RELIGION AND NATION BUILDING: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS (Published)
From time immemorial the desire to build a just, orderly, peaceful and progressive society has been uppermost in the minds of Nigerian leaders. But due to external influences on them, their mission and vision continue to remain a mirage. These influences coupled with high level of corruption, poverty and selfishness, lack of contentment heightened their problem. This made the Nigerian leaders derail from their avowed vision and mission with the result that at the end of a leader’s tenure little or no progress would have been made. Corruption, poverty, selfishness and other social vices would be on the increase. Hence, the goal of nation building is not achieved. This is causing grave concerns to well-meaning members of the society. Religion’s stern qualities of sincerity, honesty, selfless service to humanity, contentment among other qualities appears to be a better alternative for building a progressive and a sustainable society. The methodology adopted for the study is the qualitative phenomenological approach whereby data were collected from both primary and secondary sources and treated analytically and descriptively. The findings of the study validate the fact that a progressive society anchored on the afore-mentioned qualities is essential for building a progressive Nigerian society. The study further discovered some vital innate qualities in religion that make for sincerity of purpose, contentment and selfless services irrespective of internal and external factors.
Keywords: Nation Building and Nation, Religion.