Religious Ethics and Development: The Nigerian Experience

Nigerians, like most fellow Africans, are still living in confusion greatly influenced by the Boko Haram insurgency and bankruptcy of imported Islamic ideologies. In actual fact today, Nigerians real capital comprises the peasant masses, thousands of jobless youths and graduates, the homeless, the armed robbers, the sick and the destitute who struggle daily for survival. Thus, the majority of the people have remained permanently marginalized by the current vicious cycle of poverty and dependence. Unfortunately however, successive Nigerian leaders have been using religion as an instrument of playing divide-and-rule game, rather than as a springboard for the inculcation and improvement of social ethical values which are fundamental to achieving correct human behaviour as it relates to productivity and nation-building. This paper therefore examines the place of religion in the development of Nigeria with a view to generating new ideas that will contribute meaningfully to the search for democratic principles and ideals that would usher in a well-ordered society, not only in Nigeria, but in Africa as a whole.