ACHIEVING & MAINTAINING
OUR CIVIC OBLIGATIONS

Justice is the bedrock of African traditional practices

Our fore fathers recognized that social order and peace were essential and sacred. They believed that community solidarity must be maintained to prevent disintegration and destruction, especially since kinship relationship was paramount. As such, a crime committed by a member of the society was viewed as a crime against the corporate body where its consequences where far more reaching. The effects of the crime was “not only on the one who committed the crime, but also the whole body of his relatives). There exist, therefore, many laws, customs, set forms, of behaviors, regulations, rules, observations and taboos, [making] the moral code and ethics of a given community or society. … any breach of this code of behavior is considered evil, wrong, or bad and must be punished by the corporate community” (John Mbiti, pg. 200). Therefore, in this modern day, we must continue to make this our civic duties wherever we are as well as transcend it to our future generations.

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