African evangelists destroy artifacts

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ACHINA, Nigeria (AP) — Born to a family of traditional priests, Ibe Nwigwe converted to Christianity as a boy. Under the sway of born-again fervor as a man, he gathered the paraphernalia of ancestral worship — a centuries-old stool, a metal staff with a wooden handle and the carved figure of a god — and burned them as his pastor watched.

"I had experienced a series of misfortunes and my pastor told me it was because I had not completely broken the covenant with my ancestral idols," Mr. Nwigwe, 52, said of the bonfire three years ago. "Now that I have done that, I hope I will be truly liberated."

Generations ago, European colonists and Christian missionaries looted Africa's ancient treasures. Now, Pentecostal Christian evangelists — most of them Africans — are helping wipe out remaining traces of how Africans once worked, played and prayed.

As poverty deepened in Nigeria from the mid-1980s, Pentecostal Christian church membership surged. The new faithful found comfort in preachers like evangelist Uma Ukpai, who promised that material success was next to godliness. He has boasted of overseeing the destruction of more than 100 shrines in one district in December 2005 alone.

Achina, a community of mainly farmers and traders, is typical of towns and villages in the ethnic Igbo-dominated Christian belt of southeastern Nigeria where this new Christian fundamentalism is evident. The old gods are linked to the devil, and preachers are urging their rejection and their destruction.

The Ezeokolo, Achina's main shrine, has been looted repeatedly of its carved god figures. Although no one has been caught, suspects range from people acting on Christian impulses to treasure thieves.

A village civic association recently volunteered to build a house to keep burglars away from a giant wooden gong decorated with carved male, female and snake figures. The gong in the market square is reputed to be more than 400 years old, and in decades past was sounded in times of emergency.

"We feared it may be stolen or destroyed like so many of our traditional cultural symbols," said Chuma Ezenwa, a Lagos-based lawyer.

The move to protect a communal symbol has not changed the minds of others.

Ikechukwu Nzekwe, a 48-year-old farmer who belongs to a traditional masquerade sect, rues the action of his younger brother, a born-again Christian who destroyed the family's masquerade costume, including pieces dating back seven generations.