User talk:Emeriebepeter

The OSU system is found with the Igbos who reside in the South Eastern and South Central Nigeria called Igboland or Igbo society (Alaigbo or Anaigbo).

Traditionally, there are two classes of people in Igboland who are considered untouchable – the Nwadiala and the Osu.

The Nwadiala literally meaning ‘sons of the soil’. They are the masters while the Osu are the people dedicated to the gods; so they are regarded as slaves, strangers, outcasts and untouchables. The Osu, by definition, is a people sacrificed to the gods in Igbo community. And they assist the high priest of the traditional religion to serve the deities or the gods in their shrine. It is the belief of many Igbo traditionalists that the deities, which were (and are still) perceived in some quarters as being very powerful, would wreck havoc in the society, if they are not appeased. In some special circumstances, those who hold the traditional beliefs of the Igbos could transform a Diala who committed certain atrocities against the land into an Osu. This process involved intricate rituals (offering of libations and sacrificing animals to the earth goddess). Some of the ancestors of the present-day Osu people inherited their dehumanizing social status this way. That method is now a thing of the old; Western influence has affected this practice. Presently, one could acquire the Osu status through inheritance and marriage.

For this author, the Osu caste system is a societal institution borne out of a primitive traditional belief system colored by superstition and propagated by ignorance. It is absurd to categorize a human as a sub-human being. Although this author is not a member of the group, he condemns the practice of the Osu caste system because it is a human rights aberration. Although the vehemence of the tradition has weakened over the last 50 years, Nowadays the only trouble the Osu encounter is when they try to get married. But the fear of social stigma is still strong - to the point that most would never admit to being an Osu or forbidden to marry an Osu; intermarriage with Osu is termed an abomination. The bigger picture and question is were other tribes in Nigeria not also used to serve Shango, Ogun and Osun??? They fear the consequences for their families in generations to come or at the hands of people who still believe in the old ways. The discriminatory Osu practices involves inequality in freedom of movement and choice of residence, inequality in the right of peaceful association, inequality in the enjoyment of the right to marry and establish a family, (and) inequality in access to public office. That is the crux of the matter with the Osu caste system in Igboland. If one may ask, could a right exist if it is not regularly enforced? To put it differently, can a right exist without a specific legislation that provides for its protection and remedies if violated? Oddly enough, the victims of the Osu system do not have any legal recourse in Igboland. And strangely, some people believe that the humiliating Osu caste system is a part of the Igbo culture nobody should temper with. Fortunately, many Igbos have a contrary opinion. The Osu caste system and the indigenous religious practices of the Igbo nation. All human beings are created equal, but human experiences are heterogeneous. Some people have had it rough all their lives on earth, while others do not have a lot to complain about. Naturally, life has the same meaning for everyone, but the Osu caste system in Igboland seems to have changed the meaning of life for a group of people branded Osu. No historical question gives the Igbos more concern than that of, “How did the Osu caste system come to be in Igboland?” This section of the paper attempts to deal with the question. It took the BBC a long time track down an Osu willing to talk, Igbo journalists, human rights advocates, academics and politicians could suggest no-one. It was only by chance that Cosmos admitted his family were Osu after an interview with the Pentecostal church - known to oppose the tradition. Now a born-again Christian, he has had a hard fight to escape the stigma of the Osu.

ORIGIN/Sacrifice People say the Osu are the descendants of people sacrificed to the gods, hundreds of years ago. But an academic who has researched Igbo traditions says he believes the Osu were actually a kind of "living sacrifice" to the gods from the community. "I remember when I was a child, seeing the Osu and running away," says Professor Ben Obumselu, former vice-president of the influential Igbo organisation Ohaneze Ndi Igbo. "They were banned from all forms of civil society; they had no land, lived in the shrine of the gods, and if they could, would farm the land next to the road." "It was believed that they had been dedicated to the gods, that they belonged to them, rather then the world of the human," he said. Nigeria's growing cities began to break down such traditions of village life, he says.

I remember when I was a child, seeing the Osu and running away..

The people of Umuaka community in Imo State, Nigeria , categorize one of their ten villages Osu. Other minor lower caste groups found in many kindred are given the pejorative Igbo expression of ndi ejiri goro ihe, meaning those who are sacrificial lamb to the gods. They are slaves to the gods of the community and kindred. As is the case in Umuode in Oruku community, the discrimination of the Diala against the Osu in Umuaka affects marriage and relationships of love with the Osu and the rest of the community. The Diala is traditionally and socially abhorred and forbidden to marry an Osu; intermarriage with Osu is an abomination. In the late 1980s, the Osu people in Umuaka revolted, as they could not take the humiliation from the Diala any more. They physically assaulted a couple of women from the Diala section of the community, with the intention of transforming the women to Osu so that the Diala would reject them. It has been noted in the preceding sections that the Diala interact less with or avoids the Osu completely. In some communities in Igboland an Osu is regarded as a worthless human being. As Chinua Achebe, in Things Fall Apart, notes, a conversation, which ensued over the question of admitting outcasts to a local little church in the village of Mbanta, between Mr. Kiaga, a missionary teacher, and one of the converts, the Osu is: a person dedicated to a god, a thing set apart – a taboo forever and his children after him. He could neither marry nor be married by the freeborn. He was, in fact, an outcast, living in a special area of the village, close to the Great Shrine. Wherever he went, he carried with him the mark of his forbidden caste – long, tangled dirty hair.