We cannot throw away, destroy, forget, reject, our cultures and tradition

This is why I love the Catholic Church. The Catholic church is the only church that respects and recognise our cultural heritage. Don’t get it twisted, I belong to a Pentecostal church, and I don’t have plans to leave Pentecostal any time soon.

But one thing I love about Catholics is the fact that they recognise the various Nigerian traditions and cultures, and always find a way to associate with them.

For instance, in the youth forum of every Catholic church in South East, they have an Igbo structural system of government, represented in the church. Which allows young men and women to hold traditional titles like; Igwe (King) Lolo Igwe (Queen) Onowu (kingmaker) etc . (in resemblance to Igbo traditional governing system). You need to see them appear in their traditional regalia anytime they have special events.

From the picture below you can see a Reverend Father taking part in the new yam festival.

Whereas Pentecostal churches take the celebration of new yam festival as barbaric, outdated, satanic, irrelevant.

How can we sustain, and retain our cultures for the next generation if we think like this?

I will love every church in Nigeria to follow the path of the Catholic churches to associate with harmless Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Edo, or any other culture they find themselves.

We cannot throw away, destroy, forget, reject, our cultures and tradition, just because we found a new one.

Today when you hear the word Native Doctor, the sound alone brings fear in people’s hearts. when in a real sense the meaning simply is a “Local Doctor who is trained locally to use herbs to cure illness”
In India and china native doctors are renowned for making global discoveries for a cure for fatal diseases. Even our governors patronise them.

But this “my culture is evil” mentality has made us ignore and chase away our Dibiase. The only Dibia left now in Nigeria is 2face idibia. (Lolz)

My grandfather was a Dibia (native doctor) I was never proud as a kid to tell my mates about him.
He couldn’t pass such a rear gift unto his children. Just because the children had the mindset I had as a kid. All the children were Christians, so they didn’t want to associate with evil.

My grandfather of blessed memory can cure bullet wounds, snake bite, mental illness just name it. But today he is no more and none of his children took over from him.

But when it comes to our churches today the general overseer will train his son to take over his church whenever he is no more. Whereas we all are reluctant and afraid to take over our cultural heritage from our grandparents. (Don’t get it wrong oo, am not asking you to take over from a witch doctor) The two are different.

I think its high time we pick up our pieces and look for a way to sustain our cultural heritage.

Thanks to our schools that engage in the cultural day. This will help a lot in making our children know where they come from.