ABSTRACT
This chapter draws attention to an important but largely neglected political dimension of gatherings. The spectacles are undeniably freighted with political and symbolic meaning. For instance, the image of “a whole governor” kneeling down in public can be seen as a demonstration of calculated humility, ostentatiously staged to curry acceptance in a social context in which humility, especially by highly placed public officials and the “powerful” in general, is seen as a virtue. Spectacles like this have become very common since Nigeria returned to civil rule in May 1999, a period that coincided with the explosion of Pentecostal Christianity in the country. As an instance of what David Morgan has described as a “community of feeling,” these spectacles provide evolving illustrations of how the political shades into the religious and vice versa and how the notionally “political” or “religious” are dynamically constituted. The political nature of the events is unquestionable.
