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African relational ontology has generated substantial philosophical literature affirming that persons are constituted through relationships rather than existing as isolated substances. Placide Tempels revealed that for the Bantu, “force is the nature of being; force is being; being is force” (Tempels 35). Ifeanyi Menkiti demonstrated that “the community defines the person as a person, not some isolated static quality of rationality, will, or memory” (Menkiti 171). Mogobe Ramose articulated Ubuntu as the ontological foundation of African ethics. Kwame Gyekye offered a compositional account of personhood through the Akan categories of okra, sunsum, and honam. Yet this literature remains largely descriptive; it tells us that African thought is relational without providing a systematic framework capable of moving from metaphysical to anthropomorphic realities. This paper proposes Ijeluwa as such a framework. Drawing on and extending insights from Tempels, Menkiti, Ramose, Gyekye, and the broader African philosophical tradition, Ijeluwa articulates a three-dimensional model of personhood: horizontal-relational, interior-vertical, and ultimate-vertical within a coherent cosmology of emanation, journey, and return. The framework addresses persistent tensions in African metaphysics: the relationship between community and individual, the nature of individuation within relationality, the status of ancestors, the nature of evil, the compatibility of destiny with freedom, and the ontological status of those who die before communal incorporation. Crucially, the framework also confronts the hard cases: the killing of twins, disposal of deformed infants, execution of the onye mbibi, patriarchal subordination, and restitution involving the transfer of human beings, demonstrating that a mature African relational ontology possesses the internal resources for self-critique, distinguishing the philosophy’s deepest commitments from historical failures of application. In articulating this framework, Ijeluwa develops its own Igbo philosophical vocabulary: onye mbibi (the destroyer), mbibi ike ndụ (destruction of vital force), ntụgharị ike ndụ (the perversion of vital force), amamihe Otu (the wisdom of the Whole), ikike Otu (the authority of the Whole), nkwughachi ike ndụ (restoration of vital force) rather than merely adopting the Kiluba terminology of Tempels’ informants, thereby demonstrating that systematic African ontology can speak from particular linguistic and cultural locations while addressing universal philosophical questions. By providing a systematic framework where existing approaches offer orientation, Ijeluwa enables African relational ontology to move from philosophical description to a complete metaphysical structure.