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Humanitarian Service with Wit
New Leadership for Nigeria
Why an Ibeji Doll?
South African View of Nigeria
The Second Time Around
Is Western Democracy the Answer?
Islam and the Law in Nigerian Politics
Olowe of Ise and Benin in Washington, D.C.
Mbari Revisited
FON Aids Nigerwives Project

HUMANITARIAN SERVICE WITH WIT

"All I did was point out that my work in Haiti was an extension of what I learned to do as a volunteer in Nigeria—beg, cajole, wheedle, and charm, to get something done for the good of the community," Carroll explains.

Carroll was the first of many talented and dedicated Americans to receive the award introduced at the Peace Corps 25th Anniversary. However, Tim will confide, five awards were given that first year and he was first only because his surname begins with C.  "They gave the awards alphabetically."

But, there are other good reasons Carroll was first.  He has spent the last 35 years building a remarkable career in international service.  From Peace Corps Volunteer to Special Assistant for International Programs for Attorney General Janet Reno, Tim's wit and talent have touched many lives in many countries.  Because he cares, he makes a difference.

Carroll is the great-grandson of an Irish immigrant who, having completed his seven years as an indentured servant, walked his oxen from up-state New York, to Traverse City, MI. There he claimed a parcel of virgin land. There he built the house Tim now owns. There he left a Carroll family with a staunch Irish heritage.

"I would hate to tell you how much money I’ve spent on renovating The Farm. But I plan to retire there one day."  When you listen to Tim talk about his forefathers and that part of the world, you suspect it remains a special niche in a life built round the globe.

After six years at Notre Dame, and a year in Dublin, Ireland, Carroll had earned a bachelors in Communications Art and a masters in Anglo-Irish Literature. He had also worked two years as a University Theater Fellow designing and executing three productions a year.  Then he joined the Peace Corps.

"It was the beginning of my life. Or, so it seemed as I planned it during my last years of graduate work.  Never once had I considered it wouldn't come about.  Never had I been so clear in a career move.  My vision was of an altar boy in mufti."

Arriving in Kaduna after a semester of training at UCLA, Carroll ran educational television programs for the Northern State Schools Broadcasting Unit. "What a time it was. I adapted, directed, and produced four Shakespearean plays simultaneously, in a Moslem state where boys and girls were not allowed to meet prior to performance."

Back home again, Carroll worked on Capital Hill for a year before becoming an educational media consultant.  Over the next four years he worked in Samoa, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Then, Antioch University convinced Carroll to stay put in Yellow Springs, OH, first to help start the School of Law, and then to be Associate Dean of International Studies at the main campus. Within six years, he had Antioch centers up and running in Germany, France, England, and Colombia.  Students at those centers could earn Antioch degrees without ever coming to Ohio.

"When I was coming up for tenure, I sensed I would stay until I expired of old age if I accepted. If I were not awarded tenure—which I considered my just due—I would have had to burn the place to the ground.  Rather than face the decision, I resigned."  During Antioch breaks for several years, Carroll had worked in Haiti; he found the work much like his Peace Corps experience.

"The second year I was spiritually seduced by an enchanting nun who, while cube-like in shape, ran the island’s only center for handicapped orphans.  What a combo.  Who could resist.  It only required money to fix things, and since I had always been attracted to the rich, I had, at last, found something worthwhile to do with their stash.  I began my best chapter:  Professional Beggar."

For the next ten years, Carroll devoted his remarkable talents to setting up an eye-care program in Haiti.  He personally raised private funds and ran programs that led to the establishment of eight eye-health centers located across Haiti.

"When I left, Eye Care Haiti had approximately five million dollars worth of assets and a staff of 125 to run every level of the program. The vision had become a local NGO."

And, so, Carroll came back to Peace Corps as the first Director of the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.  Under his three-year leadership, from 1987 to 1990, the association doubled its membership and Tim founded World View magazine before he was asked to become a Peace Corps country director.

"I could think of no better way to pull together all the diversified work I had done up to then.  A country director has the prestige of heading up a U.S. agency overseas, sitting on the Country Team with the Ambassador, but the job also incorporates the grass roots efforts of dozens of volunteers working to improve life among the poorest."

From 1990 to 1991, Carroll headed up the Peace Corps program in Pakistan.  Then, the Gulf War intervened.  Volunteers were evacuated but quickly returned. "We were building up the program when Washington asked me to move to Poland and create the largest program in the world."

And Carroll did.  His success was due in no small part to the fact that he understands volunteers. "Volunteers come from every frame of the Meyer-Briggs personality chart, and beyond.  We represent American diversity in all its moods and styles.  We join the Peace Corps for as many reasons as there are volunteers and we come to our work in a mighty wave of highly individualistic voices."

The three years Carroll spent as country director for Poland Peace Corps, 1991-1994, were the Glory Years.  It was tremendously successful, a popular program with the host nationals.  However, Carroll’s next assignment was to be a yet bigger challenge:  Russia.

As Country Director for a program that stretched across ten time zones, Carroll was optimistic about the future of the former Soviet Union.  He wrote home, "When you see the three-generational families strolling hand in hand by the thousands, and the simple pleasures afforded by a free market economy—like hot dog stands, flower vendors, and outdoor cafes—one cannot believe irreversible change is far off."

Congress does not allow anyone to serve on Peace Corps staff for more than five years at a time, so after only one year in Russia, Carroll needed to leave Peace Corps staff.

"The Ambassador asked me to return, privately, to consolidate the US programs which had sprung up in over 80 sites around Russia relating to small business development.  This I happily did."

Carroll returned to the States to the position he now holds at the Department of Justice, just blocks from the Victorian townhouse he calls home in Washington, DC.  He has renovated the three-story row house to reflect his eclectic tastes and accommodate his collection of art and furnishings from all over the world.

The first floor contains purchases made in Russia—icons on the walls, gunmetal sculptures of Lenin on the mantelpiece.  "As I brought more treasures home, the older things would move higher up.  African and Samoan art are now up on the third floor."

But don’t forget, this home belongs to the great-grandson of an Irish immigrant, the grandson and son of Michigan cherry farmers.  The focal piece in Carroll’s living room is an 18th century, church statue of St. Patrick, which he found during his college studies in Dublin.  Somewhere on the trip from Kinsale, Ireland, to Washington, DC, St. Patrick lost his crosier but one would hardly notice, the statue is such an amazing thing to find where it stands.

Not only does it stand in a Washington living room, but in the living room of a man who has become a man of the world.  At Tim Carroll’s house St. Patrick sits atop a vegetable cart purchased in Rawalpindi!

Carroll’s treasures—-from Persian carpets to Benin brass—fill the nine-bedroom home where Tim’s friends from many countries come to visit.  He keeps in touch with those he served with in Nigeria in the 60’s as well as those for whom he was Pater Familias in Pakistan, Poland and Russia.

Summing up his thoughts about the Peace Corps, Carroll says, "After all the ‘peace’ stories have been told about cold water showers, privies, lack of you-name-it, bugs, bad food, no money, the usual, we all add, in the end, we got more out of the experience than any other in our lives."

Sounds like a guy who got the Shriver Award for Humanitarian Service.
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NEW LEADERSHIP FOR NIGERIA

General Abacha was a career soldier who enrolled in the army as an infantryman at age l8 and attended military training colleges in the United Kingdom and the U.S., in addition to Nigeria.  When generals ousted Nigeria’s last civilian government in l983, it was Abacha who announced it.  Two years later, he announced that dictator General Mohammed Buhari was being replaced by General Ibrahim Babangida.  Soon after, Babangida appointed Abacha as his defense minister, but in l993, Abacha forced Babangida to resign after the army canceled the elections which were to have returned Nigeria to civilian rule and which were supposedly won by Moshood Abiola, a wealthy Yoruba businessman.  Three months later, Abacha seized power in a coup and suspended the constitution.

Although Abacha had promised democratic reforms, the promises never materialized.  He jailed Abiola on charges of treason, and never held the promised elections in l996.  He also arrested former military ruler Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and 50 others accused of plotting a coup and sentenced them after a secret tribunal to terms ranging from l5 years to life.  His State Security Service (SSS) pursued journalists, labor leaders, human-rights workers, attorneys, pro-democracy activists, and anyone else who dared to speak out against him.  Human rights groups say that 7,000 political prisoners sat in Nigeria’s prisons.  After Wole Soyinka, winner of the l986 Nobel Prize for literature, slipped out of the country and into exile in November l994, Abacha charged him in absentia with treason, a crime punishable by death.  In June l996, Chief Abiola’s wife, Kudirat, was gunned down in Lagos and, in December l997, Abacha’s most formidable political opponent, former military vice president Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, died mysteriously late one night in prison.  But, the act which drew greatest public condemnation throughout the world was the hanging in November l995 of environmentalist and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other political activists convicted in a closed military tribunal of murdering political opponents. In response to the latter, the 53-member Commonwealth took the unprecedented step of suspending Nigeria.

Upon assuming his position, Abubakar declared a 30-day mourning period for Abacha, urged political exiles to return home, and called for national unity.  He also pledged that the military, which has ruled Nigeria for 28 of the 38 years since independence, would turn over power to civilians through elections.  Within days of Abubakar's appointment, however, opposition leaders called on Nigerians to observe a nationwide 24-hour strike, staying away from jobs and keeping off the roads, to mark the fifth anniversary of the annulled elections of 1993 and to call for freedom for Abiola.  The military administrator of Lagos state, Col. Muhammad Marwa, banned the demonstrations and implied that authorities would forcibly disperse them. He fulfilled his promise as security forces fired into the air, unleashed tear gas, and arrested opposition leader Gani Fawehinmi (the attorney who had represented Abiola and who had been jailed six times by Abacha) and three of his supporters, as well as Dupe Abiola, one of the wives of Abiola. In all, 55 people were arrested, although it was believed that all were later released.

Since then, Abubakar has swept aside Abacha's transition program, which opponents believe was designed to allow Abacha to retain power. He ordered the dismissal of all charges against political prisoners, ordered the release of many of them (including former leader Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo) dismantled the previous regime's electoral commission, dissolved the five state-sponsored political parties which had been created to support Abacha, and said that he would give independence to the Judiciary, which was often criticized for its close ties to the previous regime.  He also dissolved the cabinet and appointed new members from a wide spectrum of Nigerian society, appointed Major General Abdulla Muhammed as his new security adviser to replace Ismail Gwarzo and dismissed three political advisers, all of whom had been close to Abacha.  But, he rejected a transitional unity government, which many opposition leaders had called for, saying that the government would not "substitute one undemocratic institution for another."

A U.S. State Department official indicated that there was no reason to doubt that the sudden death of Chief Abiola was due to natural causes, but an autopsy was performed by an international team to dispel rumors that Abiola had been poisoned and to confirm that he had died of long-untreated heart disease.  Accusations remained that he had been killed from neglect while incarcerated, and once again rioting broke out in Lagos.  By the end of the weekend, it was reported that at least 60 people were dead, although Abiola's remains were buried in Lagos without serious bloodshed.

It is difficult now to determine what will happen next in Nigeria.  The recent change of leadership raises new questions about the future of the country and whether it will survive as a unified state, but it also provides an opportunity for positive action to return to a democratically-elected, civilian government, to restore economic growth in Nigeria, and to unleash the enormous potential for Nigeria to become the leader of the African continent.
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WHY AN IBEJI DOLL? 

A light-traveling bachelor, my choices were easy: my old Simco saddle, Filson packer coat, a ZIP drive duplicate of my hard disk files, toothbrush, and carefully tucked into my bedroll, an ibeji doll.

Why I have packed that beautiful ibeji doll around with me since 1963 is also one of the reasons Nigeria—Africa’s "open sore"—is going to be much in the news in the next year as it moves from a decades-long military dictatorship towards yet another effort at electoral democracy and an illusive national unity.  With much oil, 100 million talented, much educated, and culturally grounded people on a landmass equal to two Californias, Nigeria is the true heartland of Africa.

Zeroing in, the 20 million-strong Yoruba tribe of southwestern Nigeria has for several hundred years been the dominant, governing culture of the region. As an early Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria (1962-1964) I lived in, and was at home in, this Yorubaland.  We can look forward to enjoying Yorubas on the NBC Nightly News when the recently legalized Nigerian political parties begin their inevitable roistering and whanging.  Nigerian politics are, at their best, great theater. Listen to the Yoruba political leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, speaking at his famous 1963 treasonable felony and conspiracy trial:

"Look here, Dr. Maja. I am a pepper t hat no one can chew without tears.  You have said grave lies against me.  You will suffer for it. You have sworn in the name of God, but you are giving evidence in the name of Satan... Woe betide you."

Oh, I miss Awolowo!

Anyway, my ibeji doll is Yoruba.  Let’s use it as a shortcut into Nigerian life.

Ibeji twin dolls.  Likely an accurate familial likeness of the lost child, my ibeji is about 9" tall, carved from a soft dark wood, and is anatomically correct (male).  From some old files: "Twins are in themselves sacred and formerly when one died an ibeji was carved, and washed, fed and cared for as the living child so that the surviving one would not die of loneliness or be called to join its twin."  Isn’t that lovely?  Isn’t that mentally healthy?  But, you might ask, how did I come by this ibeji doll I saved from harm’s way last weekend?

By the 1960s Westernization and other modern madnesses had disrupted much of the traditional lifeways of the Yorubas.  This once mighty engine of grand cultural accomplishments was letting slippery agent-thieves into the towns and villages of Western Nigeria to buy up such images of honor and worship.  Many, but not all, were of museum quality.

When these scoundrels came around to our houses at dinnertime with pillowcases stuffed with fine art and graven images, what do you do?  Buy the best and save it, or let it go next door to an expatriate buyer with less taste and less guilt, to be lost forever or to show up later in a London antique shop or Akron yard sale?  When any traditional religion breaks down, its art is left to molder.  Or get sold to grave robbers like me.  In my defense, I donated the best of my collection to the federal museum in the capital city, Lagos.  In exchange, the curators authorized an export license for a few pieces, including my ibeji.

Beyond a confession, the point of this Ibeji story is that Nigerian Yorubas have had the wherewithal—2000 years and the intellectual resources including a discerning creation myth and Olorun, a Supreme Being—to think through even such issues as grieving and death among twin children.  Such artifacts as my ibeji doll do not come out of primitive societies.  Call such sophistication "an easy knowledge of the world."

Nigeria is more than a messy plate like Indonesia or other far-off American problem.  Before this generation’s troubles, for one brief moment in the early 1960s Nigeria and my Yorubaland was, like Shakespeare’s London, clearly the best place in the world to be. Filled with the most politically sensitive, sophisticated citizens known anywhere, it included the largest percentage of whole and sane people on the planet. T hen a national census went bad resulting, after many turns of the screw, in the promise of a secessionist Biafra dying under the guns of an American-supported military that once roused to tribal excuses and excesses never returned to its barracks.

How odd, how sad all that would have seemed to us in 1962.  When then it was late-night Highlife dancing in political nightclubs, poets and playwrights in line for the Nobel Prize, and a vital, informed personal politics like no Americans have known since Andrew Jackson.  As The New York Times editorialized recently, "Nigeria is a great, seething amalgam of tribes and religions, as exhilarating as it is dangerous."

Damn straight, watch for it soon.  Now, where’s my ibeji?
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SOUTH AFRICAN VIEW OF NIGERIA

Two recent letters in The Cape Times reflect divergent opinions about Nigerian affairs.  One writer, who dismisses Nigeria as a state run by corrupt generals and drug lords, asks the paper to stop giving the country any front-page coverage.

Another writer in rebuttal calls for more compassion and concern for the struggle of the Nigerian people to reinstate democracy and the sanctity of human rights in their country.

I find myself in full agreement with the second writer.  Surely the case of South Africa demonstrates how significant international opinion and political pressure can be in helping to bring about change.  Earlier this year at a conference on the role of culture in educational development I asked a Nigerian graduate student what we in the outside world could do to help in the struggle against tyranny there.  She replied that the solution would have to grow out of the suffering of the Nigerian people.  I think her reply reflects the fundamental truth that the will to change must come from within whether it is an individual or a country.

On the other hand, post-colonial African politics have involved the interplay of first and third world elites in maintaining structures of neo-colonial domination reflected in the corruption of elites and failure of development for the basic needs of all.  So, I think that we who live in the first world should look for ways, as was done in the case of South Africa under apartheid, to examine the structures we maintain that may reinforce conditions of misgovernment and injustice in countries like Nigeria and search for alternatives.

I am hopeful that the recent release of General Obasanjo, Dr. Ransome-Kuti, and Mr. Anyanwu by the Abubakar government may reflect a new sincerity to move toward a democratic transition.  Only the Nigerians can make that happen by restoring a system of open debate and party politics that reflects national issues more than factional objectives, maintains an orderly non-violent election process and respects the freedom of dissent and opposition.
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THE SECOND TIME AROUND

With lots of examples to choose from, my favorite tests were being switched from Ibo to Hausa, my excuse for doing poorly in both, and learning at our arrival in Lagos that I would teach mathematics after reading all those African history books.  Both of these switches probably made my life easier, if less challenging.

In January l995, I started training for a tour in the Philippines almost 31 years after our group arrived in Nigeria.  The differences far outnumber the similarities in the two experiences, not surprising considering the geographical locations and, most important, the elapsed time for me, the Peace Corps, and the world.

Much of the silliness of early training is gone, the psychological probing and the lessons on U.S. politics, as well as the inappropriate U.S. campus setting.  Language lessons in the Philippines were easier to avoid since the instructors were counterpart educators, not specialists with tape recorders.  No push-ups at the crack of dawn supervised by a blond hulk were needed in the Philippines since merely walking in the hills of Baguio is exhausting.  Instead of student teaching, we prepared workshop sessions, few of which were actually used after the initial break-in period.

As a classroom teacher in Nigeria my assignment was clear: get to classes on time, stay at least two pages ahead of the students, try to fit in, and uphold the Peace Corps image.  In the Philippines our group initiated the English Language Assistant Program, no classes, no grading, no predetermined schedule.  What a shock to find I could establish my own goals and, after orienting myself, my own schedule with only typhoons and local transport to worry about.  Where was my Honda 50 when I really needed it?

Jeepneys and minibuses got me to lots of high schools where I led workshops that I created, mostly on cooperative learning, for lots of teachers.  I was able to monitor a select group who I trained as trainers.  In both situations I had the right job at the right time for me.

Instead of my own, brand-new house in Bauchi, I lived in a self-contained flat in a large house near the beach on Luzon, not exactly a "host family" set-up, but certainly a part of the community.  Unfortunately, there were no understanding PCVs nearby to vent to when cultures clashed or the bureaucracies burgeoned, as there had been in Nigeria. Instead, our training "batch" in the Philippines, down to 14 out of 23 at the end, met officially as a group five times after training.  It would have been great to do the same with the 50 plus in Nigeria, if impractical.

Adjusting to life in the Philippines was no easier than it had been in Nigeria, if anything, it was harder because in many ways it is like home with the same products, movies, music and English usage abounding.  There was the danger of assuming that life is similar.  But the culture is a unique blend that has produced distinct values, a few of which tested my patience.

Filipinos are very conscious of looking good, which meant make-up, stockings, jewelry and well-coifed hair, even in typhoon season.  I had a hard time with all of those standards most of the time.  Add to this the fact that I am above average in height and have short hair; you can understand why I was called "sir" too often, even while wearing a skirt.  At the PC medical office I asked for a sex change operation. The nurse was astounded, but I convinced her to do it.  She pierced both my ears.

There were no incidents quite like that in Nigeria, but I do remember being amused that the Emir of Bauchi expressed his displeasure with female PCVs who went to the Horizontal Bar to dance.  There was no message for the males, of course.

One night I met two of my mature students dancing at the bar.  After they blabbed to their form master, he arranged their punishment so they weren't expelled.  They would not have been seen if I had stayed home.  There was no punishment for me.

For every gaff I committed that I know about, there are countless unknown to me, thank heavens.  Why did I rejoin the Peace Corps? Probably for the same reason I did the first time, to see if I could do it.

I passed the test.
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IS WESTERN DEMOCRACY THE ANSWER?

Western-style democracy should never be assumed as ideal for countries whose cultures differ so much from the West. Colonial powers tried but were only partially successful in transforming African political systems into European clones.  Perhaps Africans and Asians will devise unique forms of governments to handle their own particular cultures and problems.  Even those of us with best intentions tend to judge non-Western cultures by Western standards, as if our own systems are flawless.

Western-styled institutions may not be the answer to all Nigeria’s problems.  Why not, for example, as guest columnist Dr. Sodiq argues in this newsletter, a mix of legal systems: English common law, Traditional tribal law, and Islamic Sharia?  Won’t work?   What is English common law but a compilation of the oral customs of various "tribal" people in Great Britain?

Our own Constitutional Convention over two hundred years ago was an effort to pull together a population of three million, almost all of whom saw Great Britain as their cultural home, with none of the enormous variety of languages and cultures we find in Nigeria.  We struggled with secession of regions and states for almost a century, and we still haven’t silenced the clamor for less federal power and more states’ rights.  We devised a new system, albeit imperfect, much as African and Asian countries will be doing for themselves as we enter the twenty-first century.

We should demand only that their leaders display respect for cultural diversity and human dignity.  A country like Nigeria must find a compromise among hundreds of divergent cultural groups.  Let's stand back for once and admit we only have partial solutions to world problems.  From their own wealth of tradition, experience, and education, Africans and Asians will devise their own revolutionary institutions to best provide their own people with economic and social progress.
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ISLAM AND THE LAW IN NIGERIAN POLITICS

Many Nigerians think that all Northerners are Muslims.  This is not true.  There are many Christians and traditionalists among the Hausas and Fulanis.  Many Northern Muslims give little attention to Islam in their daily life.  Their relationship with other Nigerians is based on tribalism and interest, not on religion.  Some Northern Muslims perceive Southern Muslims as non-practical and treat them with contempt despite the fact that many lecturers of Islamic studies, Islamic law and Arabic language, at northern universities have been from the South.

One of the problems facing Nigeria is whether the country should have a unified law or allow Islamic law (Sharia) alongside the Common law?  First, there are many different groups of Muslims in Northern Nigeria.  Many of them are not radical or conservative. A few may opt for Islamic law in family matters.

But the so-called radical groups (the Izala and the Zagzagy groups) in the North are very small, although more vocal and aggressive in their pursuit of establishing a strict Islamic law in all spheres of life.  Politically speaking, they cannot win any majority in elections.  They may not even allow their members to participate in a public election; they will not vote for non-Muslims.  I doubt they will allow their women to vote.  These groups argue that either Nigeria becomes an Islamic state or drop efforts to unify.  They do not endorse any mutual cooperation between Muslims and Christians in ruling the country.  I do not envisage any radical Islamic group in the North winning in any national election.  Many Northerners do not support the total application of Islamic law in all spheres of life. In criminal law, they opt for common law rather than Islamic law.  Only a small number will demand for the application of Sharia on both national and regional levels.

However, those who demand the application of Islamic law argue that since they are Muslims, they should have a fundamental right to submit to Islamic law.  Sharia is applied only on Muslims and, therefore, non-Muslims will not be affected.  The opponents argue that since Islamic law distinguishes between Muslims and non-Muslims, if Sharia is applied nationally, non-Muslims will become second-class citizens and that will amount to discrimination against some citizens.  To prevent such discrimination and this unfair treatment, the Sharia should be dropped.

Advocates of Sharia also argue that if Islamic law is not applied, Muslims will become subject to oppression by being denied their right to fully practice their religion.  For instance, under the Marriage Act, a common law provision, all children born to a second wife (which Islam recognizes) will be illegitimate children and, therefore, are not eligible for inheritance from their parents.

The opponents of Sharia argue that Nigeria is a secular state and thus the application of the Sharia would negate this "noble" concept.  Adopting and enforcing the Sharia, they insist, will make the separation of church and state impossible. Nigeria, the advocates of Sharia respond, is a democratic country, a republic.  In a democratic and multi-religious state, people should have freedom to choose the law they want even when they are in the minority.  And this had been the case before and after the independence of Nigeria, for there have been three legal systems practiced in Nigeria since 1914: English common law, Islamic law, and Native law.  Any attempt to impose a unified law may lead to chaos.

I think the Federal government should not enforce any Islamic law at Federal level.  The Federal law should be secular, as the majority wants it to be.  Perhaps, any state which opts to apply Islamic law at regional or local level in certain areas such as family laws or minor civil laws should be allowed to do so with supervision.  The Federal government should apply a unified secular law to apply to all Nigerians regardless of their locations or religious beliefs, particularly in criminal, labor, international, and constitutional laws.  Islamic law should be allowed in family and private issues concerning the Muslims.  And since such provisions are already in operation in Northern Nigeria and in Kwara State, they should not be tampered with.

If Muslims in another part of Nigeria, like Oyo or Ogun or Lagos states, request the Sharia law for family affairs, they should be granted.  Muslims should not be deprived the right to follow the rules of their religion.  In a democratic country, citizens are free to adhere to and practice their beliefs as long as they do not impose their beliefs on others.  Being a Nigerian should not mean giving up of one's belief, be it Islam, Christianity, or African traditional religion.

Nigeria should not opt for the Sharia as the law of the country at this stage of transition.  We are quite different from countries like Iran, Pakistan, or Sudan, each with fewer than 7% Christians. Nigeria is a unique country where Muslims, Christians, and other religious groups have lived together peacefully for the past decades without any major trouble until after the Iranian revolution of 1979.  Nigerians should not always raise alarm flags whenever Islamic law is mentioned.  Muslims in the North and South are Nigerians. We have to tolerate and accommodate one another as in the Southern part of Nigeria.  The fear expressed by many Nigerians about the Sharia law is exaggerated and unjustified.

Nigeria is a great country, blessed with abundant natural and human resources.  We have capable Nigerians from all parts of the country who can lead the country successfully.  We should elect good leaders, give them a chance, and support them.  No one group or tribe can do it alone.  We should join hands together in building our country.  Nobody will build it for us.
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OLOWE OF ISE AND BENIN IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Two of the museum's exhibits were Nigerian, the special exhibition, "Olowe of Ise: A Yoruba Sculptor of Kings" and one of the continuing exhibits, "The Ancient West African City of Benin, A.D. 1300-1897."

Olowe was born in about 1875 in Efon-Alaiye, but lived most of his life in Ise.  He was productive throughout the early 1900s until his death in about 1938.  Art historians and art collectors throughout the world today consider him the most important Yoruba artist of the 20th century.   His work was also highly recognized in his own time; he received many commissions from the rulers and the wealthy of Ekiti region of eastern Yorubaland.

The exhibit included 35 Olowe works as well as photographs. Although the exhibit included dolls, bowls, female figures, a mirror case, and a headdress, over half of the objects were large "veranda posts" and palace doors.  I will not attempt to critique the exhibit, but as an inhabitant of a small Midwestern town that, from the standpoint of the visual arts, is a cultural wasteland, I could not help but be struck by the creativity of Olowe and what must have been a high level of artistic appreciation of the people of that time and place.

Henry J. Drewal, 1964-66, is a world-recognized authority on the art of the Yorubas.  He currently is a professor of art history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the author of a number of books on Yoruba art, one of which was included in the exhibit's "Selected Bibliography." (Interested readers should consult Books in Print or amazon.com.)

The continuing exhibit, "The Ancient West African City of Benin, A.D. 1300-1897," was equally as impressive.  The exhibit included art works from a number of media.  As a chemist, I could not help but be impressed by the technological mastery that must have been necessary for the creation of the copper alloy art works using the lost wax method.

This exhibit also included a number of photographs.  A 1985 photo of the Oba of Benin was credited to Joseph Nevadomsky, (11) 64-66, who specializes in the art and culture of the Benin Kingdom.  After 20 years at the University of Benin, Nevadomsky is now a professor of anthropology at California State University, Fullerton.

Editor's Note: Nigeria Group XI has been particularly prolific with respect to Nigerian art and culture experts. Drewal and Nevadomsky were mentioned above, but Nigeria XI also includes Donald Cosentino, a professor of folklore and mythology at UCLA, and Philip Peek, a professor of anthropology at Drew University in New Jersey.
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MBARI REVISITED

If you just went to the big guest houses and hotels, or that Lebanese restaurant/night club, you heard horn-based bands playing highlife or variations of Congolese music, with its sophisticated melodies and intertwined guitars and horns.  But that wasn't the music of Ibadan, Juju was.

My first domicile in Ibadan was in a government housing reservation at Agodi, with the Western State government headquarters close by.  It was a remnant of colonial Nigeria, and although my apartment was big and I even had a tub, hot water heater and shower, it was also isolated from the real Ibadan.  However, a short walk down the road, away from the government center, was the Agodi roundabout, home of Total Gardens, a club. It was called that because it was attached to the Total petrol station.

In the late afternoon and early evening a typical Juju band held forth at Total Gardens.  The leader/guitarist/lead singer sat on his guitar amp, a vocal mike positioned a yard away in front of him.  He was an adult, over 30, maybe even 40, and he was surrounded in a tight circle by mostly boys, all of whom played various percussion instruments, from drums, bongos and rattles to bells.  The guitar chunked out chords or a dominant rhythm, or played short, keening riffs, and the boys sang chorus responses to the singer's lead, all the while churning out one of the infectious, undulating Juju rhythms (often woro, in 12/8), one punctuated by spontaneous solo outbursts from talking drum (the oldest boy) or other percussionist.

Almost every day, coming home from school (Ibadan Polytechnic), I'd stop at Total Garden for Star beer, maybe a big, spicy and chewy snail, and music by the Total Garden Band.  But it wasn't the only Juju music I heard.  Juju was all over Ibadan, though mostly at night in the little open-air clubs and bar/hotels in courtyards behind those typical big, square Yoruba houses.  You didn't see much dancing at Total Garden but dancing to Juju was the norm at these nightspots.

One of my favorite bands played at a small, narrow club tucked behind a building that housed a restaurant on the second floor.  It was in the commercial district devoted to auto parts and auto repair.  I was introduced to it by the taxi driver I enlisted in my first reconnaissance of Ibadan.  After riding shotgun with him for his entire shift (4/5 a.m. to 1 p.m.) he took me to the restaurant for lunch (on me) and happened to mention there was a good Juju band there at night.  That night he picked me up and took me there, and it became another of my favorites.

My other favorite Juju spot was introduced to me by Wole Soyinka.  One night four of us (all actors in Soyinka's troupe except me) were out with Soyinka, who was driving his VW with all the windows closed, as usual.  He headed up into the Ibadan hills, those oldest of Yoruba neighborhoods near the traditional city hall.  Up on one of the highest hills was a three-story building with colored lights strung along the edge of the roof, about four or five feet above the railing.  It was an open-air club and dance place, with the best view of Ibadan imaginable.  And a good Juju band with that peculiarity of some of them, an accordion lead instead of a guitar.  This place also had some of the most splendidly, traditionally dressed and stately women you could hope to see in a dance club.

The Juju music in Ibadan in those years was still an elemental brew of Yoruba folk music and electric guitar, the songs long and discursive, the singer tossing in references to people and events taking place around him.  It was a far cry from the huge, elaborate Juju bands of King Sunny Ade and Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, who became Nigerian and Afro-Pop superstars in the late Seventies and Eighties.  If you had the pleasure of seeing one of those bands here in the U.S., you saw over 20 musicians playing everything from a phalanx of electric guitars and talking drums to trap drums, horns and Hawaiian and/or pedal steel guitar.  The Juju bands of Sixties Ibadan were like horse-and-buggies to those band's overland Mercedes coaches.

I lost the few 45 rpm records of Juju I brought home with me, and for years it was impossible to find any early Juju music on record here.  But now there are a couple of Juju CDs out that will stir memories for anyone who heard it in the Sixties.

"Lucky Stars and Rosy Mornings:  The 60s Ibadan Juju Scene" (Original Music) is a collection of rare 45s from the late Sixties by local Ibadan Juju bands.  There are 17 songs by seven different bands, with such names as Michael Robinson & His Ever Ready Sports Band, the Easy Life Dandies and F.A. Jimmy West & His Rosy Morning Band.  The recordings are sometimes scratchy, the sound hardly hi-fi, and the music raw and elemental.  But it's the perfect soundtrack to reveries about nights spent in Ibadan in the Sixties.  (Available from Original Music, 418 Lasher Rd., Tivoli, NY 12583. Phone: 914-756-2767; fax 914-756-2027. E-mail: ORIMU@aol.com)

"Ju Ju Jubilation," Chief Ebenezer Obey (EMI Hemisphere Records, a division of Capitol Records).  This is the Juju superstar before his band expanded much beyond the traditional Juju ensemble, although you can hear a second guitar (Hawaiian) and more than one talking drum.  But this is big ticket Juju, very professional, although still close enough to the roots to remind you of Sixties Ibadan.

This is an arts and music column, and in future editions I'll be exploring more recent Nigerian music recordings, as well as fiction, plays and art. If you know of any such developments, especially here, please let me know.  Finally, each column will end with a puzzler/question. No prizes for correct answers, but I'll acknowledge the first one I receive in the next column's puzzler section. E-mail answers to "George Kanzler" gkjazz@viconet.com

Puzzler: By 1970, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and other members of the British Rock Invasion were sporting double-necked guitars, leading most rock fans to assume the instrument was an invention of a British rocker. It wasn't. What Nigerian bandleader played and had his band members playing double-necked guitars of his own design as early as 1964?

FON AIDS NIGERWIVES PROJECT

FON Board of Directors approved a $500 donation to Nigerwives Braille Book Center at its July meeting.  But, who are Nigerwives? 

In the early 1970’s, Nigeria’s oil economy was booming and foreign workers could remit 50% of their salaries directly to home countries.  Otherwise, one could take only limited money out of Nigeria.  So, direct remittance was important to many families.

In the mid-1970’s, in an effort to conserve foreign reserves, the government announced that while most foreign workers could still remit 50% of wages to home countries, foreign wives of Nigerians would be permitted to remit only 25% of wages.

This angered several expatriate wives who gathered to discuss the issue.  They soon realized that to fight the change, they needed to organize.  They talked with friends, and numbers grew. They petitioned.  They won back a right to a 50% remittance!

"I think we were almost startled at our success," remembers one of the founders, Cathy Zastrow Onyemelukwe, (4) 62-64.  "But we realized that we thoroughly enjoyed working together for a common goal and wanted to institutionalize our efforts."

Thus, Nigerwives was born.  The early group was women who lived in and around Lagos, meeting in each other’s homes, and trying to put together a formal group with a life of its own.  "We struggled to define our mission and our membership," Cathy said.  "But Nigerwives remained an organization whose first aim is to assist foreign wives to integrate into Nigerian society."

Members have come from Japan and Iceland, Sierra Leone and Kenya.  Some women speak little English when they first come, although most members are British, West Indian, or American.  Recently the group has included Russians, and second-generation daughters who have married Nigerians.

In the early 1980’s, Nigerwives became a national organization with a branch in Kaduna, then in Enugu.  Eventually they had a national meeting in Ilorin.

An early Nigerwives successful venture was a daylong seminar in Lagos on issues relating to children of mixed marriages.  Another success was a political one—obtaining the right for expatriate wives to get re-entry visas valid for the life of the passports.

Nigerwives now has its own place in Yaba.  The Lagos group, still the largest and most active, has a yearly fund-raising bazaar whose proceeds go to many good works.  One of the most enduring and far-reaching has been The Braille Project, initiated by Jean Obi, a British wife who worked for the West African Exams Council for many years.

Jean persuaded the council to give exams in Braille.  To do that, she learned Braille and got the exams transcribed.  Next she enlisted Nigerwives to record books on tape for blind students.

Today Nigerwives’ national project, the Braille Book Production Center, has been in operation for three years.  FON’s donation will join those Nigerwives has received from UNICEF, the American Women’s Club, and Ashland Oil, among others.  Most importantly, the Braille Book Production Center has helped thousands of blind Nigerian students.
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