290 Ubaka, K. C. & Ugwuja A. A.: Ohu/Osu Caste System in Awo-Omamma,., Website: uzuunizikjournal.com UJHIS Vol. 4, No. 1, October 2014 291 OHU/OSU CASTE SYSTEM IN AWO-OMAMMA AND Introduction NSUKKA COMMUNITIES: IMPEDIMENTS TO Igboland which lies between latitudes 4 o 15 ’ and 7 o 05 ’ NATIONAL INTEGRATION North and longitudes 6 o 00 ’ and 8 o 30 ’ East, is known to cover a total surface area of approximately 41,000 square kilometres. By The Igbo nation with a population and population density of Kelechi Chika Ubaku 8,818,208 and 215 persons per square kilometre, respectively 1, and comprises the Nigerian South-Eastern states of Anambra, Amaechi Alex Ugwuja Abia, Imo, Ebonyi, and Enugu. There are also pockets of Igbo Abstract people in Delta and Rivers states. The Igbo people, The legality and practice of caste systems in most Igbo communities in unarguably, have an interesting and illuminating history of the precolonial era appear to negate the avowals that primordial Igbo social relations which anchors on ‘egalitarianism’ and which society was egalitarian. Being, an unjust social system, antithetical to has been considered crucial and explicable in the prosperity, democracy, the Osu and Ohu caste system – the two predominant caste growth, and development of the people, especially in systems in Igboland could not outlive the colonial era, as it was precolonial times. The above case notwithstanding, the legality officially outlawed in 1956. This prohibition notwithstanding, most and practice of caste systems in most Igbo communities in the Igbo communities carried on the system up to present times. The precolonial era, a praxis which has persisted in the deleterious impact of the Osu and Ohu system wherever practised remains unarguably, undiminished. As national integration continues contemporary, appear to negate the so-called ‘egalitarianism to remain a mirage in Nigeria, and as the Igbo people are more and thesis’. more reliant on Communal Self-Help Development Projects (CSH-DP), Nevertheless, it requires to be noted that the first move the continual practise of the Osu/Ohu caste system is identified in this for the actualization of the abolition of various forms of study as a communal problem that corrodes the integration efforts of slavery in Igboland was first carried out by Archdeacon G. T. most Igbo communities and hence national development. Data for the Basden in 1933. In a letter to the then legislative council of the study relied on primary sources. Secondary data related to the southern province, Basden submitted that discourse were gleaned from journals, newspapers textbooks etc. Findings revealed that the Osu/Ohu caste system impinges greatly on …the government should take steps to the communal integration of Nsukka and Awo-Omamma communities. investigate the Osu system… This form of These two communities taken as microcosms of the larger Igbo nation, slavery is at the movement causing great the study adumbrates the implications of Osu/Ohu practices on bitterness of feelings in certain parts of Owerri national integration nay development. Suggestion(s) on how to totally Province. It is a disintegrating force that is eliminate the nefarious caste system from its roots are made in the causing division between villages and recommendations. individuals, e.g. when members of one family are divided owing to some being regarded as 292 Ubaka, K. C. & Ugwuja A. A.: Ohu/Osu Caste System in Awo-Omamma,., Website: uzuunizikjournal.com UJHIS Vol. 4, No. 1, October 2014 293 freeborn while one or more other are seen as this premise that this study sets to explore the problems of Osu 2. Osu/Ohu caste system in Awo-Omamma , and Nsukka , especially, as impediments to national integration. Comprising Basden’s appeal appeared not to have elicited any of six sections, section one of the study embodies the favourable response until years after. And given that caste introduction. Section two explains the concepts of Ohu , Osu , systems are repugnant to natural justice, equity and good and National Integration, while the third section descriptively conscience and indeed, antithetical to ‘democracy’ (especially, essays on Awo-Omamma , and Nsukka communities. In the when viewed from Eurocentric prisms); the Eastern Nigeria fourth section, the Ohu , and Osu caste system were reviewed colonial government did not waste time to outlaw the practice as social problems in Igboland, with focus on the in 1956, especially in the wake of the Balonwu Commission’s aforementioned Igbo communities. The fifth section appraises report that all forms of slavery had become anachronistic to the ohu and osu caste systems as impediment to national 3 the Igbo nation . Speaking boldly on the floor of the House, integration, while in the sixth section, recommendations were the Premier of the Eastern Region, Owelle (Dr) Nnamdi provided on how to salvage Igboland from the inter and intra- Azikiwe averred that communal problems engendered by the continued practice of It takes moral courage for any person to attempt the Osu/Ohu caste system, which has continued to corrode to disturb what is revered as tradition but it their developmental aspirations as well as threatening national takes social vision for the duly accepted integration. representatives of the people to abolish such a 4 tradition in the interest of social justice . Conceptual Explanations Thus, a plethora of punitive measures were canvassed in the The terms Ohu, Osu , and national integration, have Osu Prohibition Act of 1956 to finally put to rest all issues and received varying scholarly explications. Essentially, an Ohu pathologies associated with the caste system in Igbo land 5. refers to a slave bought from outside a community for a Regardless of these measures, Ohu/Osu caste system purpose, save for consecration to a deity. This practice continued to be practised in various shades and guises since contrasts the Osu on the ground that unlike the Osu , the Ohu renders services and inhabits within the human community, 1956. In most communities, they have taken new forms; as it is 6 now unlawful to refer to any one as Osu . Thus, one can and could equally regain his or her freedom . The Ohu was surmise that the Osu/Diala dichotomy has become a seemingly never consecrated to a deity but only acquired as a property. intractable communal problem in Igboland as it continues to Those who usually constitute the Ohu in the olden days stoke the embers of social segregation, parochialism and often, include “inter-tribal war captives, lazy children, some of a general apathy in communal affairs. The effects of these whom were sold by their parents, victims of political machinations, unprotected/unguarded strangers, and stray discriminatory practices are myriad and deleterious to the Igbo 7 society in particular and the Nigerian society at large. It is on children” , and some of their services, thus, included running 294 Ubaka, K. C. & Ugwuja A. A.: Ohu/Osu Caste System in Awo-Omamma,., Website: uzuunizikjournal.com UJHIS Vol. 4, No. 1, October 2014 295 errands for their owners, and taking punishments meted out deity or the divine in a special way, as opposed to the ordinary for their owners who were found guilty of misdeeds. They freeborn under natural and normal circumstances of his Chi were equally used to bury their masters or an important (one’s god). He is equally identified as one sacrificed to a member of the society 8. deity by a community or group of people or a family13 , as well On the other hand, the Osu is one or a group belonging as a slave dedicated to the deity with the purpose of to the gods and feared by the generality of the citizenry as performing some menial functions which may include belonging to fearful deities 9. J.O.L. Ezeala, in his own words, sacrificial functions 14 . J.C. Agunwamba further explains of the pointed out that “the Osu are Igbos, members of a noble race. group constituting the Osu caste as “… miserable outcasts They are kith and kin of other Igbo people in all applications, whose forefathers were bought and dedicated to the services of implications, and qualifications” 10 . Unfortunately, the the gods; despised people who lived in special isolated explanation of Ezeala does not represent the true identity of quarters around the market; unclean persons who were treated the Osu , or how the group is pictured in Igbo Land. However, like people with infectious diseases” 15 . Nonetheless, it requires Chinua Achebe seems to provide an apt picture of the Osu in to be stated that the Ohu system practised in the Nsukka area Igbo Land. In his words: has all the trappings of Osu , as indeed the people are An Osu was a person dedicated to a god, a thing segregated and discriminated against such as we have in most set apart - a taboo forever and his children after other Igbo communities. him. He could neither marry nor be married by National integration is the creation of a feeling of oneness a freeborn. He was in fact an outcast living in a where diversities exist by absorbing a sense of nationhood. It special area of his village, close to the great involves the feeling of a common identity and unification by shrine. Wherever he went, he carried with him citizens of a country or the world belonging to different castes, the mark of his forbidden caste – long, tangled religions, ethnic group, regions, etc, with different languages. and dirty hair. A razor was a taboo to him. An It could also be referred to as “a sense of territorial nationality Osu could not attend the assembly of the which overshadows or eliminates subordinate parochial freeborn, and in turn could not shelter under his loyalties” 16 .