Dying Traditions in Igboland: Iku Ofo and the Modern Justice System
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Date
2016-08
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Nigerian Journal of Oral Literatures
Abstract
This paper examines the neglect of some traditional methods of punishment
that prevented crimes and sustained the ethics and moral codes of the Igbo
people before the modern institutional legal process. The dying practices of
ikwa ala, ipa mkpo, and iku ofo are three obvious methods that guarded
against incest, crimes like stealing and other forms of wrongdoing. Also
threatened are eshe and ituaka that honour the dead at burials in order to
maintain or restore the dignity of a family as well as prevent envy and
attack of ancestral spirits. However, Christianity is opposed to these
practices. This paper interrogates the dilemma of the Igbo society caught
between these practices and the constitutional legal practice in the 21st
century, which has greatly reduced the practice of these effective traditional
methods of punishment in most communities. It thus questions the hope of a
crime-free society in the foreseeable future given the allowances of modern
justice system and the conflicts posed by questionable moral culture of
modern Nigerian society. With illustrations, the paper examines some of
these punishments in (ancient) Igbo land, how they kept crimes in check,
some reasons for their decline, and the attractions of the modern justice
system in the Nigerian society
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Keywords
Tradition, Justice, Igbo, Eshe, Aladimma