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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.

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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”.