The apex Igbo organisation Ohanaeze Ndigbo has lamented failed marriages in Igbo communities abroad. Speaking at the 92 birth day celebration of Lady Christiana Ezeajughi in Awgbu, Vice President Damian Ogene said:

“What the officiating priest said is true and several marriages of Igbo extraction have crashed due to the influence of the Western culture and this has greatly affected our culture, tradition and custom which we hold dear and sacred.

“It has also affected our children who were born abroad because you cannot discipline your children when they err and most of them cannot even speak our language and should you apply our brand of child training abroad you will run into problems and at the end you lose your child.”

Speaking at a thanksgiving service for the nonagenarian, the Parish Priest of SS Peter and Paul Catholic Parish Noise Fr Bona Nwankiti said: “Let us thank God for the Igbo or African culture that we have today.

“This is because that is the system that we train and groom our children and that accounts for the celebration of our mother at the age of 92 because if we didn’t apply it we all will not be here today.

“The worst of it all is the crashing of marriages among the Igbo couple because when you take a well-trained Igbo daughter abroad she will be made to adopt the ways of the people abroad and if she becomes richer than her husband she will start finding a way to be on her own and that is ultimately divorce.

“If the husband tries to apply it there he becomes a guest to the police and soon he is detached from his wife and children and the marriage crashes so we must have at the back of our minds while travelling abroad not to forget our culture for the sake of posterity.”