Commissioner Wants Fetish Customs Abolished

The Imo State Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Lady
Ugochi Nnanna-Okoro, has called for the abolition of fetish and obnoxious
cultures in Igbo land.

Nnanna-Okoro made the call when she paid a courtesy visit to
the Chairman of Imo State Council of Traditional Rulers, Eze Samuel Ohiri, in
Owerri.

She listed some of the cultures due for abolition to include
maltreatment of widows, denying women their family inheritance, wife battering
and female circumcision.

The commissioner explained that some cultural practices were
repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience and were detrimental
to Igbo women’s physical, moral, social and spiritual development.

“Disallowing women from taking kolanuts from the bowl even
after it has been blessed and making the Igbo women sub-human should be
discarded, considering the fact that culture is dynamic,” she said.

She said that a synergy between the ministry and the council
of traditional rulers would go a long way in establishing programmes that would
address the cultural challenges facing the state and the Igbo in general.

The commissioner noted that the onus was on the traditional
parliamentarians in the state to enact laws that would help in preserving,
promoting and propagating Igbo cultural heritage, adding that such laws should
phase out fetish and obnoxious customs that still existed in the state.

Nnanna-Okoro commended Governor Rochas Okorocha for setting
up the Traditional Parliament and  the
International Federation of Women Lawyers in Imo for solving the problems of
widows and other issues affecting women and children.

She frowned at the manner in which some communities in the
state celebrate their masquerades and appealed to the traditional rulers to
advise their subjects against such acts.

“They should stop obstructing traffic and harassing women
and visitors to the state. Our ministry will involve necessary sections of the
law to punish culprits caught celebrating masquerades on major roads,” she
said.

Responding, Ohiri said the council would partner with the
ministry to preserve the state’s cultural heritage and assured the commissioner
that the council would look into the fetish and obnoxious cultures in the state
and come up with laws that would lead to their abolition.

The traditional ruler commended Okorocha’s relentless effort
to ensure that Igbo language did not go into extinction.

“Igbo people in the Diaspora and other parts of the country
should teach their children our language because Igbo language is our
identity,” he said.