UMUADA AND TRADITIONAL PEACEBUILDING IN IGBOLAND NIGERIA 1900 – 2010

ABSTRACT

The proliferating rate of and the protraction of many violent conflicts in the world from the

20th century up to the first decade of the 21st  century tend to point towards the inadequacy of the  existing  formal  preventive  and  post-conflict  peacebuilding  mechanisms.   Since  the situation seems to be worse in Africa, especially in terms of losses, extent of devastation and retardation of development,  there have been calls for alternative  peacebuilding models that could possibly incorporate some indigenous peace structures and mechanisms that could also help to correct the often accused lopsided gender posture of the prevalent models. In view of this, the Umuada (Daughters of the community) among the Igbo of southeast Nigeria quickly comes to mind. Unfortunately, a concrete historical background and analysis that could prove or disprove the potency and sustainability of the Umuada groups and the peace tradition is non-existent. So, using mainly primary sources obtained from direct oral interviews, Focus Group Discussions, archival materials and official documents, the work tried to: unravel the origin  of  the  Umuada  culture  and  the  group’s  organizational  methods;  ascertain  if  they actually played peacebuilding roles, mainly from the colonial period to about 2010; determine the influence of the changing times on their roles and the factors responsible for such changes; and to highlight the deducible lessons from the peacebuilding potentials of the group.The study employed  the  orthodox  historical  descriptive,  narrative  and  analytical  method.  The  thematic  and chronological tools were used in the interpretation of verifiable information obtained from the primary and  secondary  sources.The  study confirmed  the religious  origin,  active  involvement  of the Umuada in peacebuilding activities,the changes, resilience and potentials of the group among the Igbo and the Igbo diaspora. However, it noted a lot ofchanges  in the peacebuilding activities of  the  Ụmụada  due  mainly  to  such  globalizing  factors  as  formal  administrative  patterns,  alien religions, urbanization, Western education and global women movements which must be addressed in order to adequately tap from the potentials of the group.No doubt, considering its in-depth analysis and expositions, the work forms a reliable basis for the possible adaptation of this age-long peace culture to the wider needs of the present and the replication of same among other ethnic groups in Nigeria and Africa generally.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Peace remains one of the important issues that have continued to reverberatein national and  international  forums,  particularly  in  discussions  on  the  best  approach  towards  the attainment  of societal order and security as well as social welfare and  spiritual uplifting for humanity. As at 2016, the road to the attainment of this desire for peace is still grappling with the idea of complementing the modern structures and mechanisms with the traditional ones and the need for gender mainstreaming of the efforts towards peace and security. In retrospect, the pursuit of peace by humans, both individually and collectively, date back to antiquity. Among the great thinkers, St. Augustine recognized the fact that “every man is in quest of peace, even in waging a war…” and that “the peace of the whole universe is tranquillity of order and order is the  arrangement  of things, equal and unequal, in pattern which assigns to each its proper

position”.1   Even Machiavelli’s  admonition that the Prince should prefer being feared by  his

subjects and the need to adopt the right form of government2  was, according to Burns, mainly for the sake of orderliness as well as “the power and safety of the country over which he ruled”3. In other words, the notion grasped by humanity has been that the aspirations of  life are best accomplished  under  a peaceful  atmosphere.  This desire  for peace is no  less  a necessity in present times. As summed-up by Mary E. King and EbrimaSall,

Peace is increasingly perceived as a precondition for human development, as well as a deep human yearning and universal aspiration. Broad  economic development  and prosperity are possible only in the  presence of positive peace,  as  opposed  to  the  absence  of  war.  Acute  conflicts  compromise economic stability,  halt progress, and retard  infrastructural improvements. Chronic     disputes     trivialize     human     life     and     render     persons expendable…Futures disappear, and strife and insurgencies destroy cultures,

the organization of societies, and the course of civilization.4

With the realization  of the  inevitability  and  necessity of conflict  in human  dealings, humanity recognized  the  need  for the management  of conflicts  as a way of  reducing  their destructive tendencies and the endeavour has passed through different phases. The horrors of the World War I led to the idea of Collective Security among  nations as a better means of avoiding   a   repetition   of   the   attendant   devastations.    Unfortunately,   as   captured   by AgostinhoZacarias,   the  period  between  the  two   World   Wars  “saw  the  lowest  point  of

‘utopianism’ in the field of international relations which sought morality and  co-operation in place of competition and war in the management of international affairs.”5  According to Edward Carr, the idea of Collective Security based on morality failed because the morality of individuals

differed from the morality of states, which is usually influenced more by the interests of the particular state than by the need for international cooperation.6  Even though the World War II placed greater burden on humanity and nations alike on the need to seek  new and realistic ways

of guaranteeing international peace, the era of ‘rationalism’ that followed and the formation of the United Nations (UN) failed to guarantee the much-desired peace due  mainly to the Cold War  rivalries  that  characterized   the  bipolar  world  divide.  The   situation  “threatened   to immobilize the UN and constrained the organization’s ability to respond to and seek to mitigate

problems arising from conflict situations.”7

The end of the Cold War opened another phase and hope in the pursuit of  international peace and security.  The final collapse  of the Soviet  Union largely removed  the bottlenecks hitherto associated with decision-making  in the Security Council. The  UN, therefore, became invigorated to intervene and enforce the peace, even in internal and  intractable conflicts. The then UN Secretary-General,  Boutros Boutros-Ghali,  extolled  the potentials of the new phase with regard to the ability of the UN to meet the demands of the changing times, especially in the

areas of preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding.8  In all, the new

phase “brought exceptions to the principle of non-intervention,  and reopened the debate over and challenge to the concept of sovereignty,” and “the principle that the consent of all parties to

an internal conflict was a precondition for UN intervention began to be diluted.”9  The roles of the UN in the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, and the Gulf Wars10 as well as the tacit support given by the organization during the recent Arab Spring, particularly to the NATO

forces in Libya, are extant indicators of this phase.

Peacebuilding  is an essential integral aspect of preventive  diplomacy in this post-Cold  War phase  of the pursuit of international  peace.  It was intended  as a means of  establishing  the necessary supporting structures for the sustenance of peace and the restoration of peace between warring parties. This involves the provision of the conditions that would sustain political, social and economic development, progress and stability, in line with the peculiarities of a particular society.Since  societies differ in their cultures and  worldview, and since each conflict or war tends to possess unique characteristics, especially in terms of causal factors,it became expedient to profoundly study each conflict situation and society, in order to design a suitable roadmap to long-lasting peace in that particular society. The adoption and acceptance of peacebuilding was mainly influenced by the fact that it conformed to the prevailing notionof conflict management as  a  substitute  for  conflict  resolution.  Secondly,  there  was  the  need  to  forestall  possible escalation  of  conflicts  after  the  achievement  of  ceasefire  and  the  fulfilment  of  the  peace agreement  by the parties to a conflict. This was the case in Mozambique  where the United Nations peacekeeping operation (ONUMOZ) mandate in 1992 was extended to cover political,

military, electoral and humanitarian needs in the country.11

Moreover,  it was envisaged  by actors in the international  system  that  peacebuilding could take care of the emerging new forms of violent intra-state conflicts at the end of the Cold War. This manifested in Africa more than it did in other parts of the world. The situation fanned the embers of ethnic sentiments and bigotry and, since Africa has the highest number of ethnic diversity, the continent has recorded cases of aggravation of existing sectional conflicts and the highest number of inter-ethnic conflicts and civil wars with the attendant human and material losses since the end of the Cold War. This  could be discerned from the experiences of such

African countries as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi,  Somali, Chad, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Cote d’lvoire and Mali. In most of these intra-state or inter-ethnic conflicts, especially in Somali, Congo DR and Rwanda, in view of their recurrent nature, the UN and its idea of peacebuilding  with post-conflict  bias, has not achieved  much success in spite of the enormous costs in terms of human and material resources.

As in the Balkans, where the UN realized the difficult nature of keeping the peace  in a society torn apart and polarized by ethnic rivalries, it became obvious in the above-mentioned cases that the UN’s peacebuilding  efforts were not enough to promote  confidence,  halt the conflict and create the necessary environment for reconciliation and  good neighbourliness.  In line with an earlier observation, these tensions, conflicts and civil wars that are threatening the stability and even the existence of most countries in Africa  have grown to become a serious challenge to the continent and, perhaps, explains why “ethnicity is seen as the reigning concept

in African studies at present.”12  This situation is worsened by the subsequent outburst of intra-

ethnic or intra-sectional conflicts bedevilling the international system. Recently, it manifested in various forms such as the ‘Arab Spring’.

The situation in Nigeria is a microcosm of what is generally prevalent in Africa.TheZango- Kataf crisis in the North; the Umuleri and Aguleri crisis in the East; the Ife-Modakeke crisis in the West; and the Tiv-Jukun crisis in the Middle Belt remain extant examples of intra-ethnic or intra sectional conflicts in the country.There are also the emerging religious conflicts mostly in the Northern part of the country,  as typified  by the  Boko Haram insurgency.   These are in addition to thevarious agitations by and within the minority groups in the country, which have led to the proliferation of armed militias especially in the Niger Delta region. Though these inter and intra-ethnic conflicts are easily attributed to ‘wrong foundation’ laid by the British colonial authorities,  they arise  from  the  politicization  of  ethnicity  and  other  cultural  attributes  like religion as well as socio-economic deprivations, both real and imagined. According to Caroline Thomas,  conflicts  in such states are fuelled  by political disputes,  economic imbalances  and

socio-cultural challenges that emanate from both the gravity of inimical international settings or conditions and the interests of the various sections within.13  Whatever is the cause, the truth remains that these conflicts, or rather seeds of conflicts, need to be  properly managed  using

appropriate peacebuilding measures. This is because conflicts are natural occurrences especially among complex groups which, according to Otite, not only “energizes and motivates” positive social changes if well managed but also “has the high potential of degenerating into genocide or fratricide as it occurred among the Ife-Modakeke and Tiv- Jukun of Nigeria, and the Hutus and

Tutsis of  Burundi and Rwanda.”14

From around the last two decades of the 20th  century,  due mainly to the apparent  and recurrent inadequacy of some of UN’s peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts, there have been suggestions  for the adoption of modified  means of attaining sustainable peace.  One of such suggestions  is the necessity for gender equality and gender mainstreaming  in  peacebuilding. This harps on the need to ensure that equal opportunities and chances are granted to men and women, as well as the incorporation of such gender equality consciousness in the formulation and implementation of peacebuilding policies. The pressure from various quarters towards this direction largely influenced the adoption, in 2000, of Resolution 1325 (on Women, Peace and Security) by the UN Security Council. Apart from supporting earlier endeavours like the 1995

Beijing Declaration, the historic resolution acknowledged the “important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peacebuilding”  and stressed the  “importance  of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion

of peace and security.”15

Unfortunately, in spite of the interest shown by the international community towards gender mainstreaming  in conflict  resolution  and peacebuilding,  the efforts  have not  yielded  much. According to theCanadian International Development Agency (CIDA),

… in many ways, the attention appears to be at the margins of mainstream thinking   on   peacebuilding.   Initiative   after   initiative   is   planned   and implemented without attention to how the needs and  priorities of women, men,  boys  and  girls  differ.  There  is  an  on-going  need  to  sharpen  our analysis,  learn  lessons,  listen  to  women  involved  in building  peace  and

develop methodological tools.16

Also, the application of the principle, especially in Africa, excludes the ‘real’ grassroots women groups and representatives. At present, it has not been easy for majority of the rural women in their  efforts  to  transit  from  informal  or  traditional  pattern  to  the  formal  peace  table.  In traditional  Igbo society,  women were respected  active  participants in the peacebuilding  and peace-making processes and could even exert much influence, depending on the situation, over their traditional male leaders who, as wisdom demands only acted as ‘ceremonial’ heads during such critical situations.  However,  colonialism  for obvious  reasons,  made  more use of men thereby elevating their positions and so distorted the hitherto complementary nature of the roles of both sexes. Viewed  against the background  that the acquisition of western education and habits,  invariably,  became the major determinant  of who occupies  what position,  when and how, it followed that the rural women were left ‘behind’ in the ‘new’ arrangement. Therefore, women who are able to make it, through thick and thin to the high places, are less than 15% and

they either avoid  or find  it difficult  to properly address women  issues.17   Most times,  they

engage themselves in futile competition with the men, even distance themselves from, and look at their ‘less fortunate’ colleagues in the ‘lower’ places with derision. Such women thus hardly made any appreciable  impact in peacebuilding  in traditional African settings  because, in the pursuit of gender equality, “western women” emphasize “individual  female autonomy, while African   women   have   been   more   concerned   with   culturally   linked   forms   of   public

participation.”18

The second suggestion is on the need for proper consideration of the root causes of each conflict and the active involvement of the local and traditional actors in the  formulation and implementation  of peacebuilding  policies. It has been the norm for  peacebuilding  activities,

both by the UN and non-governmental  organizations  (NGOs),  to be dominated  by  external actors  and  “frequently,  scant  attention  is paid  to  the  consideration  of  peacebuilding  as an indigenous undertaking.”19  It has also been observed by Licklider that peace efforts during civil

wars fail as a result of the inability to solve the root or peculiar problems that led to such wars20

which, according to Lederach, manifest in various forms and “are characterized by deep-rooted intense animosity, fear, and severe stereotyping.”21This could be responsible for the prevalence of seemingly ‘incurable’  inter-ethnic and even intra-ethnic  conflicts  especially in Africa. As testified  by  Stephen  Ryan,  “despite  the  inherent  problems  in  attempting  ethnic  conflict resolution, it may be that the lack of success may also be a consequence of the inadequacies of the methods used.”22

For instance,AbdullahiMohamoud  points  out that  “through  top-down  approach,  twelve

national reconciliation conferences were convened with the goal of restoring a central authority in Somalia, yet no success was achieved.”23  Netabay attributed  this to the fact  that “Somali people are very alert and sensitive to any kind of authority that is imposed from outside their country or from above through a top-down approach to peacebuilding” because such failed to properly  address  the  main  causes  of  the  Somali  civil  war  and  the  attendant  deep-rooted animosity, suspicion and fear.24 To him, “the best strategy that could solve the problems related to power, resource-sharing, participation, and representation of all communities would be” the adoption  of  “a  pure  bottom-up  approach”  or  the  involvement  of  local  actors  which  is  a

“comprehensive and community-centered  long term strategy that could bring lasting peace in divided societies.”25

Closely related  to the above is the need to incorporate  the cultures and traditions  that sustain particular societies into formal peacebuilding activities. In most cases, there  are tacit effort by external peace builders to impose western ideologies,  practices and  institutions on societies  without  regard  to  the  need  for  sustainable  peace.  For  instance,  criticisms  have continued  to  trail  “the  current  peacebuilding  paradigm  of  ‘liberal  internationalism’  which

assumes  that  the  best  way  to  consolidate  peace  is  to  transform  states  into  stable  market democracies as quickly as possible.”26  To Paris, the failure of many post-conflict peacebuilding processes is attributable to the over-bearing influence of imposed socio-political and economic policies  that  do  not  conform  to  the  requirements  of the  situation.27   The  situation  raises  a fundamental question. Is it possible and better to‘re-create’ a society entirely, in terms of new

institutions and traditions, within the usually limited UN peacebuilding period or to build on the existing traditions and institutions which stand to guarantee long-term peace?

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

From the foregoing, it can be discerned that the calls for innovation revolve around gender mainstreaming and the involvement of local and traditional actors in peacebuilding efforts.Since men tend to dominate the present peacebuilding activities, the worries about gender equality, invariably, point to the inclusion of more women in peacebuilding. In Igboland, the Ụmụada comes to mind whenever issues of involvement of local actors and women in the maintenance of peace and order are being considered. Apart from  harbouring immense peaceful attributes and  the  myth/sacredness  that  pervaded  the  being  and  social  existence  of  most  African

women,28Ụmụada  is one of the traditional women groups that lubricated the wheels of socio-

political and economic progress  in the Igbo society since the pre-colonial  period. They  are usually  assigned  roles  in  conflict  resolution  and  the  peace  process  and  have  remained resilient.29However, the thought of involving the group in modern peacebuilding activities has raised some historical questions.

Firstly, how did the Umuada cultural tradition among the Igbo originate? It is important to ascertain the basis of the tradition in order to determine whether it originated from the people’s traditional cosmology or borrowed from outside. No doubt, this  influences the resilience,  or otherwise,    of    most    socio-cultural    traditions.    Moreover,    establishing    the    ‘roots’of theUmuadatradition is also necessary especially with regard to unravelling the  extent to which

its existence and the activities of the group were, ab initio, influenced by genuine desire  for peace.

Secondly, did the Ụmụada of the Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria play ‘peacebuilding’ roles in the past? In historical scholarship, it is quite necessary to separate facts from fiction, in order to guard against unfounded claims. Besides, if actually they played such role, from where did the Ụmụadagroups draw their strength? These questions need reliable answers because there is yet to be any appreciable  and authoritative  historical effort  towards this direction.  The few attempts at documenting the activities of the group are in the forms of references or remarks, articles, book chapters, and unpublished works which,  to a very large extent, cannot provide answers to the above questions because of their cursory nature and focal differences.

Thirdly, do the Ụmụada groups still play peacebuilding roles and how?It is common for some societies to continue to revel on the euphoria of their past glories without considering the natural element of change which time confers.The fewavailableworks especially from the other social science disciplines, apart from not being in-depth enough,  tend to see the roles of the Ụmụada from a static point of view. By ignoring the idea of  change and continuity in their analysis, such attempts fail to accurately extract the inherent historical lessons.

Fourthly, what was the nature of the peacebuilding efforts of the Ụmụada and was it able to ensure or help towards ensuring the stability of the various Igbo communities? In view of present lapses, one of the criticisms against the modern or formal approach to peacebuilding is its bias in favour of post-conflict situations which tend to disregard the preventive aspect of the concept.  Even  though  the  then  UN  Secretary-General,  Boutros-Ghali,  modified  his  earlier

statement in the 1995 Supplement to An Agenda for Peace30  which supported the  preventive

aspect of peacebuilding,  the misconception  is yet to be fully rectified. This has continued  to create operational  problems with regard to when peacebuilding  should  start or end  and the activities and processes that should be involved. So, did the Ụmụada wait till the  eruption of violence before swinging into action? Are there possible lessons and  potentials to be drawn

from the group’s efforts towards the augmentation of the present peacebuilding programmes and activities?

Fifthly,alongside their positive contributions, the Ụmụada groups have continued to attract unpleasant remarks as a result of their excesses. From the later part of the colonial period and more so since the post-colonial era, accusations have been levelled against the group.Ụmụada are fingered as the initiators, enforcers and supervisors of repugnant  widowhood practices.31

Some of them exhibit biases during the settlement of cases among their patrilineal kinsmen for

the sake of both financial and material gratifications. They use their period of sojourn during festivals and the funeral and mourning of dead kinsmen to exploit even the bereaved families who are usually ‘forced’ to meet their often impossible and ostentatious demands. Besides, their dictatorial tendencies at their patrilineal families have led to the ‘crashing’ of familial relations and many marital unions. This negative attributes have given rise to the ostensible accolade that

‘the fear of Ụmụada is the beginning of wisdom’. Ironically, the chronic victims of Ụmụada’s high-handedness are their fellow women – their brothers’ wives. Are these practices part of the

‘original’ tradition of the group?

Furthermore, could the peacebuilding roles of the Ụmụada shed more light on the nature of gender  relations  that  existed  in  the  traditional  Igbo  socio-political  arrangement,  especially during the pre-colonial period? Opinions are divided on the  position of women in traditional African societies generally and Igboland in particular. While some allege male domination and arrogation  of inferior  positions  to the women,  others  point to a situation where both sexes complemented each other based on their natural attributes and endowments.

Lastly, canỤmụadagroups play modern peacebuilding roles in their localities, especially if and when they are required to complement the efforts of the government  and  other external actors?

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