Ndi Igbo: The Theological basis of Igbo Legal System.

By
 Emeka Maduewesi :

Ndi Igbo: The Theological Basis of Igbo Legal System
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Among the Igbo, religion and law are so closely interwoven that many of the most powerful legal sanctions are derived directly from God. Therefore, to study and understand the Igbo legal system, it is imperative that you start with their theology. 

Igbos had no king, no empire, no parliament. No Igbo cultural practice, which enjoys the status of law, was instituted by any known human. For example, no human instituted the 8th-day circumcision widely practiced by Igbos for centuries before the arrival of the Europeans.

Igbo legal System is called Omenana / Omenala / Omenani, which means "what should be practiced/observed/done in the land." Any infraction of Omenala was deemed an offense against "the gods" as some authors and Nollywood now propagate. 

Howbeit, the connections between the meaning of Omenala, the practice of Omenala, the belief that infraction offends God, and the words of Deuteronomy 12:1, are not lost on a spiritually woke Igbo; "Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess. Deuteronomy 6:1. Igbo Bible renders the translation thus, "Ma nka bu ihe ahu enyere n'iwu, na ukpuru nile, na ikpé nile, nke Jehova, bú Chineke-unu, nyere iwu ka ezí unu, ka unu we me ha n'ala ahu ebe unu onwe-unu nāgabiga inweta ya." DEUTERONOMI 6:1 

So, when in the 1920s the Igbo told Dr. Charles E. Meek, the renowned British Anthropologist, that Igbo laws came from God, they knew what they were saying. Since Kings made law for humans, God was the only King known to the Igbo.

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