Freddie Adagbe, Media Assistant to chairman of TATC, Prof.
Ayatse, made the revelation via a statement released and made available to
newsmen in Makurdi on Saturday.
The committee, which has three months to submit its report,
is headed by His Royal Highness, Chief Jam Gbinde Ter Ikyor, and had been
directed to investigate the reasons for the high bride price and recommend ways
of addressing the challenge.
Prof. Ayatse lamented that the high bride price was
hindering bachelors and spinsters from getting married, noting that in some
cases, young men resorted to acquiring resources through unacceptable means to
meet up with the challenge.
Ayatse also directed the committee to evolve ways of
reducing cost incurred during burials, lamenting that burials had now been
turned to ceremonies, adding that such practice was totally alien to Tiv
culture.
According to him, there is need to address the problem as
borrowed trends of expensive marriages and burials have inflicted poverty on
families. The chairman called on relevant religious bodies and stakeholders to
help in eradicating such borrowed cultures, values and traditions that were not
beneficial to the growth and development of Tiv land.
The chairman also directed the committee to suggest a decent
dress code to restore the dignity of the people, noting that ordinary people
now put on beads as if they were traditional rulers or title holders.
He also called on the committee to suggest measures that
would check the indiscriminate sales of ancestral land by some family members
who never considered the plight of future generations. Ayatse noted that such
acts were responsible for incessant communal clashes in the area of recent.
By Ameh Comrade Godwin
