RE-AFFIRMATION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION OF AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION: THE IDOMA EXPERIENCE OF NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA
Abstract
African Traditional Religion, from the Idoma experience of Nigeria. Hitherto to
the present epoch, some of the pioneer scholars of Africans and her religion have
made wrong assertions that the African man and mind is incapable of,
comprehending the existence of the Ultimate Reality, God. Implicitly and
explictly denying the fact that Africans can rationalize and think about their
existence and their interactions with the universe and the final end of man on
earth. But facts and records available suggest the opposite, because Africans
observed and pondered on issues of the universe and discovered that after night
comes the morning, after the raining season comes the dry season and so on,
including his own existence. If African Traditional Religion has a philosophical
foundation, then the paper is a re-affirmation of the philosophical foundations of
African. This is borne out of the natural instinct of all human beings, that sense
of rationality that is imbued in all of humankind irrespective of faith convictions,
ethnic affiliations and the like. Pondering and speculating are all part of the acts
of philosophizing. So, African Traditional Religion was borne out of philosophical
speculations as the man intereacts with his universe, with the realization that aBeing greater than himself is responsible for creation epecially, putting in place
that Divine Creative Order. The paper is analytical in nature drawing strengths
from available secondary sources of data, to buttress the fact that African
Traditional Religion is well grounded on sound philosophical foundations as
against earlier wrong notions and contemporary wrong assertions stating the
contrary. A denial of the philosophical foundations of African Traditional
Religion both in the short run and long run would be an exercise in futility,
because it would amount to an attempt at denying the humanity of the Africans.
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