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Juju and Justice at the Movies: Vigilantes in Nigerian Popular Videos
African Studies Review, Dec 2004 by McCall, John C
In Issakaba, Ebube offers a thinly fictionalized version of the seminal events that precipitated the emergence of the Bakassi Boys in southeast Nigeria in the late 1990s. The cinematic account is quite consistent with Harnischfeger's (2003) research as well as Bakassi Boy origin narratives I encountered in my own ethnographic research. The Bakassi Boys originated in the sprawling Ariaria Market in Aba. According to Harnischfeger (2003:23), the pivotal events occurred in the shoe manufacturers' section known as Bakassi. The name "Bakassi" was a reference to the Bakassi Peninsula that had been the object of an ongoing dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon. The shoemakers' market gained this nickname because of a bitter battle over jurisdiction of the area between two local governments and the market itself. In 1998 the marketers were plagued by well-organized armed robbers who had taken up permanent residence along Ngwa Road on the outskirts of the market. The thieves regularly extorted protection tribute from merchants and confiscated the goods of the noncompliant. These thugs were able to steal and kill with impunity as the police ignored and even profited from their activities. The break point came when a popular tradeswoman was brutally murdered for 200,000 Naira (approximately U.S.$1,500.00). An immediate uprising of hundreds of traders descended on the robbers' settlement. The enraged marketers dragged the men who had been terrorizing them into the streets and hacked them to death with machetes. The Bakassi Boys' vigilante organization was formalized in the wake of these events.
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The Bakassi Boys originated in acts of necessity undertaken in the face of terror. Noble intentions, however, have a tenuous existence in the midst of the endemic corruption, political factionalism, and electoral machinations that characterize the Nigerian political landscape. Thus Nigerians remain suspicious of the power ceded to vigilantes. They recognize that the "goodness" of any action is never absolute, regardless of the evident "evil" of its target. If history has proven anything to Nigerians, it is that power, no matter who wields it, will eventually corrupt. Thus, when Dede's character warns, "the danger in hunting down evil is that you gradually become that which you seek to destroy," the sentiment resonates with Nigerians. In a country where military coup has been a more prevalent mode of regime change than popular election, Nigerians know that replacing one band of armed thugs with another offers little hope for true political reform.
Nigerian video movies tend to be slow moving, and many are driven by soap opera-like dialog linked by tedious transportation shots that dwell on expensive automobiles wending their way through traffic to the next scene. Therefore, the opening sequence of Issakaba, in which the vigilantes arrive and publicly decapitate an undercover gun dealer before the title credits even begin, is an unambiguous assertion of a more aggressive approach to storytelling. This initial scene ends with Dede's character announcing, "Justice has come to town." If the movie's message can be distilled, it is that "justice" is always a mixed blessing. When the elders in the village first implore Ebube to rid the village of criminals, he offers a proverbial warning: "A river does not flow through a forest without breaking down trees. You have asked for cleansing. That cleansing will affect every one of you." Needless to say, this wisdom proves to be prophetic, and by the time the drama has concluded many prominent citizens are exposed as criminal ringleaders and the social order of the community has been devastated.
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