Seun this is not just about you and the woman, but also the kids.
You as a grown man , no one will talk to you or abuse you to your face.
IN this case it is your children that will suffer it. It is your children out there fighting your battle for you.
You cannot sit with them in school all the day and then go out and play with them .
And it is something that will pass yoour mind as an _{non osu igbo man.}
Had you been one.

In what part of Igboland is this Osu thing practiced the most?, I lived in Onitsha and I never heard of Osu people even when I went to the village, I didn't know it was still an issue. I assume you guys are the ones still making a meal out of it.

Why not fight for the rights of Osu people instead of just avoiding them?

If you can fight for 'Igboland', why can't you fight for the innocent Osus? This idiocy needs to stop.

@sbucareer, you've talked about them(Osu) takin their case to the Igwe n all, if they are allowed to exercise their rights and all, would people like you still get married to them? i can bet $50(from the way u replied too) that u won't! My point? just cos someone is an Osu(some foolish tradition that happened way b4 u were born o) is not enough reason for you not to get married to them. if u're in love, you wouldn't give 2fcuks abt what they are or where they come from.

Uh yea! they do have the ''Vampire'' blood in them or wtv, but they are very nice people, smart n well to do(according to your definition),,,d hell u bet i'm gettin married to him as long as i love him and i kno he feels the same way about me.. I guess i won my ''bet'' then ^{*actually, i used to have a thing for vampires tho, lol, i thot they were sexy.*}

odiegwu my brother, no yawa,,,let's hope that u'll do something about their problem when u become Igwe 1 of ya state ,,,,ekwa.

lol,,sbucareer, i'm done arguin with you o

Damn, people are still trippin on this?

My 1st reaction to the thread was to wonder if I was one, but then my fam goes to events & I've never heard of it so I guess I'm not.

All this stigma is something awful.

Subcareer or whomever are you saying that these people were sacrificed (what kind of sacrifice? not death? but tied to the cult/religion/god?) and so their descendants are considered what? An abomination or something?

I've never heard of people being osu (abominations?) in the present. Are ya'll sure this still goes down?

You said they don't stand out as far as looks or name, so why all the hating?

***
As for myself, I'd marry one.

It'd be sad not to go to umunna meetings but people naturally branch out & move away from some traditions of their childhood anyway.

Scorpio:

d hell u bet i'm gettin married to him as long as i love him and i kno he feels the same way about me.. I guess i won my ''bet'' then ^{*actually, i used to have a thing for vampires tho, lol, i thot they were sexy.*}

chinani:

As for myself, I'd marry one.

Rebel leaders

mochafella:

Rebel leaders

Wanna join the militia?

lol, sup Mocha?

All these[i] traditionalists[/i]. Na wa for una.

And you'll be talking as if the Igbos are one and Yorubas and Hausas are the only enemies you have.

lol, I kno Seun didn't use that card

Can somebody please explain what is an OSU and their signifigance?

@Drusilla

I have copied below what an Osu is according to @sbucareer earlier on this thread

Osu are people our ancestors used to do sacrifies to the gods for the difficulties they faced then, which includes disease, lack of rain, poor farm produce, children and babies dieing etc.

The gods then asked for human sacrifies to help with these issues. When a sacrifice is offered to gods it is damned evil to touch those things. Even in the bible when Abraham offer sacrifice to God, nobody eats the sacrify, it is burn to ashes.

The stigma that Osu have had today this that they were used for gods sacrifice and dimmed to the igbos as outcast.

To my understanding, most of then are very wealthy and brilliant people, their girls are very beautiful.

I myself will NEVER marry osu, not because I don't like them. It is because of the stigma the igbos has on them. For example, they do not involve in active igbo events. No one will elect an osun person as a governor, local chairmen, Eze, Chief, etc.

If an Osun people tries to speak on behalf of the igbo he/she is immediately discredited, because of this stigma. I still have great ambitions for myself and would not want something to hold me back.

If you are not igbo you can never understand. This thing will NEVER go away and I feel very sorry for them. We call it Ome na ala (The law of our land) We cannot leave ome na ala and start to do ome na elu (Not the law of the land)

When you go to village and see how these people leaves, you would feel sorry from them. They do not trade because nobody would buy from them. In school nobody plays with osu children etc, it is really terrible.

If you want to leave in diaspora all your life, them marrying osu will not really affect you. But if you plan sometime in the future to return back to Nigeria, hmmm,  you really have to be very careful. Remember we do not only mary for ourselfs we marry for children as well, you do not want to give our children a bad start in life.

Ouch. That hurts. I feel very sorry for the Osu.

Praise God that He looks on those who are unloved in this world and still loves them.

Forgive us Lord, we know not what we do.

Why is no one fighting to change this ridiculous "way of our people"?

Sbucareer,

Isn't it strange though that we would see so many of our African people fighting for gay rights and debating gay rights, which is a issue that heavily affects white people with their long gay history.

Yet Africa would remain a basket case of inhumanity because nobody cares enough to fight for the rights of OSU or other African issues that center around treating human beings humanely?

sbucareer:


Don't call people ways of life ridiculous. It is not an act to be proud of, but every nation has got its good and bad ways of life. You have start to sound like Judge Busch. What would you do now? Shoot the whole Igbos for expressing their believes?

I know there are some rhetoric ways of life Yoruba, Hausa, Calabar, etc have that other people do not heavily accept, i.e. thinking that Nigeria is only there own (By Dominating the President office) and yet others stand and look with condemnation. It is as well destroying as osun is to human kind.

sbucareer, while I'm not trying to "JUDGE" you, your view comes across as odd. You say you think it's wrong, but you're still saying you have to join the chorus of "I will never marry an OSU". Because "that's just the way it is" is no reason to continue to let it be so. Many cultural practices change overtime, culture is not static, and if u truly believe that something is wrong, yet you refuse to stand up against it, it puts a little question mark on your character.
I find it interesting that you're saying that you have big plans to make changes in Nigeria. That's a great goal to have and I commend you for having such a plan. I also assume this plan is suppose to make Nigeria better and to make lives of Nigerians better. Naturally, shouldn't you be at the forefront of fighting the negative practices that affect the lives of your fellow Nigerians? Rather than avoiding it because "that's just the way it is?"



Some recent news on the caste system
(While I don't agree with every aspect of the article, it's nice to see people joining together to try to bring a change).

Owerri Catholic Archdiocese marks abolition of Osu caste

By  Chidi Nkwopara   
Thursday, May 11, 2006

OWERRI-The Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri, Wednesday, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the abolition of the controversial Osu Caste System in Igboland by the defunct Eastern Nigerian government.

Speaking to Vanguard on the phone, the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, Dr. Anthony J.V. Obinna, said “May 10, 2006, marked the 50th anniversary of the legal abolition of the idolatrous discrimination among Ndigbo by the defunct Eastern Nigerian government”. It was his considered opinion that for many centuries Ndigbo, more than the Jews of old, walked in darkness, stumbling and mistaking shadows for light, hating, despising and killing one another at will or at instigation.


"This wretched situation left Ndigbo weakened and open to invasion and oppression by more shrewd and ruthless powers. It is on record that in the 400 year-long Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, more Ndigbo were captured and sold to the Americans than any other ethnic group in the whole of West Africa”, the Archbishop said.


Obinna reasoned that as the 50th anniversary was being marked, Ndigbo should give thanks to God for ensuring that Jesus Christ, the Great Light of Salvation, eventually entered into Igboland.” In the light of this Christian-inspired and humane law, every Igbo person has the same God-given freedom, equality and right as every other human being to marry whom he wishes, to acquire or inherit property, to earn and to gain employment, positions, titles and privileges available in the community, the society, the nation and the world at large”, the Archbishop said.


He said he was greatly amazed at “this very Christian, humane and progressive position of Eastern Nigerian parliamentarians as far back as 1956, when Christians were still relatively few in number”, adding that what those parliamentarians started in 1956 without mentioning Jesus in the document of abolition, “We modern Ndigbo, who so much use the name of Jesus, must now complete in spirit and in truth, lest those parliamentarians be our judges”




Source: http://www.odili.net/news/source/2006/may/11/315.html

@Subcareer & others
Just b/c you want to adhere to the "Osu caste system" (i.e. discriminate) doesn't mean all Igbo people do. SO when you speak of it, don't put it off on "every nation" etc. If you're going to discriminate, own up to it, don't hide behind "tradition" and/or "culture".

@Nia
Interesting article. Didn't know the Biafran Govt. ended de jure Osu caste system. . .
. . .But did anyone notice how antiSemitic the article was? . . .it also sounded anti-igbo & antiBlack. . .
. . . . . .I guess nothing says "equality" & "justice" like white Catholics come to civilize the niggers Africans *eye roll*

@chinani,

How does the article sound anti-igbo/anti-black?

@Donzman

It was his considered opinion that for many centuries Ndigbo, more than the Jews of old, walked in darkness, stumbling and mistaking shadows for light, hating, despising and killing one another at will or at instigation.

We walked in darkness? Like white people killing & raping during the THE CRUSADES darkness? Or our skin is black darkness?

chinani:

@Donzman

It was his considered opinion that for many centuries Ndigbo, more than the Jews of old, walked in darkness, stumbling and mistaking shadows for light, hating, despising and killing one another at will or at instigation.

We walked in darkness? Like white people killing & raping during the THE CRUSADES darkness? Or our skin is black darkness?

Hating and oppressing others is definitely darkness and I won't deny that. White people were in darkness and so were those who oppressed brothers/sisters because they were "osu", there's nothing wrong with that statement.

Ok, so before we were in darkness now we're bathed in light?

Black people? White people too? Is that the logical conclusion?

B/c to me the statement just sounds like a bunch of fat cats padding their egos by reppin' their organization. . .

. . .The org. just happens to be The Church but that doesn't necessarily mean they've done God's work.