COMPARATIVE ONTOLOGY OF LAND IN IGALA AND IGBO RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Abstract

This article undertakes a comparative philosophical analysis of land ontology in two related but distinct Nigerian religio-cultural traditions: the Igala of the Niger-Benue confluence and the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria. The study aims to examine how each tradition conceptualizes land as a sacred, morally constitutive reality, identify convergences and divergences in their metaphysical architectures, and assess implications for African philosophy of religion. Employing a qualitative, interpretive methodology, it draws on ethnographic, philosophical, and historical sources within a composite framework drawn from Tempels, Mbiti, Eliade, Asouzu, and the indigenous Igbo philosophy of being developed by Edeh, Iroegbu, and Nwala. The study finds that both traditions share a communitarian metaphysics in which land mediates relationships between the living, the ancestors, and the divine, yet diverge in personification, gender symbolism, and political incorporation of sacred authority: Igbo cosmology consolidates land sacrality in the singular earth-goddess Ala, while Igala cosmology distributes it across a polycentric network of ancestral spirit-presence and sacred kingship. The study recommends that land governance frameworks in Nigeria engage indigenous religious ontologies and that comparative scholarship extend this approach to adjacent Niger-Benue traditions. Intra-African comparative ontology, the study concludes, reveals internal diversity that pan-African generalizations obscure, requiring culture-specific philosophical analysis.