UNIVERSITY OF YAOUNDE II
RESEARCH CENTER FOR POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES
MASTER IN STRATEGIE, DEFENSE, SECURITY, CONFLICT AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT

UE: QUESTIONS D’ACTUALITES

POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

BY

MBILA DAVID RENE

APRIL, 2010

POLITICS AND RELIGION IN FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria has a population of over 149 million (roughly one in six Africans) with a population growth rate of 2%. Nigeria had a 2008 HDI ranking of #158 and a 2008 CPI ranking of 2.7, an improvement over its recent extraordinarily corrupt ratings. Religion wise, The three dominant religions in Nigeria are traditional religion, Islam and Christianity with the following shares : 50% Muslim, 40% Christian, and 10% indigenous. All these religious ideologies allow for interaction between religion and politics It is believed that the intensity of the religious identity is one of the highest in the world. At the same time Nigeria is cited on top of political violence in Africa, topping South Africa and other democratizing countries. In fact, political and religious violences are common phenomena in Nigeria. Obviously, these are encouraged by internal and external contradictions in the nation's political and religious system. Usually, violence erupts as a manifestation of high joblessness of people, the youth.

The fact that politics deals with power acquisition and allocation of resources, the instinct and urge for political violence become an inescapable reality in social engineering. Although, violence in Nigerian politics sometimes seems to possess liberating and redemptive value, corruption, poverty and high rate of illiteracy promote the culture of political violence in Nigeria. However, amongst these, the relationship between Religion and Politics has been proven to be the cornerstone of violence at least as powdered by all belligerents. The questions raised are: who are the belligerents, what are the motives,