JOURNALS

ABSTRACT

Religion has a profound social, political and economic impact on the socio-economic development of any nation like Nigeria. Since Nigeria's independence in 1960, the growing but gradual interface between religion and politics has largely shaped the political atmosphere in Nigeria: the impact is huge as many lives and properties worth millions of dollars have been lost to religious cum ethnic motivated crisis detailing real development. Sadly, with the dawn of democracy in 1999, many Nigerians believed that the spate of religious violence would be abated with the many reforms initiated by the successive government, instead, the menace of violence increased by the day via the mechanistic and unprecedented approach adopted by the killer herdsmen, Boko Haram and the Bandits terrorizing the country mostly in the northern region of Nigeria. Also, the eruption of separatist agitations in southern Nigeria is of no small consequence. The federal government's efforts through many robotics approaches geared towards reducing the spate of religious and ethnic violence in the country for the general purposes of attaining optimal sustainable development could not be attained because of the issues of corruption, bad governance, nepotism, poor management of resources and others. The paper adopts a historical approach to analysing the vexed issues and recommends a strong political will to ensure political stability for development.