INTRODUCTION:
Human beings have from time immemorial discriminated against each other either on the basis of race, tribe, religion or sex. Despite the fact that the basis of these discriminations have proven time and time again to be groundless and baseless, it is unfortunate that some societies still hang on to this evil and obnoxious practice of discriminating against certain members of their societies.
Discrimination hurts, bruises & crushes. And it must hurt even more deeply when it is inflicted by kith and kin. Fate can be arbitrary and capricious, but we can always bear with fate. Some are black and some are born white though many whites think there is something else to blackness. Nature leaves some poor and lets some have abundant wealth. Many will live their lives in painstaking service of the whims of others to whom fortune came accidentally. Amongst kings are many idiots. It is however one thing to be disadvantaged by fate, it’s another to be consigned to sub-humanity by human prejudice. Conceit, bigotry and hate sometimes coalesce to produce minds who arrogate to themselves superiority and allocate to others not just inferiority but sub-humanity. And contrary to reason and evidence, the racist just like the bigoted Hindus in India and the Igbos in Nigeria finds pleasure in insisting that certain groups of individuals are referred to as outcast and are denied basic fundamental rights and dignity.

WHAT ‘OSU’ MEANS:
The Advanced English Dictionary describes outcasts as people who are banished or rejected or excluded from a society or a community. Traditionally, amongst the Igbos in Nigeria there are two classes of people; the Osu (outcasts) and the Nwadiala (real born). Osu therefore means “sacred to the gods” or “beloved of the gods”.
Oral history has it that an osu was a respected monk devoted to the service and worship of a deity. The origin of the osu caste system can be traced back to the era when deities were believed to ask for human sacrifice during festivals in order to clean the land from abomination thus leading to the purchase of a slave by the people. The osu caste system also has its origin traced to the Nri Kingdom. It is believed that the Nris possessed a hereditary power and thus do go about cleansing various kingdoms of abomination; any community that refuses to be cleansed are called osus. Another view on the history of the osu caste system centres on ostracization. This occurs when a person or group of persons who refuses the orders of a king or the decision of a community are banished from the community thus resulting to the victim and its generation being called osus.
Osus are dedicated to the deities of Igbo land; they are considered as inferior beings and are usually separated from the Nwadiala (real born). Calling one an Osu is worse than calling such a person a thief, harlot or any other bad name. (unclean). It is also believed that the Osus have bad body odour that cannot be removed with perfume. This form of maltreatment has made the Osus to relocate to other countries so they can survive without the stigma attached to them.

AS IT IS IN OTHER PARTS OF IGBO LAND, SO ALSO IN OMOR:
Live and let live. Let the kite perch and let the Eagle perch. Blood is thick. Be your brother’s keeper. Never abandon a brother. Igbo maxims. So why does the Osu caste system still exist in many Igbo communities?
Its inconceivable that within the very midst of a seemingly tightly knit group of people , who endured a genocidal massacre in defense of their freedom, who claim good absorption of civilization and Christianity, is an inhuman caste system . A system that has shackled and dehumanized its victims for many ages. The Osu fought alongside the Diala in the Biafran army. Unfree people fighting for the freedom of their oppressors.
Omor being a town in Ayamelum local government area of Anambra state in Nigeria, is on the shores of the Omambala River. It is thought to be geographically the largest town in Anambra. As such, it is in the heart of Igboland as it is in one of the major states of Igbo. The people of Omor are traditional people too and are guided by all the tenets and paraphernalia of the Igbo tradition, the Osu caste system not being an exception.
So despite all the pretensions of being one, there are Igbos who arrogate to themselves superiority and freedom and who refer to themselves as freeborn or Diala. And there are fellow Igbos whom they refer to as living sacrifices or slaves of the gods or Ume or Ohu Arusi or Osu. And even though the nomenclature ‘Diala’ has so much to do with African traditional religion and is in a sense ‘heathenish‘, many practicing Christians would happily accept ‘Diala’ to distance themselves from the Osu category. Christianity and democracy, properly practiced, cannot accommodate the existence of an Osu.
Before long the ostracized became ‘inferior beings’ and were demonized. An uncle once told me that Osu embodied evil and that they were vectors of misfortune. Whites said so many things about being black including that blacks were noisy, criminally minded , unintelligent brutes structured for manual labour. And because these stereotypes are borne out of superstitions and bigotry and hatred, they persist amongst the ignorant even against clear contradicting evidence.
Christianity came with promises for the Osu. The Osu saw Christianity and western education set twins free and hoped. However, structured social disadvantages and impaired social acceptance have continued to hinder the social advancement of the Osu communities in Igboland and inevitably weaken the cohesion amongst Igbos. Neither wealth nor education nor power saves the Osu from outrageous contempt . Despite the fact that the life of the Igbo man is now woven around the Roman Catholic and Anglican and Pentecostal doctrines, the Osu continues to suffer intolerable inhumanity.
And you can attend church every day of the year in an affected Igbo village and hear sermons against all known human evils including racism but non against the Osu caste system. The Osu is in the church but the church pays lip service to his plight. And while privately no one can articulate reasons for retention of the caste system, no one is courageous enough to speak openly against it and take actions to end the sufferings of their brothers. Those who find the courage to condemn it privately lack the guts to permit their children to marry the Osu.
There have been several instances like that where young men and women of Igbo extraction have suffered emotional trauma as a result of this cultural malaise. And now the question is, why is it that this cultural practice has refused to go away even among educated Igbos? The reason is not far fetched. The practice of Osu caste system is hinged on religion, supernaturalism and theism. And Igbos are deeply religious and theistic people. Osu are regarded as unclean or untouchable because they are (alleged to be) dedicated to the gods. So it is the dedication to the gods that makes the Osu status a condition of permanent and irreversible disability and stigma.

CONSEQUENCES OF BEING AN OSU IN OMOR (AND IN OTHER PARTS OF IGBOLAND).
Osus are not allowed to have any relationship with the Nwadiala; this includes dancing, drinking, holding hands, associating or marrying them because it automatically turns a freeborn to an Osu. This is why they are made to stay close to shrines, marketplaces or away from the community.
Osus cannot break kola or make prayers on behalf of the real born because it is believed that they will bring calamity upon the society. In the minds of people, Osus are considered as people with leprosy.
Osus are basically deprived of privileges in their societies. Some of these privileges include the denial of chieftaincy titles, denial of membership in social clubs and violent disruption of their marriages. If an Osu marries a non-osu and it is discovered, most times this may lead to divorce and the children are then raised by single parents. Projects and business transactions have been abandoned where such transactions involved osus.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION:
The foundations and origins of the obnoxious system can be understood but the superstitions and myths that support its continued existence are flimsy. If the Osu was offered to the gods as sacrifice wouldn’t it take a leap of stupidity to insist that their offsprings who weren’t party to the exchange and who in any case are not priests of some of the now extinct deities are also living sacrifices who must remain ostracized in an age when no one can be a slave either to man or to any god? Hasn’t slavery been abolished? And when Christian parents deny discrimination against the Osu but send search parties to seek out the ancestry of their children’s brides or suitors before they give their approval, you wonder how worse hypocrisy can get . And many times you will hear, “she is very beautiful and well mannered. But she is corrupted”. That’s the euphemism
A Christian who discriminates against the Osu, besides being a criminal , is guilty of idolatry. For that inhuman categorization is premised on the existence and placation of a god which Christianity views as man made ineffectual idol. I am not disrespectful of African traditional religion . The Christian picture of the atrocity must be painted for the Christian. And it helps that majority of Igbos claim Christianity . And I am not disrespectful of our culture , our culture and our morality have long shifted.
Morality can be relative and the morality of a cultural practice is relative to time and place. The Osu caste system may not have been barbaric a century ago but is manifestly and despicably so now.
The deities in my village once considered the existence of twins a taboo and the people believed. And thousands of twins were slaughtered at birth in the service of the wishes of the gods. And mothers who clung to their twins were banished to the evil forest so that the land was spared the wrath of the gods. And my people were by no means barbaric, they were cultured people.
The English were cultured when they hung scientists and burnt them. And it was the same gods that barred the existence of twins in Igbo land that perhaps instituted and allowed the discriminatory practice against the Osu. If these Christians and other ardent followers of African traditional religion are afraid of defying the gods let them remember how even the gods saw reason with the colonialists and allowed the celebration of twins.
There is some wisdom in the saying that what one cannot learn by formal education he learns by travelling, exposure. The Igbo is the most dispersed group in Africa and is therefore a group particularly well acquainted with the horrors of racism. The Igbo man suffers unbearable discrimination for being Igbo and for being black. You would think anyone so badly and chronically victimized would champion equality. Ironically many Igbos who reject marriage with the Osu are the well travelled, well educated, roundly humiliated victims of virulent racism.
But the Osu caste system is worse than racism . Racism prepares you, gives you advance warning . So the black girl is socialized to understand her racial handicaps, the hatred of blacks by some whites . Many Osu are only aware of that identity only after a brutal dehumanizing rejection. How many more youthful hearts will be shredded by bigotry?

THE WAY FORWARD:
The discrimination, segregation and dehumanization of people as seen in the Osu caste system from the freeborn in Igbo land is mind boggling especially in sensitive issues like marriage and other social areas. The Igbo society has to realize that all human beings are all essential to the development of their societies because development can only thrive where there is oneness and mutual understanding amongst all members. The only way of solving this problem is by enlightening the minds of members of these societies to see each other as one though with different faces. Attempts have been made by several people, both scholars and non-scholars to eliminate such practices but sadly the more they try to solve the problem, the more imposing it becomes.
It is interesting to note that the enactment of laws or legislation has not been able to curb this evil caste system and has not in any way slowed down attitudes towards outcasts in these societies; for instance the Nigerian Constitution guarantees equal rights for all Nigerians and the practice of the Osu system in Igbo land is a gross violation of the fundamental human rights of those deemed to be Osu.
Despite these laws, the discrimination and oppression of people deemed to be outcasts still persisted. It then follows that beyond laws and legislations, attitudes in these societies must change. The preservation of these caste systems brings about retrogression in the areas of socio-economic, socio-cultural and the socio-political growth in such societies. The segregation of people is an archaic and obnoxious practice which should be abolished because discrimination is evil and it hinders the societal proliferation and development.

I'm not Igbo, though.

However, the Osus I've encountered during my sojourn in the east have very beautiful ladies and financially successful men over their Ndiala counterparts.

Freeborn status, that can't make you truly free, successful and relevant, is that one, Ndiala?

Time for our cultures to do away with foolish, self-limiting and destructive philosophies, and be progressive.

One who holds the silly Osuide Caste system in high esteem is no different from the Fulani Cow in Aso Rock still talking about grazing routes in the 21st century