Ohanaeze to set up committee to review Osu caste law

The highest Igbo sociocultural organisation, Ohanaeze has said it will set up a committee to review the anti-Osu caste system law made by the defunct Eastern Regional House as the law has become obsolete and ineffective.

SouthEast Trust was informed that the ancient osu caste system is a practice, which recognises certain Igbo as ‘free-born” while others are seen as “osu” - something dedicated to a deity or god. The practice is said to have, over the years, created a marked division or vacuum between the socio-cultural life of those who are regarded as “son of the soil or free-born” and those “classified as osu”.

In an interview with our reporter, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Mazi Chucks Ibegbu, described as “very serious” the problem of Osu cast system in today’s Igboland, insisting that the obnoxious practice should no longer be tolerated anywhere in the entire Igboland of 21st century.

Ohanaeze said: “The problem is very serious. The old law passed is not effective anymore. The law should be reviewed. We shall set up a committee on that. We shall ostracise culprits. The thing is more common in Igbo villages and communities.”

Ibegbu said hardly can one get to any part of Igboland where the practice of the inhuman Osu cast system has not created a wide gap between the “free-born” and the “so-called Osu”, adding that the Igbo race ought to have outgrown the practice long ago since it does no one any good.

He warned those who are still bent on maintaining the practice to desist from the act as no one has the right to tag another fellow Igbo an osu or any such inhuman or derogatory label.

Ibegbu noted that any Igbo man “who calls his fellow Igbo osu would be severely punished and even banished from Igbo land”.

He wondered why some people have continued to tag their fellow Igbo osu in the 21st century and stressed that if the white people had stopped slavery many years ago, “why should we continue to practise this obnoxious act?”.

He added that in spite of the fact that the old Eastern Region passed a law against the osu cast system, many years ago, the law did not stop the practice, hence the need to revisit it.

Ohanaeze, Ibegbu further said, would set up a committee to go from village to village to find out those who go against the will of the people on the matter in order to punish them adequately.