Alcohol abuse in African traditional religion: Education and enlightenment as panacea for integration and development

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Alcohol abuse in African traditional religion: Education and enlightenment as panacea for integration and development
 
Creator Ekeke, Emeka C. John, Elizabeth O.
 
Subject Cultural Studies; Religious Studies African traditional religion and culture; religion and alcoholism; drug abuse and religion; religion and national development education and drug abuse; alcohol and enlightenment.
Description Alcoholism is endemic in Nigeria’s traditional religion and society. This abuse is especially common at New Yam festivals, Ekpe, Ekpo and Nmanwu masquerades festivals, burial rituals, birth, marriage and naming ceremonies. Some claim that this is driven by specific beliefs and activities in African culture, such as beliefs in ancestors, libation, hospitality and entertaining guests and strangers and the desire to maintain the cultural traditions of the ancestors. Alcohol abuse has generated major health and social issues for abusers, their families and society, plunging families, towns and tribes into crises and conflicts that bring economic and political retrogression. This research studied how the African traditional religion encourages alcohol misuse and how to decrease it for national development. This study was on Nigeria’s South-South region. The study uses qualitative and ethnographic research methodologies, including key informants, in-depth and focus group interviews and the reward deficiency syndrome as a theoretical framework. Although African Traditional Religion (ATR) supports alcohol usage, greed, a lack of self-control, peer pressure, indiscipline and lack of moral upbringing led to alcohol misuse, which harms the person, family, community and country as a whole. Education and enlightenment are a remedy to free alcoholics and utilise them for national integration and development.Contribution: Some say Africans drink a lot because their religious heritage promotes drinking, leading to abuse. However, peer pressure, selfishness, a lack of self-control, bad parenting and not religion push persons with reward deficiency syndrome into alcoholism, according to this research.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor TETFund Institution Based Research (IBR), University of Calabar
Date 2023-05-17
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative and ethnographic method
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v79i1.8304
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 79, No 1 (2023); 8 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/8304/25060 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/8304/25061 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/8304/25062 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/8304/25063
 
Coverage Southern Nigeria African Traditional Religion and Culture None
Rights Copyright (c) 2023 Emeka C. Ekeke, Elizabeth O. John https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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