CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Developments in recent decades involving certain Igbo deities show that the era of the gods has not ended in a society that embraced Christianity and the Western education and lifestyle that came with it roughly a century and a half ago. Judging by outward appearances alone, such as church attendance, formal education and the general tone of modern public life, one might conclude that the deities have become relics fit only for museums. The evidence suggests otherwise. Rather than vanishing, the deities have been pressed back and made less visible, yet they have continued to operate, often quietly, in the background of Igbo social life. In the Nsukka area in particular, Eze (2018) observes that although the deities have lost followers to Christianity and Islam, and some former adherents regard them as dormant or dead, they have continued to endure rather than disappear as the universal religions had predicted.

Several episodes in the Nsukka cultural zone illustrate this resilience. The shrine of the Efuru deity at Idoha drew the attention of the Anambra State Government of the day and was demolished in 1988 because of practices at the shrine that were judged inhuman. In February 1995, a prophetess, Ngozika Ogbu, and her followers destroyed the shrine of Adoro at Alor-Uno, an act that was documented on video and later transcribed and published as an archival record. A comparable effort against the Adoro shrine at Alor-Agu met fierce resistance, and the leader of the group died from the injuries she received in the confrontation. In 2002, Christians in Neke attacked and demolished the shrines of the Ezugwu and Odo deities, which they considered inhuman and ungodly. National newspapers carried the story, and photographs of human skulls said to have been recovered from the shrines were published. A lengthy court case followed, in which the traditionalists argued that their right to freedom of worship had been violated by the Christians. The state, the church, the police and the judiciary were all drawn into the dispute.

The case that attracted the widest national attention was the Ogwugwu shrine at Okija in Anambra State. On 3 August 2004, acting on a complaint, the Nigerian Police raided the shrine complex, arrested its custodians and recovered human skulls and decomposing bodies. Ellis (2008) reports that thirty-one suspects were paraded before the press in connection with eighty-three corpses, sixty-three of them headless, and twenty skulls. He further shows that the affair became politically sensitive because it exposed the continued, unofficial role of older institutions in a country governed by a written constitution and democratic elections, including the claim that prominent public figures had sworn oaths at the shrine. Public reaction was divided. Some Nigerians applauded the police action, others condemned it, and still others blamed the failure of the church and the courts for the persistence of such shrines.

These episodes demonstrate that shrines in Igboland were not abandoned, as many had expected when Christianity arrived. Some deities have had their shrines destroyed, yet the speed with which communities rebuilt and reconsecrated them is strong evidence of the importance of these deities to the people. Beyond the media attention that such destruction generates, little systematic effort has been made to establish why the deities are so resilient and why they recover so quickly after being "destroyed." This study sets out to address that gap.

Before the Igbo encountered Western ideas, traditional religion shaped every sphere of life, and the deities played a central part in human affairs. Ngangah (2023) explains that Odinani, the Igbo belief system, is better understood as a worldview than as a mere collection of rites, and that it provides the rationale for the worship of deities, the veneration of ancestors and the masquerade tradition. The powers of the deities were harnessed to improve life, and they were equally employed against perceived enemies. Magical powers were sought to repel evil forces and to open the way to achievement and success. This outlook continues to influence the Igbo today, in spite of appearances to the contrary.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

After more than one hundred and fifty years of Christianity and Western civilization in Igboland, one visible result is a population that is neither fully Christian nor fully traditional. Many Igbo Christians have adopted an ambivalent way of living, committed publicly to the Christian God and a Western lifestyle in times of ease, while privately turning to deities and traditional methods when the hardships of life arise. Anizoba (2021) describes this as a persistent double allegiance among Igbo-speaking Christians, many of whom hold on to charms, consult diviners about security, prosperity, sickness and destiny, and still take traditional oaths. Okeke, Ibenwa and Okeke (2017) likewise show that the long history of conflict between Christianity and the traditional religion in Igboland has produced, among other outcomes, a syncretism in the people's culture. In the same vein, Havelka (2024) notes that some Igbo Christians keep the traditional Odinala religion alongside their Christian faith, either as a parallel religious identity or in blended form.

Consequently, two worldviews, the traditional and the Western, compete for the Igbo mind. Anizoba (2021) found that life-threatening conditions such as illness, disease, insecurity and fear are the main drivers of this syncretism. In other words, the traditional face of the double-faced believer appears most clearly in moments of crisis, such as sickness, misfortune, bereavement and childlessness, when recourse is made to traditional solutions. Syncretism of this kind produces a divided life, without a clear focus, in which the person is unsure of where they stand and is left confused.

In practice, many people attend church on Sunday and patronize deities when concrete problems demand solutions. Traders use charms to draw customers. Civil servants fear that without magical protection a rival will take their promotion. Lawyers are believed to use charms against one another, and politicians perform rituals to gain and retain office. The widespread assumption is that nothing can be accomplished without the support of spiritual power.

The continued patronage of deities, despite the availability of other options, also points to weaknesses in the modern institutions that characterize a civilized society. Ellis (2008) argues that the persistence of shrines in Nigerian public life reflects the enduring, informal influence of older institutions on politics, even under a formal constitutional order. Ekhator and Richards (2024) show that customary arbitration, including traditional oath-taking, remains one of the most common indigenous dispute-settlement mechanisms in Nigeria and has even received approval from the Supreme Court. This suggests that many people continue to carry their disputes to the shrine rather than the court, and that the formal justice system has not fully won their confidence. The question of religious failure arises as well, since churches and mosques stand within a few kilometres of almost every community, yet the shrines still draw people.

Since the Igbo have accepted Western ideologies, a number of questions remain unanswered. Why do Christians and educated people return in private to what they have publicly rejected? Is the Christian God considered too weak to intervene? Why are cases taken to shrines instead of law courts? Why have the deities survived in an age of science and technology?

1.3 Aim of the Study

This study focuses on the significance of deities in the practical life of the Igbo and aims, among other things, to achieve the following:

1. To recover the purpose for which deities were established in primal Igbo society, in order to determine their fate in modern times.
2. To provide a working document for the proper and effective Christianization of Igboland.
3. To expose certain harmful practices connected with deities that hinder human and societal development.
4. To show the extent to which Christianity and civilization have affected the people and society.
5. To identify those aspects of the traditional religion that can be retained in the present.

1.4 Scope of the Study

The study examines the significance of deities in the practical life of the Igbo in the Nsukka Cultural Zone. The communities of the zone have many deities, but four were selected for detailed investigation for two reasons. The first three are notorious deities whose influence extends beyond their home localities and who are known for their severity toward offenders. The fourth, Nimu-kwome, is the principal deity of the researcher's home town. The investigation is limited to the origin, mode of operation, influence and patronage of these deities. A broader classification of the other deities in the zone is also presented, although it is not exhaustive.

In ordinary usage, the word deity covers all divine spiritual beings. In this study, however, it refers only to those spiritual beings that the Igbo popularly call alusi, which were instituted by the communities that own them to serve particular purposes. Pan-Igbo deities are excluded, while ancestral spirits that have been deified are included.

1.5 Significance of the Study

The study is a further scholarly contribution to knowledge. It will help readers appreciate why deities were established in Igbo primal society, and it will serve as a guide to the ongoing quest for cultural and religious revival among the Igbo. Agbo (2021), for example, shows that the norms and values embedded in Ala, the earth deity, are a resource for confronting present-day moral decline, and this study extends that line of inquiry to the Nsukka zone.

The church will also find the work a useful resource for the proper evangelization of Igboland. Ojimba (2022) points out that the Igbo deities are powerful within their own spheres yet are not identical to the Supreme God preached by missionaries, which is a distinction any serious pastoral or missionary approach must take into account. Because relatively little has been written on deities in the Nsukka Cultural Zone, although Eze (2018) has made a valuable contribution on selected deities, future researchers will find this work beneficial, since it opens other aspects for exploration, such as separate studies of individual deities. Finally, the study will help free many people from the fear and intimidation exercised by deity priests who manipulate them for personal gain.

1.6 Research Methodology

The data for this research were obtained from primary and secondary sources. The primary sources consist of oral interviews conducted within the cultural area covered by the study. The secondary sources include relevant textbooks, journal articles, internet materials, and newspaper and magazine reports.

The study adopts the phenomenological approach, which seeks to uncover the religious meaning and significance of religious phenomena within the whole cultural context in which they occur. Using this approach, the influence of deities on Igbo practical life is examined at three levels: historical, interpretative and comparative. At the historical level, events are collected and recorded as they occurred. At the interpretative level, their meaning is sought in religious and social terms. At the comparative level, the services rendered by the deities are compared with those provided by the agents of social and religious change in contemporary Igbo society.

1.7 Definition of Terms

For clarity, certain operational terms are defined according to how they are used in this work. They are deity, the Igbo, culture area, worldview and life.

Deity. The English word deity derives from the Latin deus and divus, and later deitas, terms that convey the nature of a god and the idea of divinity. In general usage it refers to a god or goddess, a supernatural being believed to influence human life, and it may include ancestors, understood as human spirits that continue to exist after death. In Igbo thought, Havelka (2024) explains that Chukwu is the source of all other deities and assigns them their tasks in creation, while Ngangah (2023) identifies alusi (deities) as one of the four core elements of the Igbo belief system, alongside Okike (creation), mmuo (spirits) and Uwa (the visible world). Ojimba (2022) adds that the Igbo recognize powerful deities that exercise authority within their respective domains, but that none of them is identical to the Supreme God of Christian teaching. Drawing on these perspectives, this study defines a deity as a named, localized and enshrined spiritual being, regularly worshipped by a community, kindred or family, and serving as an intermediary between humans and the Supreme God, Chukwu. In this study the terms deity and god are used interchangeably.

The Igbo. Igbo is both the name of a language and of an ethnic group in Nigeria, whose members are bound together by shared geography, language, social organization and culture. Eze (2018) places them among the three largest ethnic nationalities in the country, together with the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba. Geographically, Igboland lies in south-eastern Nigeria, extending westward and southward into the present Delta and Rivers States, roughly between latitudes 5° and 7° N and longitudes 6° and 8° E. Linguistically, the Igbo speak a language with many dialects spread across the various cultural zones, and culturally the land is commonly divided into as many as nine sub-cultural areas. Igbo responses to new religious and cultural influences have tended to be selective and pragmatic. Anizoba (2021) notes, for instance, that the early Igbo reaction to Christianity was neither eager acceptance nor hostility, and that by the early twentieth century the religion had come to be associated with social class and higher status. Havelka (2024) further shows that the traditional Odinala religion continues to help shape Igbo identity, even among Christians.

Culture Area. A culture area is a geographical region inhabited by peoples whose cultures share a significant degree of similarity with one another and a significant degree of difference from the cultures of surrounding regions. It follows that a culture area has the same dominant cultural traits even though it may contain many distinct peoples. Igboland displays these characteristics clearly. Nsukka lies within the Northern Igbo Cultural Zone, and its culture is a microcosm of Igbo culture in general. Eze (2018) confirms that in the Nsukka area, as in other parts of Igboland, nearly every community has had, and in some cases still has, a deity of its own, and that deities have performed political, economic, social and judicial functions there.

Worldview. In this study, worldview means the set of beliefs through which a people interpret reality, including the relationship between the visible and invisible worlds. Ngangah (2023) holds that Odinani is not simply a body of religious practices but the traditional belief system and worldview of the Igbo. In this worldview, the earthly and the spiritual are interconnected, so that deities, ancestors and spirits are active participants in everyday affairs.

Life. Life, as used here, refers to the practical, day-to-day existence of the people, including health and illness, prosperity, security, justice, political ambition and family continuity. These are the concerns that, according to Anizoba (2021), most often drive Igbo Christians back to traditional resources, and they form the arena in which the significance of deities is examined in this work.

References

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Anizoba, E. C. (2021). A critical evaluation of religious syncretism among the Igbo Christians of Nigeria. Acta Theologica. https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/at/article/view/5884

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