It is from that perspective that I wish to examine a case study of Hausa law in the Yoruba city of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. I argue that the Sarkin Sabo and his representatives, including the Waziri, in dispensing justice and governing Sabo provide just such a ritual manifestation of a “symbolic intercom between the level of cultural thought and complex cultural meanings, on the one hand, and that of social action and immediate event, on the other” to which Munn refers. Following Kiernan (1981, 6), moreover, I hold that a concept is needed to tie the sacred and secular together without slighting either one. In an article that aids in that task, Lubeck (1981, 70) reminds us that:

In his classic study of the Hausa Sabon Gari (new town) in Ibadan, Abner Cohen (1969; 1974) described a logical consequence of the amalgam of sacred and secular in an African society, the Hausa, as well as the manner in which Sabo was linked through the Hausa-British alliance with the capitalist world economy. Moreover, this study seeks to extend Cohen's work to the post-colonial period and note some ways in which that Hausa alliance to the colonial state served to establish an affiliation with the post-colonial state in Nigeria. It does so by focusing on a court case involving the Waziri of Sabo. A brief presentation of the history of Sabo further clarifies the case and enables contextual examination of the relevant social and cultural factors involved. Sabo, after all, must be understood as a consequence of the extension of British colonial power in Nigeria. The extension of that power enabled the Hausa to found dispersed trading centers throughout Nigeria and, indeed, British West Africa. Their power, however, rested on their ability to control those in their constituency. Appropriate analysis of the nexus of historical, political, social and cultural factors in this process will further the understanding of that unifying concept for interpenetration of the sacred and secular which Kiernan seeks.