Recent Theories of Religion and Politics in Nigeria

Abstract

about appropriate criteria for state creation; and many others. However, vital debate on these questions is virtually drowned out, it seems, by number and intensity of arguments about role reli gion should play in ongoing search for political stability and in overall formulation of public policy in Nigeria. Surely revival of politics of religious affirmation transcends Nigeria's borders. Much to dismay of twentieth-century socio logical prognosticators, world-historical social processes of rational ization, commodification, and bureaucratization have generated neither widespread disenchantment with nor revolu tionaiy class consciousness among industrial workers. On contrary, our age has witnessed an increasing urge towards a re-enchantment of world, precisely because disenchanted world is so cold and comfortless.1 Thus what we say about manifestation of this phe nomenon in one region necessarily bears global stamp. In an illuminating commentary on question of religion and poli tics, broadly construed, Mark A. Noll identifies three distinct levels at which judgments about their interaction can be made. First is level involving the exercise of authority between institutions of govern ment and structures of religion.2 The second level, which focuses