AN APPRAISAL OF IFEKA-MOLLER’S DEPRIVATION THEORY IN THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS CHANGE IN IGBO LAND

Abstract

The write-up studies or investigates the sociological variables found in the religious change that took place in Igbo land or eastern part of Nigeria, as it is being explained by deprivation theory of Ifeka-Moller. With the coming of Christianity and Muslim religions in the shores of Africa and later to the Eastern part of Nigeria, there was a mass exodus to Christian religion by the traditionalists or votaries of African/ Igbo traditional religion. Ifeka-Moller’s derivation theory was an attempt to explain the reason for the mass exodus of traditionalists into Christian religion from Igbo traditional religion. The deprivation theory gave or explained some reasons why conversion or movement into Christian religion was fast in some places while in the other areas it was slow in conversion. Again the main purpose of the deprivation theory is to point out that the socio-structural factors are the main reasons for conversion to the Christian religion. However, the uses of thematic and sociological approaches were adopted to study the above theory. From the comparative analysis, it is found out that no single factor can account for conversion into Christian religion in the Eastern part of Nigeria and that most of the votaries of traditional religion are going back to their traditional religion.