‘I have reported him to the local masquerade committee,’ Ekpenyong assured me.
Ekanem claimed it was an isolated incident. But Benson later told me he acquired his facial scars after fighting with a masked spirit who had tried to mug two tourists in Calabar on Christmas Day.
After lunch, I strolled with Benson and Ekanem to a bar up the hill. We were joined by Ekpenyong, his American friend Ivor, and an older man called Ekpo, who had just learned about what happened to me.
‘I’m so sorry. Why do these people expect money? They do nothing ,’ he said, before performing a disgusted imitation of the masquerade’s bell-tinkling stance. ‘What is that?’
‘Those boys are from Akwa Ibom State,’ Ekanem emphasised. ‘They are Ibibios, they’re not from here.’
The six of us sat down at the bar and sipped soft drinks while making idle chit-chat. Suddenly, the dogs scrambled to their feet and began barking aggressively. The same bellicose masquerade had arrived and was approaching three teenage girls. They ran away from him, half laughing, half whimpering in fear.
‘They want money,’ Ivor the American said. ‘They like to target women and girls because it’s easier.’
The masquerade sauntered off.
Ivor was an anthropologist doing research on the Efiks’ male-only secret society, Ekpe. The society is named after a spirit, for whom the men are said to act as messengers. Traditional Efik society was governed by Ekpe members who – in their role as mediums of the spirit – were consulted by villagers to settle disputes. The Ekpe society set and enforced the community’s laws, disciplined wrongdoers and organised masquerades, which appeared during the funerals of chiefs or on special occasions, such as Christmas. The Ekpe society’s power was sacred, and even kings had to abide by it. When the Efik people began trading with the Europeans in Calabar, Ekpe evolved to govern the rules of commerce too. These days, modern government has eclipsed Ekpe’s power, but some villagers still defer to it as a last resort. The society is now technically open to women, young people and foreigners – anyone who can pay the initiation fees.
‘I’ve joined Ekpe too,’ Ivor told me.
‘Do they normally allow outsiders to join?’
‘Oh yeah, anyone can join. You have to take part in a secret initiation. But a lot of people don’t want to join any more. Some Christians are against it.’
Ivor was fascinated by the durability of Ekpe’s cultural influence. ‘Many of the slaves from here were sent to Cuba,’ he said. ‘Even today you can still find Ekpe societies over there.’
A short while later, Ivor and I paid a visit to Ekpenyong’s elderly father, Muri, at his house close to the jetty. His home was a modest affair with a discernible British influence. Old photos and a framed Certificate of Traditional Chieftaincy hung on the walls. The mantelpiece was a Victoriana-style clutter of figurines, photographs and a 60-centimetre-long model of a royal Efik canoe. This elongated version of a traditional canoe was carpeted and had a roofed enclosure in its centre. Nearby was an old photograph of Muri in his younger days, dressed in traditional garb, sunlight bouncing off his domed skull. The photo was taken during the Isim dance, a dance of regeneration that the children of royalty perform when the obong (king) dies.
‘Ekpenyong didn’t tell me he was royalty!’ I remarked.
‘He’s like that,’ Ivor grinned. ‘He won’t tell you these things.’
Muri’s full title was His Royal Highness Muri Cobham. Like many Efiks, his ancestors had adopted an English surname.
‘Can you tell me about Creek Town’s history?’ I asked Benson. He chuckled and looked down at the floor.
‘What?’
‘I know very little Creek Town history,’ he explained. ‘I know more about the outside.’ In this post-oral Information Age, people’s knowledge tended to be skewed towards modern federal history or Western history.
It was left to Muri to give me the facts. At eighty-three, he spoke extremely slowly, much like my paternal grandfather. Between questions, his rheumy eyes stared into the distance.
‘There are four villages in Creek Town,’ Benson translated for me. ‘Adakuko, Mbarakom, Otong, Efut. Before Christianity, Ekpe was the only government. Then a man called Honesty brought the missionaries here . . .’
Muri, although old and listless, was discernibly bored by this conversation. I changed tack:
‘What was life like when you were young, and how have things changed since?’
The old man livened up immediately. ‘In the old days things were cheap and not difficult. Now, everything is a problem or struggle. The masquerade boys are a problem. Ekpe used to run Creek society. But the government has divided us into many local authorities. Each one is governed by a clan. This can cause problems because the head of one clan cannot intervene in the problems of another. Sometimes there is a lack of unity in decision-making. If God wants to put an end to this system then let him come. We are tired.’ He wiped his face resignedly.
‘If you are against the law of Ekpe you have to pay a penalty,’ Muri continued. The Ekpe secret society still had its uses, even though it has been relegated to a ceremonial role. Infighting clans still call upon it as a last resort to mediate in disputes. But for the most part, the authority of Ekpe and elderly folks has been corroded by modern government, especially in relation to the more quotidian aspects of Creek Town life.
‘Sunday used to be a rest day,’ Muri said. ‘You were not allowed to play traditional drums. But now it happens. If the elders challenge it, the youngsters defy you. Government is in the young man’s hands. It is no longer in the old man’s hands.’
A man of Muri’s age must have digested all these social changes with difficulty. Mounted on his wall was a black-and-white photo of a female relative who had been fattened for marriage.
‘People used to spend Christmas here,’ Benson’s grandmother informed me, scratching her short shock of white hair. ‘Now they spend it in Calabar. They like the carnival and Christmas Village. Our market used to be so big. Look at it now. Only a few small things they are selling. Everybody wants to go to Calabar Market.’
Creek Town still clings to a few old traditions. People still bang the nkong, a metal instrument, to send messages from village to village; a bell is still rung to announce deaths, and the old cannon is fired during regattas, festivals, coronations and for royal deaths. But these were minor stitches in an unravelling tapestry.
Later in the afternoon, as Ivor and I waited to board the boat back to Calabar, we watched two little boys catching fish, using small balls of gari as bait. The aggressive masquerade was now chasing another girl around the jetty. She giggled fearfully and hid behind old man Ekpo who was eyeing the masquerade with calm disapproval. The masked man stared at her as if weighing up the consequences of smacking her. He chose to walk away, perhaps chastened by the chiding he had received from Ekpenyong and the masquerade committee. I resisted an urge to taunt him.
After the final passenger dropped into the boat, it motored away from the jetty back towards Calabar. Ekpenyong waved goodbye from the waterside. The brutish masquerade stood next to him, with his big mask and raffia mane, all hostilities forgotten. The pair of them made a comical sight as they chatted and gesticulated, shrinking gradually into the distance.
Until the early twentieth century, each district of Calabar (including Creek Town) had its own obong (king). Then the districts were merged into one, ruled by a single supreme obong, who was selected by the Traditional Council. This arrangement has created an accession bottleneck in which the etubom (prince) from each district is equally eligible to succeed the obong when he dies.
Ivor had invited me to meet his friend, His Royal Highness Etubom Bassey Ekpo Bassey IV, a high-ranking member of the Efik royal family. A former journalist and vocal opponent of past military regimes, Bassey once ran in the Cross River gubernatorial elections. It turned out that he was also acquainted with my father. Ivor led me to his offices on the second floor of a fading 1960s
building close to the river.
Bassey, a light-skinned man in his fifties, was watching an English football match at full volume on the TV. He pumped my hand and murmured a distracted hello, unable to break his fixation with the game in which Arsenal, his favourite team, were playing. Nigerians are obsessed with football, and support a handful of European teams. I had yet to meet anyone who did not support either Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid or Barcelona.
‘I knew your father,’ Bassey told me, one eye still on the game. ‘He was right about his campaign, but his mistake was that he fought everybody. He should have kept some people on his side, but he criticised everybody . . . the Yorubas, the Igbos, the Hausas. He made too many enemies.’ My father was definitely an idealist, not a politician. I used to accompany him to the offices and homes of people similar to Bassey, where they would loudly bemoan Nigeria’s ills while my siblings and I sipped Fanta under the crossfire of angry analysis.
‘Why don’t Nigerians go on strikes and agitate as much as we used to?’ I asked Bassey.
‘There is a lack of leadership,’ Bassey replied. ‘The leaders don’t want to commit class suicide. They want their comforts. They saw the example of your father and they know that if they fight they could die.
‘Hunger is what weighed the universities down. Babangida’s reforms made living very, very expensive. That destroyed the leftist movements on campuses and made it difficult for people to find time for intellectual pursuits. The intellectual activity on campus simply disappeared. I think the last generation who know the difference between right and wrong are on their way out.’
Bassey’s focus had also switched away from that sort of politics. He was an ardent enthusiast of pre-Christian traditions, and his ambitions to become the next obong were being obstructed by rival pro-Christian princes. The previous obong, himself a Soldier of Christ, had dedicated his throne to God and banned all libations at his meetings, allowing Christian prayers only. But Bassey was fighting for a return to indigenous, animist rituals and ceremonies. On this particular evening, however, Arsenal versus Blackburn Rovers was the only duel that interested him; my attempts at serious conversation were futile. But I didn’t mind. I had arrived unannounced and, frankly, the football was hijacking my attention, too.
‘Is the Calabar royal family under threat?’ I asked.
Taking his eyes off the television for a just a second, Bassey handed me a sheet of paper. ‘This is a speech I made the other day,’ he said. I took the sheet of paper, grateful for some – any – information, then said my goodbyes and left the building.
Sitting on my hotel bed, I read the piece of paper. Bassey’s speech, addressed to the heads of Efik royal houses on New Year’s Eve, reprehended people who wanted to ‘demonise’ traditional rulers. Bassey criticised rulers who had become Muslims or Christians and ‘abolished the performance of traditional rites’, converting their prayer houses to mosques and churches.
The etubom wasn’t against modern religions but he wanted to continue traditional libations which, he said, were doneto invoke and honour our fathers and mothers who lived here; very much in the manner that Christians relate with their saints, long dead.
Europeans who brought Christianity to us do not joke with their tradition. They brought Easter, a pagan feast into Christian worship; they avoid the number 13 in public buildings; and will break a bottle of wine on a new ship at commissioning. All Saints Day is for going to the gravesides of their ancestors (and in the Catholic countries of Latin America, people go with food and drink to spend days with their ancestors). All these are godly because their practitioners are not black; ours are satanic because we are black.
Out of their strong inferiority complex, our refugee traditional rulers call out to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (who, incidentally, did not worship the god of Christians), but are too embarrassed to call out to their own fathers who might have lived better lives than those ancestors of the Jews.
Today, I ask these refugees to stand aside while we formalise the Etubom Traditional Council once more.
I found myself endorsing Prince Bassey’s cause (at least notionally – who knows what machinations underscore these political conflicts). It was pleasing to see someone challenging evangelism’s eclipsing of old customs, which were the only unique things about Nigeria’s culture and aesthetics. I hadn’t cared about these things before – my family’s Christianity and my foreign urban upbringing had bred an indifference to animism. But now I was starting to acquire a taste for the indigenous. Where would Nigeria be without those exciting weddings and (non-aggressive) masquerades and libations? They had been the best part of my journey so far, the things that made this country worth visiting. Relinquishing our traditional heritage might be worthwhile if we could replace it with a modern, developed society, but at the moment we’re stumbling into a crack between the two worlds.
That night in my hotel room, I became engrossed in a Nollywood film about a woman who takes a job as a government minister. Intoxicated by her newfound power, she begins treating her daughters atrociously. She beats them, criticises their dress sense and dishes out domestic tasks as if they were her slaves. The actress portraying the mother inhabited her role very naturally. Every order she hissed, every smug pout or bug-eyed glare made me despise her even more. Transfixed with hate, I followed each scene, waiting for the woman to receive retribution (which, being Nollywood, would be reliably brutal and severe). I could barely tear myself away to answer the knock on my door from room service.
But two hours later, I woke up to see the credits rolling. I had nodded off during the film, and I had no idea whether that nasty woman kept her job or not. This happened almost every time I watched these interminable Nollywood films. Yet I sought out these movies most evenings, and as time went on, I found myself caring more and more about the outcomes of the plots. I even surprised myself by recognising the names of the more famous actors, my eyes lighting up at Clem Ohameze’s name in the opening credits. What was happening to me?
Being rich in a country that produces nothing but oil isn’t easy: upgrading the accoutrements of wealth or obtaining spare parts for one’s jet skis or Aston Martin involves much to-ing and fro-ing across the oceans. British Airways runs a lucrative line in ferrying Nigeria’s wealthy to Europe to conduct their shopping trips. Sensing an opportunity, Calabar’s government decided to build a massive, duty-free shopping complex aimed at keeping some of this spending activity within Nigeria’s borders.
The Tinapa retail development, built just outside Calabar, is the jewel in the city’s development crown, a business/leisure complex and retail emporium where Lagos and Abuja millionaires can buy their jewels and Tommy Hilfiger casual wear without schlepping to Dubai or London. I’d seen the CNN commercials: aerial views of a modern concrete complex bursting with clothing stores, restaurants and cinemas – the latest manifestation of Calabar’s vision of itself as Nigeria’s premier city. I was looking forward to visiting.
‘There’s nothing at Tinapa,’ Ivor the American had told me. At the time, I assumed he was speaking figuratively. He’s American, I thought dismissively; his definition of a shopping mall was probably stricter than the Nigerian one. Here, even the shabbiest, most thinly stocked outlet proudly described itself as a ‘shopping complex’. Surely no retail centre in Nigeria would measure up to Ivor’s American notions?
Assuming I could grab a pizza in Tinapa, I skipped lunch and took an okada towards the outskirts of town. We turned off the highway and down an empty, freshly tarmacked road, flanked by very high concrete walls and brand new streetlights. But as the entrance gate neared, my driver turned away from the road, and trundled through a cluster of trees and decrepit houses.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked him.
‘We are going to Tinapa, now,’ he answered. ‘Okadas cannot enter the gate, so we must go through here.’
Clothes hung from washing lines and chickens lurched and scratched in the littered soil. Outside a mud-brick house, a
barefoot toddler played, wearing nothing except her underpants and a curly wig. The place resembled a rural village. My driver parked at a wall where a policeman stood guard.
‘Enter through here,’ my driver said, pointing to a gap in the wall.
I walked through it and scrambled down a very steep grassy bank, ending up in a vast and mostly empty car park. Assuming the action must be somewhere further away, I walked towards the main building, a modern design surrounded by water features and stone benches. Vacant shop fronts bordered the walkways, save for a few companies that had staked their claim and erected signs and logos. Behind the closed doors of one clothing store, two women were filling the window display with fabrics.
‘Where’s the restaurant?’ I asked a security guard, who kept vigil over the deserted space.
‘It’s there.’ The man pointed to some steps rising to an elevated set of buildings. I clambered up and scoured the emptiness around me.
‘I can’t see any restaurant,’ I hollered down to him.
‘It has not opened.’
Why didn’t he tell me that before? He smiled up at me politely, probably thinking he was talking to a mad woman. The reality of the situation finally dawned on me. Flashbacks of those CNN commercials came to mind as I assembled the pieces of the jigsaw. The TV voiceover had spoken about Tinapa in the present tense, not the future. As far as I can remember, it gave no indication that the development – 7,000 square metres of it – was tenantless. And no one in Calabar had told me I was wasting my time when I’d asked them how to get here. They’d simply given me directions and sent me on my deluded way, presumably assuming that I was knowingly visiting a work in progress.
Looking for Transwonderland Page 23