Ex(o)rcising Power: Women Leadership and Religious Authority in 21st-Century Nigeria

This paper addresses the role of female priests who exercised their leadership functions in late 1960s through early 2000s in Ebira communities, in central Nigeria. Born in the twentieth century, under special and noteworthy circumstances, these women, known in the local Ebira language as Onoku, had the status and privilege to enter religious spaces gendered male and typically prohibited to women. Senior Onoku fulfilled typical priestly functions for the community such as performing assessments, divining, healing, and administering medical care. While one of their main missions was to perform these important religious and political roles that intersect with values in contemporary life, most of their authority was connected to Ebira local religious practices.

Organized in female secret societies, Onoku underwent rigorous and strict education and training. This paper examines how Onuku have acted as politico-religious leaders, negotiating the interface between the contemporary nation state and traditional customs in local communities of Ebiraland. The talk will feature the transformation Onoku institutions underwent during the last half century, since Nigeria’s process of decolonization. Additionally, it will examine the ways in which expansions of Islam and Christianity have challenged and reshaped the leadership roles these women acquired. Based on oral history interviews, ethnographic, and archival research in Nigeria, the paper will address the transformations in the roles of these female leaders over time in local and regional politics of Nigeria.