Juju and Justice at the Movies: Vigilantes in Nigerian Popular Videos

4. This Igbo orthography follows that prescribed by Michael Echeruo's Igbo-English Dictionary (Yale University Press, 1998).

5. Frank Hives (1930) published a self-aggrandizing account of the colonial confrontation with Igbo arünsi in southeastern Nigeria under the title Ju-ju and Justice in Nigeria.

6. Thanks to Achebe's (1959) use of Yeats's "things fall apart; the center cannot hold" to frame his story of the disruption colonial modernism brought to an Igbo community, the phrase has taken on proverbial status and now commonly flows from the lips of Igbo-land's eloquent and well-read elders.

7. Section 214 of the current version of the Nigerian Constitution, instituted in 1999, specifically forbids state and local police forces.

8. A recent tax evasion charge against the Dallas-based oilfield services firm Halliburton, Inc., revealed that they had paid bribes totaling $2.4 million to Nigerian tax officials (Igbikiowubo 2003). Halliburton has been suspect in the view of many Nigerians since 1998 when villagers in the oil rich Niger Delta accused the company of complicity in the shooting, by Nigeria's Mobile Police Unit, of a protester who was organizing resistance to the company's exploitive operations. As in similar cases involving Shell and Chevron, Halliburton claimed they employ the notorious "kill-and-go" unit to protect company properties (Leopold 2003).

References

Videos

Issahaba. 2000. Chukwuka Emelionwu, story. Lancelot Oduoa Imasuen, director. KAS-VID & MOSCO, Lagos.

Issakaba 2. 2001. Chukwuka Emelionwu, story. Lancelot Oduoa Imasuen, director. KAS-VID & MOSCO, Lagos.

Issakaba 3. 2001. Chukwuka Emelionwu, story. Lancelot Oduoa Imasuen, director. KAS-VID & MOSCO, Lagos.

Issakaba 4. 2001. Chukwuka Emelionwu, story. Lancelot Oduoa Imasuen, director. KAS-VID & MOSCO, Lagos. Books and Articles

Abuja, Philipson. 2002. "I Was Raped for 60 Days." The News ((Lagos). October 22. http://allafrica.com/stories/200210220155.html.

Achebe, Chinua. 1959. Things Fall Apart. New York: Fawcett Crest Books.

_____. 1984. The Trouble with Nigeria. London: Heinemann Educational Books.

Akwani, Obi. 2002. "The Truth about the Bakassi Boys." http://www.gamji.com/ NEWS1606.htm.

Baker, Bruce. 2002. "When the Bakassi Boys Came: Eastern Nigeria Confronts Vigilantism." Journal of Contemporary African Studies. 20 (2): 223-44.

Basden, G. T. 1921. Among the Igbo of Nigeria. Lagos: University Publishing.

Ekeh, Peter. 2002. "A Review of HRW's and CLEEN's Report 'The Bakassi Boys: The Legitimization of Murder and Torture' on State Sponsored Vigilante Groups in Nigeria." http://www.africaresource.com/scholar/ekeh3.htm.

Elekwachi, Francis. 2003. "Killing Bakassi Boys: Et Tu Ogbulafor." Nigerian News. http://www.nigeriannews.com/KillingBakassiBoys.htm.

Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth oj the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books.

Harnischfeger, Johannes. 2003. "The Bakassi Boys: Fighting Crime in Nigeria. The Journal of Modern African Studies. 41 (1): 23-49.

Haynes, Jonathan, ed. 2000. Nigerian Video Films. Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, Africa Series no. 73.