Abstract

Contemporary modern concerns of Nigerians include casino forms of wealth acquisition, obviously in uncertain but quick luck–prone time, the politics of gaining power and authority, and the fervent desire to transform sorcery and magic of the moment, whether local or modern, to paths of economic advancement. These apprehensions have not only shaped the flow of value of this generation, full of the inconsistency of enchantment and disenchantment, enclosure and freedom, but as well have created new patterns of engagement of both local and modern codes and practices. These lead to the validation of the epistemological debris of imborivungu of the Tiv of central Nigeria in which the moral crisis of generating value through the sweepstake of human lives becomes complete in its modern mood that rhymes with modern casino sensibilities. This casino capitalism brink of betting seems on the edges of precipice especially for the youth but also including the elderly whose economic precocity may build up nostalgia for the future. This paper, using structuralism framework of analysis, attempts a localization of the casino capitalism phenomenon in parallel to the imborivungu path, interprets the shaping of the witchcraft of modernity from age–old sources and integrates the neoliberal violence of bet feelings and expression with respect to the political and economic intentions and actions of the two major characters, Shaagee and Targema, in Terhemba Shija’s The siege, The Saga. The paper posits also that political spiritualities are inspired by casino capitalism due to its speculative gambling nature and in its roots in local forms of occult practices and need to be appropriately studied as they symbolically structure the modern world and its peoples.

Keywords: Casino capitalism, Neoliberalism, The politics of power, The Tiv, The Tiv imborivungu, The Siege The Saga, Terhemba Shija