Poison and Medicine: Ethnicity and Power in a Nigerian City, 1966 to 1986

POLITICS Douglas A. Anthony. Poison and Medicine: Ethnicity and Power in a Nigerian City, 1966 to 1986. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 2002/Oxford: James Currey, 2002. xi + 288 pp. Photographs. Maps. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. $64.95. Cloth. $24.95. Paper.

Ethnicity is a notoriously dangerous concept. Within the double-edged metaphor of "poison and medicine" that Douglas Anthony chooses to use, it is clearly the poisonous that predominates. he focuses upon the traditional Hausa city of Kano (3.3 m. population in 2003) in the far north of Nigeria. It is his social laboratory. But as Anthony warms to his theme, "medicinal" attributes are revealed. We are shown that here in old Kano, as elsewhere, it is how ethnicity is used and for what purposes that determine whether its "poisonous" or "medicinal" attributes will prevail.

After reviewing the post-coup events of 1966, he shows how the old Northern elite, enraged at being ousted from their positions of power by "scheming Ibos" (as they saw it), poured out pure "poison." Ibos, were "arrogant, money-grabbing, clannish" people (120) who thought nothing of using "thuggery, guns and violence" (124) to gain their political ends. Muslims throughout the north responded with lethal violence. In Kano and its surrounding area, Ibos were hunted down. Most who could escape made haste to return to their distant East Region homelands.

As early as 1968, however, with the Biafran War fiercely aflame, the Federal Military Government (FMG) started to inject a little "medicine" into ethnic wounds. It expressed "great sympathy" for ordinary Ibos who, it maintained, had been misled by "Ojukwu and his rebel gang" (130). The ordinary Ibos, declared the FMG, with all their acknowledged skills, energy, and enterprise, had much to contribute and were welcome in the Nigerian territory.

At war's end, as many Ibos made their cautious way back to Kano, they were relieved to find that most Hausa welcomed them. Poison, Anthony discovered, had been replaced with more medicine. Positive attributes were emphasized. The Ibos, for their part, showed humility. The past was past; it was time to get back to business on terms now more satisfactory to Kano's Hausa majority. Much attention is given to the remarkable "medicinal" arrangements whereby the majority of returning Ibos managed successfully to reclaim real property. Through its Abandoned Property Committee (APC), the Kano State Government did much to facilitate these restorations. By the 1980s, Anthony maintains, "poisonous" feelings seldom surfaced. "Kano One" residents (those in Kano before the civil war) were joined by "Kano Two" emigrants fresh from the heart of old Biafra. The newcomers found restored Ibo Town Unions, even a "traditional" rulership in place, and the reestablished presence of earlier arrivals in the local economy.

While Kanawa (Hausa Muslim residents of the old city of Kano) and Ibos themselves continued to inject Ibo ethnicity with much "medicine," by the early 9 1990s the level of "poison" was nevertheless rising. Ibos were once again thought of as "assertive," "clannish," "aggressive," and "materialistic." In light of recent violent disorders, Anthony is concerned that growing hostility between Muslim and Christian elements could all too easily escalate and shift into north versus south ethnic alignments. Were this to happen, then all the "poison" of bitter memories could reemerge with terrible force.

If there is a weakness in this study, it is the absence of basic data, simply presented, from the 122 interviews upon which this work was principally constructed. Tables, graphs, and charts would have greatly assisted in providing objective data (age, occupation, place of residence, etc.); comparative population ratios; totals of Ibo lives lost in Kano City and its surrounds during the 1966 "cleansings"; prewar totals of real property owned by Ibos in Kano, along with how much was recovered, how much lost; and more. Certainly, conceptual development is important, but the reader does need the information from which conceptual argument proceeds.

That said, for anyone interested in interethnic relations-and particularly in Nigeria with its myriad ethnic elements-this book contains much of substantive and theoretical value. The metaphor of "poison and medicine" caused this reviewer to refresh his thinking, to reorientate his approach, to recognize new areas of flexibility, and to be reminded that ethnicity, indeed ethnic substance itself, is ever-changing, ever malleable.

Michael Vickers

Sussex, England

Copyright African Studies Association Dec 2003
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