The traditional ruler of Ihiala ancient kingdom Ihiala local government area of Anambra state His Royal Highness Igwe Thomas Obidiegwu Oluoha the 17th of Ihiala has stressed the urgent need to make it known to the general public that Ihiala forbids drinking water used to wash a dead body.
Obidiegwu said such atavistic cultural practice is not known nor associated with the people of Ihiala. He said such barbaric traditional custom may exist in other parts of Igbo land but certainly not in Ihiala where they are their brother’s keeper.
Igwe Obidiegwu who made it known in a statement he signed yesterday and made available to journalists, stressed that it is of Paramount importance to get the facts straight about Ihiala community and its age-long cultural practices handed down to them by their progenitors.
His statement titled ” Giving Widows Water Used to Bath Their Husbands is Utterly Strange to Our Culture” reads thus : “The Oluoha in Council and the entire people of Ihiala in Anambra State have watched with amazement since Sunday, June 10, 2021, news reports claiming that a widow in our community was being forced by her in-laws to drink water used to bath the husband as part of a so-called cultural practice for a married woman to demonstrate that she is not culpable in the death of her husband.
“We would have dismissed the reports as a case of media sensationalism or taking cultural fiction too far, but for the fact that we had on Saturday, June 9, 2021, received a letter from a human rights lawyer, Mrs. Ebele Obiora, alleging that there could be an attempt by the Asomugha family of Ubahuekwem community to subject Mrs. Esther Chioma Asomugha–whose husband named Chizoba Asomugha, was being buried on Monday, June 11, 2021– to the despicable and primitive ordeal of drinking water used to wash the husband’s body on account of a family dispute. The same letter was sent to the President General of the Ihiala Progress Union, Chief S. Okey Chukwu, who is also a member of the Oluoha in Council.
“We have conducted a thorough investigation of the allegation and would like to state categorically that no person in either Ihiala Town or Ihiala culture area has at any point in history indulged in the practice of subjecting a widow to drink water used to wash the husband’s dead body in order to prove that she is not responsible for her husband’s death.” “We have only heard and read that there were some communities in Igboland which once practised such a callous primitive thing. The practice was abolished long ago in communities where it was ever in existence, and none of the communities is near Ihiala.
“Still, the allegation of an attempt to force Mrs. Asomugha to go through the ordeal of drinking water used to bath the husband’s corpse is not completely without merit. Mr. Ndubuisi Asomugha, the younger brother of the late Chizoba Asomugha, made a voice note shortly after the elder brother’s death and threatened Mrs. Esther Chioma Asomugha, the wife of the elder. In the voice note which he made from Liberia where he lives, he did threaten to compel her to drink water used to wash the husband’s body.”
