Why did Obi close the pathway?

The path in the story runs through a Nigerian village, connecting the cemetery to a shrine in the village. Not only do the villagers walk on it to the burial ground, they also believe that their dead ancestors use the path to visit them and that unborn children take it coming to be born.
This path goes directly through the schoolyard. Michael Obi, the school's new headmaster, is dedicated to purging the village of what he sees as harmful old ways. He feels that the established traditions are holding people back from the advantages the modern ways would bring. For Obi, a school is all about reason and logic.
Obi decides to stop people using the path and has a barbed wire fence put up. When the villagers make a new path, they destroy the school garden.