American Anthropologist Richard Henderson Arrives Nigeria for Onitsha Ofala After 64 Years
Art
By Tony Okafor, Awka
American anthropologist and author, Professor Richard (Dick) Henderson, has arrived in Lagos, Nigeria , 64 years after his last stay in Onitsha, ahead of the 2026 Ofala Festival of the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe.
Henderson, who arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on Monday from Tucson, Arizona, in the United States, was accompanied by his son, Michael Henderson.
He is expected in Onitsha as a special guest of Igwe Achebe for the Ofala Festival scheduled for October 16 and 17.
The professor lived among the people of Onitsha between 1960 and 1962, a period during which he studied their social institutions, traditions and cultural practices.
He is widely known for his book, The King in Every Man: Evolutionary Trends in Onitsha Ibo Society and Culture, published in 1972.
The work examines the traditional institutions and cultural values that have shaped Onitsha society, including kingship, the Ozo institution, kindred structures and community life.
His research has earned the book recognition as an important contribution to the study of Onitsha culture and African anthropology.
Henderson’s continuing documentation work, undertaken with Helen Henderson and preserved through the online archive at amightytree.org, includes photographs, traditional shrines, cultural institutions and oral histories relating to Onitsha’s heritage.
The Ofala Strategic Marketing and Communications Team, in a statement announcing his arrival on Tuesday, described Henderson as an unusual foreign scholar whose work has contributed significantly to the preservation and understanding of Onitsha’s cultural identity.
He was received at the Lagos airport by a delegation from Ime Obi, the traditional palace institution, led by Chief Ben Epundu, Ijagwo Obi.
Other members of the reception team included Ojinnaka Onyenyionwu, president of the Onitsha Improvement Union (OIU), Lagos branch, and Commander Tagbo of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Murtala Muhammed International Airport Command.
Henderson’s expected return to Onitsha for the festival offers an opportunity to renew his association with a community whose traditions and social institutions formed the basis of his landmark anthropological study.
