Establishment of Native Court at Obosi, Onitsha Division

In 1902 the village of Obosi in Onitsha Division was on the verge of civil war due to a conflict between missionary-influenced young men who demanded the abolition of customs like the killing of twins, facial scarification, and the taking of certain traditional titles, and the elders who opposed these changes. Divisional Commissioner W. Fosbery went to Obosi and established a Native Court to serve the village and its neighbours, through which laws were passed banning those customs considered objectionable by the 'progressives'. Obosi elders of the time of writing insisted the Native Court came as an instrument of unwelcome revolutionary change.