JOSEPH LANGANFIN
Benin

Representing the Abomey dynasty, Joseph Langanfin is the president of CAFRA, the council of Abomey’s royal families. With this title, he is considered as the official representative of the kings of Abomey. He presided at the centenary ceremonies for the death of King Glele, who was his great granfather.

ONI of IFE
Nigeria

In 1980, Sijuwade became the fiftieth Oni (King) of Ife, one of the most ancient African Dynasties. Formerly, during his coronation, an Oni had to embrace the sword of justice, and enter into his palace on a cloth stiffened by the dry blood of sacrificed men and women. Today the Oni is a rich businessman, with several vaste properties in Nigeria and England.

NGIE KAMGA JOSEPH
Fon of Bandjun
Cameroun

The Fon (King) is the brother of courageous and powerful animals. At night, he has the power to transform himself into a panther, where he haunts the forest, runs through the savana and drinks from torrents. When a panther is killed by a hunter, the Fon from Bamileke region are afraid. Will one of them not perish from the death of his double.

Formerly a chief administator and cabinet chief for the finance Minister of Cameroun in 1964, Kamga Joseph is the thirteenth Fon of Bandjun. On the day of his predecessor’s funeral, he was stopped in the Bandjun market by two Bamileke chiefs, “the hangmen”, in the middle of the nobles and princes who wept the deceased King. Wearing a head dress made of sisal as a sign of humility, he was taken to the noblemen, the “tafo meru”, where he learned during nine weeks how to be a King.

HALIDOU SALI
Lamido of Bibemi
Cameroun

Halidou Sali, the twelfth Lamido (king) of Bibemi, received his kingdom in 1958. He is a descendant of Aido Samba, one of the 42 Kings of Adamawa, who during the eighteenth century carried the flag for the Jihad (holy war) of Ousman Dan Fodio.

OSEADEEYO ADDO DANKWA III
King of Akropong-Akuapem
Ghana

A graduate from the University of London and an economic advisor for the Ghanaian administration, The King of Akropong holds for the last sixteen years the “sacred seat” of the Akuapem-Asona, one of the seven major Akan clans. To his right, his “spokesman” carries the royal emblem, the elephant, a remembrance that his kingdom was founded by force.

ABUBAKAR SIDIQ
Sultan of Sokoto
Nigeria

This photo was taken fifteen days before the death of the Sultan of Sokoto. He had reigned for more than fifty years. At the time of his successor’s coronation, who was chosen by a council of “king makers”, a conflict erupted. Two royal families disputed the choice; the consequence: one hundred deaths.

According to “news watch”, a large daily Nigerian newspaper, the power of the Sultan of Sokoto is such, that most of the Nigerians questioned would rather be Sultan than President of Nigeria.

Abubakar Sidiq was not as rich as other soverains of this country. He earned annually about 1 million naira ($200 000). But with this income, the Sultan had to support his suite of eighty-six people, and feed one hundred and fifty grand children.

HAPI IV
King of Bana
Cameroun

The kingdom of Bana finds its origins in a tragedy.

In the middle of the twelfth century, several Bamileke groups, settled in small villages around what is actually Bana. Legend says that one of the village chiefs, Mfenge was accused of sorcery by the others. In order to exonerate himself, he cut off his mother’s head and had the cadaver examined by specialists. The belief in sorcery, that it is transmitted through the “maternal womb”, was not proven. Mfenge then demanded that mothers in others families be beheaded. His four sons went from house to house, sending wives and mothers to the palace, in order to be examined. The recalcitrants were decapited on the spot. Taken by panic, chiefs and nobles fled, and Mfenge became King of Bana.

NYIMI KOK MABIINTSH III
King of Kuba
D.R. Congo

The Nyimi Mabiintsh III is fifty years old. He acquired the throne at the age of twenty. As a descendant of god the creator, the king is attributed with supernatural powers.

Due to his top position he is restricted by several contraints: he does not have the right to sit on the ground, and he cannot cross a cultivated field. Apart from his cook, no one has seen him eat. Moreover he never travels without him, and his personal cooking ustensils.

It took me three weeks to photograph the Nyimi (king) of the Kuba in his royal apparel, the “bwantshy”. The outfit made out of material stitched with beads and “cauris” (small shells used as money in Africa), weighs 160 lb. It takes more than two hours to dress the King, and two days of spiritual preparation to be sufficiently purified in order to wear the outfit.

The weight and the heat of the bwantshy is such, that it is impossible to wear it more than one hour. The preceeding King had only worn it three time during his entire life.

IGWE KENNETH NNAJI ONYEMAEKE ORIZU III
Obi of Nnewi
Nigeria

When Kenneth Nnaji became King of Nnewi in 1963, he was a farmer, and his ten wives had already blessed him with thirty children.

Located to the east of the Niger river, in Ibo country, Nnewi is a rich town with several millionaires. This kingdom, founded in the fourteenth century, is composed of four large villages.

When the Portugueses arrived in the region in the fifteenth century, a multitude of city-states appeared.

As with Nnewi, these cities were built on the basis of a thriving slave trade. Born with the trade, they lived only for trade, and did not look favorably upon the creation of a state uniting under the same Nigerian flag, the Ibo, the Yoruba and the Hausa. Ethnic and religious clashs erupted, starting the Biafra War.

ISIENWENRO JAMES IYOHA INNEH
Ekegbian of Bénin
Nigeria

James Inneh, seventy nine years old, was formerly a business man.