F. OFFOR
becomes unsustainable.
In many parts of Africa, a person is conceived to be made up
of two principal substances, one physical, corporeal and ex-
tended, and the other spiritual, incorporeal and unextended. Of
these substances, one survives the death of the other. According
to Dukor, “death in African theistic panpsychic universe is a
transmigration kind of transition to the world beyond … Life
therefore is a continuous process from this world to the world
beyond” (Dukor, 2010b). By this, Dukor means that life for the
African is continuous, and that the death of the physical body
does not mean the cessation of life. This assertion by Dukor is
based on his analysis of how man is conceived in some African
thought systems.
Generally, the conception of man in many parts of Africa is
such that he is said to be made up of certain constituent parts
(Dukor, 2010a). For instance, among the Yoruba of south west-
ern Nige ria, a person is believed to be made up of three i mpor-
tant parts. These are the “Ara” which is the material body, in-
cluding the internal organs of a person; the “Emi” which is the
life giving element and the “Ori” which is the individuality
element that is responsible for a person’s personality (Oladipo,
1992).
In Akan ontology, a person is also made up of three parts
namely the “Okra”, the “Sunsum” and the “Honam” or “Nipa-
dua”, representing the soul (or life giving entity), the spirit that
gives a personality its force and body respectively (Wiredu,
1983). For the Igbo of eastern Nigeria, a person is an embodi-
ment of the “Chi” (the personality soul), the “Ndu” (the ani-
mating spirit) and the “Ahu” the physical body. Among the
Bini of southern Nigeria, a person is conceived as consisting of
the “Egbe” (body), the “Ehi” (personality spirit or guardian self)
and the “Orion” (animating spirit or soul). The “Ehi” is respon-
sible for one’s personality and its fortune is not tied to what
happens to the physical body. It is the bearer and transmitter of
one’s destiny, and the one that receives the account of how one
lived while on earth, in order to ascertain whether one con-
formed to the earlier received destiny from “Osanobua” (the
Supreme Being). The “Orion” is the life principle and the ani-
mating spirit that is capable of reincarnation and of bearing the
consequences of one’s actions or inactions while on earth. The
“Orion” is the most critical constituent of the human person and
its departure signifies death for the body.
Apart from the “Orion” and the “Ehi”, there is yet another
element which plays a significant role in the Bini conception of
a person. It is called “Ekhoe”. Paradoxically, Ekhoe has both a
spiritual and a material status. As a spiritual substance, Ekhoe is
linked to the mind and it is the seat of passion. In admonishing
a person to change his disposition or character, the Bini would
say “fie ekhoe werie” which means “change your mind or think-
ing”. As a material substance, Ekhoe translates as heart (Udu)
which is part of the physical body (Egbe). This is the reason the
Bini would entreat someone who is agitated to calm the nerves
of his heart “Yo obo wie ekhoe”, which translates as “rub your
hands down your heart”. Someone who understands the Bini
language would simply respond by rubbing his hands down the
side of his chest that houses the heart. So, whereas the “Ehi”
and the “Orion” are both immaterial spiritual substances, the
Ekhoe is both spiritual and material. However, the Egbe (body)
is believed to house both the Ekhoe and the Orion which ani-
mates it.
At the level of the physical, there is hardly any serious varia-
tion among the Yoruba, Akan, Igbo and Bini conceptions, as
they all agree that a person is made up of the physical body
with all biological organs playing certain interconnected roles
to ensure the survival of the human being (Oyeshile, 2002).
Also, all the conceptions are in agreement that the material
aspect of a person is not self sufficient and self enclosed. They
all suppose a symmetrical functional relationship between the
material aspect of a person and the non-material invisible as-
pect, with complimentary implications for the human person.
At the non physical level also, all the conceptions share a be-
lief in some animating spirit called the “Emi” in Yoruba, “Sun-
sum” in Akan, “Ndu” in Igbo and “Orion” in Bini. The Yoruba,
Akan, Igbo and Bini also believe in the inner head or personal-
ity soul which derives from God or the Supreme Being. This
inner head is largely responsible for human destiny (Oyeshile,
2002) and it is called “Ori” in Yoruba, “Okra” in Akan, “Chi”
in Igbo and “Ehi” in Bini.
On the strength of the foregoing apparent overlaps, one be-
gins to see the point in Dukor’s generalisation “that whatever
obtains in two or more ethnic groups in black Africa obtains in
the whole of black Africa” and that if there were any variation
from one ethnic group to another, it would be only in nomen-
clature and not in substance (Dukor, 2010a).
Personal Identity and “Life-Here-After”
There is a truism in science that all the cells in a person’s
body are completely replaced after every seven years and that
the human body is continually changing through the process of
nutriment and waste, to the extent that no individual may be
said to possess the same body after seven years. In the same
way, it is believed that a person’s mind, that is, mode of think-
ing, changes continually with the passage of time (Omoregbe,
2001).
So, whether from the materialist or idealist perspective, a
person changes with the passage of time, for as Copi once re-
marked, “… the mind grows old as well as the body” (Copi,
1982). Maduabuchi Dukor alluded to this, when he stated that:
There is no such thing as a person or a proper part of a
person, her ego, self or mind’s “I” that is exactly the same
overtime (Dukor, 2010b).
If therefore man is continually changing, what then is it that
constitutes a person’s individuality and identity, such that in
spite of a lapse of time and the changes the person may have
gone through, the person in question still remains the same as
we knew before? This question describes what has come to be
known in philosophy as the problem of personal identity. Phi-
losophers of Western extraction have responded to this problem
in several ways.
In his “theory of matter and form”, Aristotle postulated that
everything is composed of two elements-substance and acci-
dents. Whereas “accidents” or “matter” undergo change, the
“substance” or “form” does not, and this for Aristotle is what
constitutes the identity of a thing. When we covet this theory to
explain the position of dualist philosophers with regards to the
human person, the “matter” then becomes the body while the
“form” is the soul. Whereas the body changes, the soul does not
change but remains the same in spite of tremendous changes in
the body from birth to old age. Hence, the soul or mind is the
real essence of the human person.
For some others like Hume and Russell however, there is
nothing like the soul or mind conceived as an unchanging entity,
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