The Spirit and the Subaltern: Pneumatology and Political Liberation in Nigeria’s Marginalised Communities

This doctoral study develops an original pneumatological theology of political liberation grounded in the experiences of marginalised communities in Nigeria, arguing that the Holy Spirit's work in history includes the empowerment of subaltern voices, the disruption of unjust power structures, and the formation of liberative communities. The study engages with Nigeria's most economically and politically marginalised populations including fisherfolk in Ijaw communities in Bayelsa, indigenous minority groups in the Plateau highlands, and urban poor communities in Kano, as sites of the Spirit's liberative activity. Drawing on liberation pneumatology, African Pentecostal theology, subaltern studies, and political philosophy, the research employs a participatory liberation theology methodology, conducting liberation reflection groups with 150 participants across the three sites, supplemented by forty interviews with community theologians, church leaders, and political activists. The study recovers pneumatological themes from the lived theology of the communities themselves and constructs an original liberation pneumatology that challenges both the individualistic pneumatology of mainstream Pentecostalism and the secularist assumptions of conventional political liberation theory. The proposed pneumatology integrates the Spirit's work as witness, advocate, liberator, and community former in a framework oriented toward Nigerian contexts of political marginalisation and social exclusion. Keywords: pneumatology, liberation theology, subaltern, political theology, Nigerian marginalised communities