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THREE Performing Masculinities: Homecoming—and She Becomes a Man, ca. 1916–1930
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C Three Performing Masculinities: homecoming— and She Becomes a Man, ca. 1916–1930 Oge Otikpo / During the Time of the Destroyer: The Creation and Consolidation of a new Government By 1914, most of Igbo country had been subjugated by the British. It would take until 1920, though, to bring the expanse of land in the northernmost corner of Igboland effectively under British control. In chapter 2 we saw how the British relied on intelligence information provided by members of the groups they were attempting to conquer. Ahebi Ugbabe was one such informant. She revealed the routes the British could use to reach and conquer Enugu-Ezike. Even so, the British appropriation of Nigerian land did not occur easily or peacefully. On the contrary, the peoples of the Nigerian hinterland fought valiantly against the British invaders in military confrontations that sometimes stretched out over several years. Human beings were seized, compounds were burned, villages were razed to the ground. The peoples of Nsukka Division vividly recall the destruction of Ekwegbe, Ohodo, Opi, and Ede-Oballa by Colonel Trenchard, who was working under the command of Captain R. M. Heron, who had strict orders to teach the peoples of Nsukka Division a lesson for not willingly providing food and water to his NigerCross River Expedition troops in 1908. His actions earned Trenchard the name Otikpo (The Destroyer) and his dreaded commanding officer Heron the name Akpoko (Pepper).1 The result of these battles was the annexation of the Igbo interior— a surrender in which the defeated “natives” were forced to relinquish their guns in a process collectively remembered as oge ntiji egbe (the time that the guns were destroyed). During the Aro Expedition (1901–1902), the policy of the British protectorate, the government of the soon-to-be colony, was to demand the surrender of one gun for every four houses.2 This policy backfired in political terms; in the words of the British patrol officer, Major Gallway: “The practice of calling chiefs to meetings and then seizing them and of calling in guns to mark and then destroying them has resulted in a general distrust of the government and its policy.”3 Out of fear of injury or worse, death, Igbo people were forced to bring 98 THE FEMALE KING OF COLONIAL NIGERIA out their guns and stockpile them in front of the commanding British patrol officer, who reduced the arms stashes to burned rubble.4 Oge otikpo, Igbo communities were connected—often through the marketplace—by vibrant communication networks that conveyed gossip , rumor, and news. News of the destruction of guns and communities by the British during their so-called pacification (more appropriately, hammering) of Nigeria would have traveled freely throughout Igboland. It was, therefore, not surprising that certain villages would, out of fear of retaliation, choose to “befriend” the colonial invaders and present them with gifts. One such community was the Enugu-Ezike village of Amufie. Eighteen-year-old Abraham Eya was one of the Amufie delegates sent to appease the British soldiers who were camped at Umu-Ogbu-Ekposhi, Enugu-Ezike. There he met Ahebi Ugbabe, who was in the company of one or more of the British invaders. Although Eya incorrectly identified Ahebi as a slave girl who was sold to Idah and then Nupe, he provides an indigenous eyewitness account of her relationship with the British: Before the British came here, our people had heard stories about them and the strange guns they used at Obukpa. With that gun they had stopped the war between Ibagwa and Obukpa. We called that gun akpara. When they came here, I was small but I was among those who carried gifts to welcome them at [Umu-Ogbu-]Ekposhi, where they first camped. A Nupe man, Aduku [who would later become warrant chief], was the man who led us to them. Aduku was a trader. . . . It was Aduku who advised us to collect gifts and welcome them. Our people collected yams, chickens, eggs and other food items. All the members of the elders[’] council were to appoint a delegate each for carrying the gifts to the British at [Umu-Ogbu-] Ekposhi. [Umu-Ogbu-]Ekposhi was a fierce battlefield and all the people did not like to go to the strange men there. My father being a member of the elders[’] council had no other person to appoint but me. I was about 18 years. About thirty of us went. When we went there, they were many, about 600 in number...