OSU CASTE SYSTEM IN IGBO LAND, A SPIRITUAL BLEMISH
- The Osu tradition is an unpalatable practice among the Igbos - in Nigeria-which has declined to leave notwithstanding the effect of Christianity, present day training and development, and the human rights culture. Traditionally, there are two classes of individuals in Igbo land – the Nwadiala and the Osu. The Nwadiala actually signifying 'sons of the soil' are the freeborn. They are the experts. While the Osu are the slaves, the outsiders, the pariahs and the untouchables. Chinua Achebe in his outstanding book, No Longer At Ease asks: What is this thing called Osu? He replies: "Our fathers in their dimness and numbness called a honest man Osu, a thing given to the icons, and from that point he turned into an untouchable, and his youngsters, and his' kids for eternity"
- The Osu are dealt with as sub-par people in a condition of perpetual and irreversible handicap. They are subjected to different types of mishandle and separation. The Osu are made to live independently from the freeborn. Much of the time they live near places of worship and commercial centers. The Osu are not permitted to move, drink, shake hands, relate or have sexual relations with Nwadiala. They are not permitted to break kola nuts at gatherings. No Osu can pour drink or appeal to God in the interest of a freeborn at any group gathering. It is trusted that such supplications will bring cataclysm and disaster.
- The Osu standing segregation is extremely articulated in the region of marriage. An Osu can't wed a freeborn. The conviction is that any freeborn that weds an Osu pollutes the family. So freeborn families are dependably extremely worked up against any of their individuals who needs to wed an Osu. They go to any length to void the arrangement. In light of the Osu factor, relational unions in Igbo land are taken before senior citizens on the two sides who go to local towns to discover the societal position of the other party. Also, on the off chance that it is discovered that one of them is an Osu, the arrangement would be consequently voided. Barbarities dispensed against the Osu in Igbo land include: parents and guardians poisoning of their youngsters who is bent on marrying an Osu, exclusion, alienation, sorted out assault, stacking harvest offering independently in chapels, refusal of participation in social clubs, rough disturbance of wedding functions, disavowal of chieftaincy titles, denial of property and removal of spouses and so on."
- Many marriage designs have been prematurely ended, and in certainty some wedded couples have been compelled to separate on account of the Osu factor. Chinua Achebe likewise noted this in his book. At the point when Okonkwo discovers that his child wanted to wed Clara, an Osu. Okonkwo says: " Osu resembles an infection in the brains of my kin. I ask of you my child not to bring the sign of disgrace and sickness into your family. In the event that you do, your youngsters and your's kids will revile you and your memory… You will expedite distress on your head and on the leaders of your kids."
- But there have been a few endeavors and activities to kill this destructive custom. In 1956, the administration of the then Eastern Nigeria passed a law nullifying the Osu standing framework. The law liberated and released anyone called Osu including the youngsters destined to such a man. It proclaimed the scheme unlawful – and a wrongdoing deserving of punishment by law. Be that as it may, sadly, 50 years after the sanctioning of this enactment, no one has been indicted or sentenced for violating the law.
- At best what the enactment has accomplished is to temporarily drive the tradition underground. Likewise numerous religious pioneers and conventional rulers have stood up against the tradition. As of late Eze Enyeribe Onuoha, the customary leader of Umuchieze self-sufficient group in Imo State asked his domain to relinquish the Osu tradition. He stated: victimization of Osus is nonsensical, illicit, shameful and bygone and restricted to human rights. That it is one convention that ought to instantly be abrogated.
- But articulations and revelations like this are normal. In any case, they have constantly failed to receive any notice among the Igbo individuals the majority of whom believe that social standards are consecrated and ought not be altered. So the confidence in and routine with regards to Osu standing framework keep on waxing solid in Igbo land. In 1997, a man charged to be an Osu was made a boss in a group in Imo State. Yet, after six months, the group was immersed in an emergency. Also, when the case was taken to the court, the directing judge noticed that however the annulment of Osu standing framework was in the statute, it was an unenforceable law. The boss was ousted so peace would reign in the group.
- There have been situations where young fellows and ladies of Igbo extraction have endured heartbreaks and enthusiastic injuries because of this social malady. What's more, now the inquiry is, how can it be that this social practice has declined to depart from among taught Igbos. The reason is not fantastical. This obnoxious Osu tradition is depended on religion, supernaturalism and belief in a higher power. Furthermore, Igbos are profoundly religious and mystical individuals. Osu are viewed as unclean or untouchable since they may be (affirmed to be) devoted to the divine beings. So it is the commitment to the divine beings that makes the Osu status a state of lasting and irreversible inability and disgrace.
- So this barbarous custom won't be annihilated until the point when Igbos start to understand that divine beings are nonexistent creatures, not target substances. Igbos need to comprehend that gods and spirits are used by the devil to control and arrange the general public at the earliest stages of humankind, has no longer any relevance. Today, that mankind has become an adult, and the Almighty God has been enthroned so to say in the hearts of the Ndigbo. Since in the event that one doesn't trust that the divine beings and spirits are genuine, at that point regarding somebody as unclean or untouchable on the grounds that the individual is devoted to any god does not bode well whatsoever.
- The tradition is totally out of place and not fitting, especially for the God-trusting Igbos. Since most Igbos are Christians and don't purport any faith in the conventional divine beings to which the Osu were (claimed to be) devoted. Along these lines, it is both sensible and fitting that all Igbos - adherents and non-devotees alike revoke and surrender this loathsome, brutal and detestable practice. Politically, state experts must get Igbo people group and relationship to expel arrangements in their constitution that banish Osu from getting customary titles, other benefits of the soceity they belong to. Lawfully, the courts must start to uphold the law annulling the Osu position framework. What's more, the Nigerian state must stand up to its obligation of securing and safeguarding the humankind, poise and equivalent privileges of all nationals independent of their sex, ethnic source, religion, conviction or birth status.
- In particular, Igbos must start to imagine another general public where individuals can live and associate, wed and be hitched, choose and be chosen, without division, refinement, separation on the premise of Osu or Nwadiala. Consequently I need to utilize this chance to speak to my friends Ndi Igbo: Please they should endeavor to expel this sign of infection and disgrace from the substance of their way of life and society. With this piece, I am contending that the Osu separation is an obsolete convention with no more reason for its existence when juxtaposed with training and recognition of the supposed sophistication in contemporary Igbo society. Indeed, I consider the Osu caste tradition as a spiritual on modern day Igbo Nation
Sources: 1.https://oldnaija.com/2015/11/07/osu-caste-system-in-Igbo land-a-tradition-painted-with-discrimination/
- Leo Igwe is director of the Centre for Inquiry in Nigeria. He can be reached at nskepticleo@yahoo.com.