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ABSTRACT The Nigerian police discovered dozens of corpses at a shrine in Anambra State, in southeastern Nigeria, in 2004. There were suggestions in the many newspapers covering the story that these were evidence of what Nigerians call ‘ritual murders’. In fact, the corpses almost certainly were of people who had died elsewhere and been removed to the shrine only subsequently. However, the revelation that senior political figures had attended the Okija shrine and sworn oaths there drew attention to an informal politics in which traditional shrines credited with powers of life and death may play an important role, of interest even to national politicians. Discerning why this is so entails considering the long-term effects of the colonial policy of Indirect Rule and the subsequent development of a clandestine political system in which local religious institutions sometimes play an important role.
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