a speaker for the clan stood before the Rivers State governor, Peter Odili, and said something that stung. During the Nigerian civil war, he said, Ogbakiri had not lost so much as a tree. No houses had been pulled down by bombs or by soldiers. Yet in January 1999 the clan went to war with itself, and the destruction that followed was its own doing.
Two scholars, Christopher Agwu and Obitor Ogeh, later wrote down how that war ended. They worked from a video documentary made of the peace ceremony, as part of a project called Learning From Our Lives. Their account is the source for this story.
It starts with a peace panel. Early in 2000, Governor Odili set up a committee of Ikwerre traditional rulers recognised by the government, led by Eze W. W. Onunwo, to settle the fight. Its first efforts failed, because some of the main people in the warring groups would not cooperate.
While the panel rethought its plans, things got much worse. Lives were lost and property destroyed on a large scale. The writers say Ogbakiri was close to being wiped off the map of Ikwerre.
Eze Onunwo and his group tried again, and this time many people from Ogbakiri helped. Slowly, the way to peace opened. But the rulers knew that stopping the shooting was not enough. A conflict that had cost so many lives, and stirred up so much bad feeling, also had to be settled by custom. So the panel set up a smaller committee for the customary rites, headed by Eze O. O. Oriebe, the Nye Nwe Ali of Akpor. He laid out what Ikwerre custom required for a lasting peace.
To understand what Eze Oriebe asked for, you need to know what the Ikwerre believe about blood.
In Ikwerre custom, the account explains, spilling the blood of a relative, a kinsman, an in-law, a friend or even a visitor is an abomination. It defiles the land. When that happens, the god of the land leaves her home. For the same reason, the paramount ruler of an Ikwerre community leaves town when such a thing is done. Without the god of the land, the ancestors no longer protect the community.
And there is a danger in making up too quickly. If the living try to reconcile by eating and drinking together without the gods' consent, it is believed, the gods may call those people away to join the ancestors. So before kinsmen could share a meal again, the land itself had to be made right.
That is what the Oriko love feast is for. It is an old Ikwerre gathering held to keep love alive among a kindred or a community. The idea behind it is that a lineage began with the love of one ancestor, and the feast brings that first love back to life for the people living now. It also tells people who have been fighting that the bitterness has been wiped from everyone's mind.
Eze Oriebe was clear that the cleansing came first. The land had to be cleansed, he said, before people could live together properly, and even before they could worship God together. The council agreed, and also planned a church thanksgiving.
Some cleansing had already been done. The young people had started mixing again. But the chiefs, the elders and the holders of the Owhor title were still keeping apart from one another, warily. The final rites were meant to change that.
Early in the morning of 18 May 2002, the people gathered at Ahia-Ezi, the old central playground of the Wezina kingdom, which now sits on the grounds of the Ogbakiri health centre. Each of the six towns had chosen one man to stand for it before the ancestors.
Eze Oriebe began with kola nut, to call the attention of the gods of the land. Then he poured libation. He called on the land of Ogbakiri three times and offered it drinks. He told the land that the chiefs and elders were still living apart, and that he had come for the final cleansing so that people could eat and drink together with trust. He offered the land a big cow. And he warned that anyone who stirred up war again, or tried to poison another at a shared meal, would not be protected by this covenant.
The six men helped him kill the cow and let its blood run onto the soil, to make up for the wrongs done to the land. Then each one took a mouthful of drink, turned his back, and spat it out hard, saying that evil should stay in the past. He took another mouthful, faced forward, spat again, and asked that Wezina's future be full of good things.
They made their declarations: the land was appeased, the towns had agreed, peace had come back. Let bygones be bygones, one said.
Then came the wine of unity. The six men shared a single cup, each drinking a little and passing it on in the order of seniority among their towns. They shook hands. Eze Oriebe poured several bottles of wine into one bowl, and the chiefs, elders and people all drank from the same cup. Then they ate the cow together.
Last came the Oriko dance. Eze Oriebe led it himself, to the beat of ogbudu, Ikwerre traditional music. The women's peace forum sang that the clan's crying had turned to laughter. The youth groups danced. Later that day, the people went to an interdenominational service to thank God for the peace.
