acknowledgments

Many friends, students, and colleagues have accompanied this study, which began as a projected five-year plan that ineluctably evolved into a ten-year odyssey. Intellectual, logistical, and financial support has come from a variety of people and institutions, for which I remain deeply grateful. Fieldwork and archival research in Lagos from June through De- cember 1993 was funded by a Fulbright–Council for the International Exchange of Scholars fellowship (92-67755) that arranged my double affiliation in Nigeria with the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civ- ilization (cbaac) and the Department of Cultural Studies at the Uni- versity of Lagos. Given the turbulence of this six-month period, starting with the abrogation of the June 12 elections followed by riots, strikes, and the fateful coup of the violent and repressive Abacha regime, these were interesting times; and my thanks extend to my official Nigerian hosts at that time, Dr. Union Edebiri of cbaac, and Dele Jegede at the University of Lagos, who stood up for me when my presence became a potential liability. Many Nigerians assisted me with legendary hospital- ity, and their names would fill many pages; particular thanks, however, go to Professor Jacob Ade Ajayi and his wife, Christie Ajayi, Segun Oje- wuyi, Dan Awodoye, Ogoni activist James Nalley, Yusuf Adebayo Grillo, the late Bola Ige, Dr. Garba Ashiwaju, Dr. Judith Asuni, Lari Williams, Babalola Lanade, Uche N. Abalogu, Mrs. Y. Fowosire, Dr. Chibogu, and Lieutenant General Olusegun Obasanjo, former head of state and Grand Patron of festac, who reminisced with me on two occasions and would be wrongfully imprisoned by Abacha before winning two presidential elections. In addition to extended interviews, I further benefited from the special collections of the Cultural Library at the Na- tional Theatre and the extraordinary press file at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. With the (then) British high commissioner, Sir Christopher MacRae, and his wife, Lady Mette, I acknowledge a special friendship and rewarding reciprocation—access to Nigerian vips in ex- change for entry into Yemoja’s shrine (ipara) during the annual festival in Ayede-Ekiti. To Olusanya Ibitoye, my principal research assistant during this and my previous projects in Nigeria, I can only say “A kìí dúpé ará e.ni, o.mo. ìyá ni wa” [We don’t thank ourselves, we are children of one mother]. If a Fulbright-cies fellowship launched this study of cultural pro- duction during the oil boom in Nigeria, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship (fa-36156) helped bring it to a close, supporting final research at the Rhodes House Library in Oxford, an affiliation with St. Antony’s College in 2000, and a year of much-needed sabbatical. At Oxford I benefited greatly from Alan Lodge’s archival logic and magic, Anthony Kirk-Greene’s legendary assistance and unparalleled knowl- edge of colonial Nigeria, William Beinart’s lively seminars and collo- quia, and the stimulating Africanist community around them, which included the late Helen Callaway. Other centers of Africanist scholar- ship where I have presented various chapters and drafts over the years include the Center for West African Studies in Birmingham, with Karin Barber, Paolo Moraes de Farias, and Tom McCaskie; University College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies, with Murray Last and Chris Pinney, Akin Oyetade, Richard Fardon, Richard Rath- bone, and Donal Cruise O’Brien; and the University of Manchester, with Richard Werbner, all of whom provided rigorous and valuable feed- back. I have also benefited greatly from Northwestern University’s Afri- cana Library collection, and many seminars (in which I first encoun- tered the influential work of Michael Watts, the grounded iconoclasm of Ed Wilmsen, and the challenging criticisms of Agbo Folarin) held at the Program for African Studies when directed by David William Cohen and then Jane Guyer. At the University of Chicago, my intellectual home for fourteen years, and where passion and scholarship are impossible to separate,

viii acknowledgments words threaten to fail me . . . except to acknowledge that my study de- veloped dialogically and dialectically, in many a challenge and riposte, with a critical spirit amplified throughout seminars, meetings, con- ferences, and colloquia, most notably the African Studies Workshop. My thanks extend to Beth Ann Buggenhagen, Alex Dent, Vicki Bren- nan, Nicole Castor, Robert Blunt, Jesse Shipley, Anne-Marie Makhulu, Frank Romagosa, Paul Ryer, Brian Brazeal, Ralph Austen, Carol Breck- enridge, Constanze Weise, Anne Ch’ien, the late Barney Cohn, Jennifer Cole, Jim Fernandez, Ray Smith, Ray Fogelson, William Hanks, Mar- shall Sahlins, Terry Turner, William Sewell, Arjun Appadurai, John Kelly, Jackie Bhabha, David Laitin, Claudio Lomnitz, John MacAloon (who also arranged an invaluable interview with Andrew Young), Wil- liam Mazzarella, Robert Nelson, Tom Mitchell, Moishe Postone, Ma- nuela Carneiro da Cunha, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Michael Silverstein, George Steinmetz, George Stocking, Salikoko Mufwene, Lisa Wedeen, and especially John and Jean Comaroff—leaders in the historical eth- nography of Africa, comrades in the broader struggle of decolonizing Africanist discourse. With David Brent, my patient yet demanding edi- tor at University of Chicago Press, the deep history of this text bespeaks an unbreakable friendship. To ‘Dayo Laoye, whose art and wisdom con- tinue to inspire, “may you live longer than your forefathers.” At ucla, where I have since become an anthropologist among the historians, I received a final volley of inputs and arrows through the valuable comments of Ned Alpers, Bobby Hill, Richard Sklar, Emily Musil, Don Cosentino, Teo Ruiz, Chris Waterman, and Allen Roberts, who, as director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center, of- fered moral, intellectual, and institutional support during the final stretch of the writing process. Finally, I thank my better half, Robin Derby, for sharing my love of Nigeria, and for opening my eyes and expanding my vistas to the Caribbean.

Versions of several chapters have appeared in edited volumes. Chap- ter 5 appeared as “The Subvention of Tradition: A Genealogy of the Ni- gerian Durbar,” in State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn, ed. George Steinmetz, 213–252 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999). Copyright © 1999 by Cornell University. Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press. Chapter 7 appeared as “ibb 419: Nigerian Democracy and the Politics of Illusion,” in Civil Society and the Political Imagination in Africa, ed. John and Jean Comaroff, 267–

acknowledgments ix 307 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). Copyright © 1999 by The University of Chicago. Chapter 8 appeared as “Death and the King’s Henchmen: Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Political Ecology of Citizen- ship in Nigeria,” in Ogoni’s Agonies: Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Crisis in Ni- geria, ed. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, 121–160 (Trenton, NJ: awp, 1998). Permission to reprint them is gratefully acknowledged.

x acknowledgments