M.O Ene
It’s an old-time orthodoxy: We are not alone. The cosmos is vast with visible and invisible constituents. Humanity strives to understand and use both natural and supernatural forces also called ‘deities.’ These forces regulate our ecosystems. A formidable force (Chiukwu) is believed to exist. The relationship between followers and the dominant deity varies.
Ọdịnanị is Igbo scientific spirituality. ‘Science’ and ‘spirituality’ in the same sentence seems strange, but the gap in organic Ọdịnanị is not as wide as in imported revealed religions. Ọdịnanị focuses more on what is known but tests the edges of the unknown. When science levels up, it changes suitably.
With the coming of Christianity, Ọdịnanị was castigated in religious circles as archaic and evil. The demeaning and destruction of shrines by Pentecostal preachers, the stealing and selling of sacred statues to foreign museums, continued until many European buyers rediscovered Jesus! No Christian cleric protested.
With the current crashing and corrosive commotions in Christianity, economic recession, poor political leadership, and unconscionable display of newfound wealth, Igbo youths crave alternative paths to sustenance and success: flim-flam frauds, kidnapping, emigration, conversion to Islam, interest in fetish rites, rude radicalism… whatever works!
Enter a crusading Igbo-Christian governor to degrade Ọdịnanị spirituality. Many critics doubt his denial because his actions target the tenets of traditional creed and exclude foreign faiths: Christianity and Islam. He has also declared his state “Christian,” in violation of the Constitution. He demands of ‘Ndị dibịa’ (the so-called ‘native doctors’) to prove the efficacy of concocted charms, but he endorses the Pentecostal fake-miracle ministers.
Here hinges the main problem with Ọdịnanị: fear of traditional medicines (ọ́gwụ̀), which are physical and psychological, bio-based agents. Ọgwụ alleviate, block, or control sundry sicknesses. They include drugs, charms, mystic powers, and therapies. All potent prescriptions that promote good health, cure diseases, manage wealth or weather (as in rainmaking), and enhance success are “medicine” in Igbo worldview. The making of medicines, application, control, and functions differ.
All religions make medicines for success; books, candles, oils, and prayers are medicines. The Igbo dibịa is an ethnopharmacologist, a motivational speaker, and an oracle. Folks should not cringe when they hear of elixirs for success such as ‘awaele,’ ‘ibobo,’ ‘okeite,’ and ‘uduákọmmiri.’ Crosses, masses, scapular, chaplet and rosary (Catholicism), mala (Buddhism), misbaha (Islam), menorah, chai (Judaism), incantations and invocations are “ọgwụ.” Do these potions work? Yes, like every prayer, 50-50… more or less! When dịbịa concocts ‘ọgwụ nshị’ (poison), it has similar effects as ingesting the insecticide Dichlorvos (SNIPER®) and the rodenticide ‘ọtapịapịa.’
Ọdịnanị is not a religion, strictly speaking. Ironically, the crusading governor may catalyze a crucial change. It is the law of inertia. A clash of these crashing creeds is avoidable and unnecessary; constructive cohabitation is possible and mutually beneficial. The bishops and Daddy GOs must discourage continued castigation, condemnation, and demeaning deconstruction of Ọdịnanị.
The fightback could grow into an unorganized religious revolution. Truth be told, every Igbo person is an Ọdịnanị devotee: the name we bear, circumcision, the kolanut communion, the new yam festival, ịgbankwụ, masquerading, etc. Also, Ọdịnanị has a large limit of ecumenical elasticity.
Like North African-born St. Augustine of Hippo, we need philosophers and theologians to reform Igbo scientific spirituality (Ọdịnanị) and to reflect recent religious renaissance and regional realities of crashing creeds.
@DrMOEne. M.O. Ene’s latest work, “The Fundamentals of Ọdịnanị” will be published in May 2025.