Nigeria: The Paradox of a Secular State

By its virtue of not declaring any religion as State religion, the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria has been adjudged by many to be temporal, and Nigeria, a secular state. However, the level at which religion influences governance and vice versa has begged for the question, is Nigeria really a secular state? In this paper, we attempt an interrogation into the origins and radicalization of religiosity in Nigeria’s profanity. Adopting the Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations model as a framework, the work argues that the two preponderant religions – Islam and Christianity – have been in a serious struggle to influence the outlook, maintain status quo or exert control over the various levels of governments in Nigeria. The implication, the work has discovered, is that efforts by the government to appease these religious forces by maintaining equilibrium has culminated in institutional and structural reforms that have transformed the country’s political orientation, by action, to a theocratic diarchy amidst the aura of secularism. There is, therefore, a need for nomenclature revision.