Constructing a Nigerian Ubuntu Theology: Community, Humanity, and the Divine in Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa-Fulani Perspectives

This doctoral study constructs an original Nigerian theology drawing on Ubuntu, the southern African philosophical principle that personhood is constituted through community, and examines how analogous communal ontologies in Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa-Fulani traditions might ground a distinctively Nigerian constructive theology of community, humanity, and the divine. While Ubuntu theology has been richly developed in South Africa, its application to northern and eastern Nigerian cultural frameworks represents an original contribution. Employing a comparative African philosophical theology methodology, data are gathered through sixty interviews with Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa-Fulani cultural philosophers, theologians, and community leaders across Lagos, Anambra, and Katsina states, supplemented by textual analysis of published African philosophy and theology. The study identifies convergent communal ontological themes across the three traditions, including concepts of personhood-as-relatedness, the moral accountability of community, and divine immanence in communal life. These are engaged in critical dialogue with Christian Trinitarian theology, ecclesiology, and social ethics. An original Nigerian Ubuntu theology is proposed that grounds Christian social ethics in indigenous communal ontology, providing a contextual theological foundation for addressing individualism, ethnic fragmentation, and social irresponsibility in contemporary Nigeria. Keywords: Ubuntu theology, communal ontology, Nigerian theology, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa-Fulani