The ‘leopard’ killings of southern Annang, Nigeria, 1943–48

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThis article examines the extraordinary outbreak of violent deaths which occurred among the Annang and Ibibio of eastern Nigeria in the mid-1940s and was described by the colonial police as ‘probably without parallel in the history of violent crime of any country in the world’. Between 1943 and 1948, but especially after 1945, one mutilated body after another was found in quick succession in a restricted border area shared by 130 villages in the Abak and Opobo districts of the Old Calabar Province. Over 200 such deaths were recorded in a short space of time. Initially medical officers who examined the bodies of the victims seemed to agree with the local people that the deaths were caused by genuine leopards, which were a constant menace to life in the area. The local police were preoccupied with other matters and showed little interest in deaths attributed to wild animals. But vague rumours were current, especially in missionary circles, that a ‘leopard cult’ of professional assassins might be engaged in murderous activities in the area, covering the tracks of their crime by simulating the clawmarks and ravages of wild beasts. Preliminary inquiries by local officials in 1945 appeared to confirm the suspicions and, in spite of strong doubts and protests from various quarters, a large force of police was let loose on the ‘infected’ area to suppress the murder gang and any other local organisation associated with the killings. At least 102 suspects were convicted for man-leopard murders, seventy-seven of whom were actually hanged in one of the most bizarre anti-crime campaigns of the colonial period.