IGBO CULTURE, ITS ETHICAL STRATUM AND JUSTICE IN THE FACE OF MODERN CRIMINALITY AND VIOLENCE

AMAECHI-ANI, NNEKA NKIRU

Abstract


Igbo people were historically organized in terms of maintenance of law and order. When Christianity and even Islam came, they seem to be a hiding refugee camps for people with evil minds. Christianity and Islam never preach or encourage crime and violence. But the natives took the advantage of the grace they provided to pervert the cultural and ethical order. Western and Azabian civilization on the other hand gave space for gradual processes of actualizing justice which in reverse, in most cases, encourage injustice. Crimes and violence therefore, keep increasing. This research studies the Igbo culture in relation to ethics in the face of change. It adopts historical and descriptive research methodology. Data were also analysed with historical and comparative styles of data analyses. Data were gotten from secondary source. It is recommended amongst other things that some traditional measures of administering justice, execution of crimes and violence will be incorporated in the state law, and local government bye-laws. It is found in this study that if these measures are applied, Igbo society will experience crime and violence reduced, if not a crime and violence free environment.

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