The osu cast system was a strong one in the eastern part of Nigeria so many years ago. It is said that they have been sold to the deities, they and their descendants. It is like the slave system during the slave trade era. No one is to associate with them.

Worse than the Osus, were the Umes. An Osu would not interact with or get married to an Ume.

The reason people don't associate with them is that they are thought to be cursed and bring bad luck. This was a paradox to me as the prominent politicians and rich people from my village then were Osus.

Growing up in Nigeria, I made some research, both from reading and enquiring from the elders, and I came to understand that other than by birth, there are other ways, one can become Osu.

1. By physical association. If you sleep under the same roof with an Osu, you automatically become one. This is so serious that if it's raining and you run into an Osu's house for shelter, you're not to go back to your house, you're now an Osu. You should not be a roommate of an Osu.

2. By marriage and extension sexual relations. The one people practice today is the marriage because when I was in the village, it was common for even the so called custodians of the law to be in sexual relationships with Osus, but be the first to cast a stone at young people who are intending to get married to the so called Osus.

You can see that all of us are Osus.

About 12years ago, my uncle was telling me about not bringing home an Osu girl. I asked him why and he started talking about badluck. I made him to understand that his life is already full of badluck and he didn't marry an Osu. My mum was trying to suggest something like that and I told them never to mention it to me again in their existence. It was really insulting to me that people who really ain't educated would be advising me on who to marry. By the way, my uncle's marriage has been in shambles.

My roommate throughout my university is an Osu.

I courted my girl for 4years and never for once enquired whether she was Osu or not.

I actually started praying to have an Osu as a wife so that I could really fight this shit out with my family.

It’s terrible when I hear idiots who went to university talk about how they won't marry Osu because of some myths still peddled by old uninformed village old men. It's really disgusting.

Na only you Waka come

It's just racism in simple terms

An average Nigerian will celebrate if his or her relation marrys an American, a Briton, canadian, Australian, Japanese, singaporean or other Europeans even when we don't know their history. That family will be assumed to be the most "fortunate" family in the whole community. They won't even bother to do any investigation as the person is certified qualified to marry their son or daughter because of these countries I already mentioned. When it comes to within us, we start discriminating. You will start seeing or hearing statements like "he/she is an osu", "our family doesnot marry from their family", "there is a curse in their family" and several other nonsense statements. Africans treat other Africans like trash. We need all our brains to be formated.