An Examination of the Impacts of Religion in Nation Building
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Date
2018-04
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Publisher
Kwasu Journal of Islamic, Christian and Comparative Studies
Abstract
For decades, 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 increased their problems. 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 concern to well-meaning members of the society. Religion’s stern qualities of sincerity, honesty, selfless service to humanity, contentment among other qualities appear to be a better alternative for building a progressive and a sustainable society. The paper adopted analytical and descriptive methods in order to achieve the purpose of the paper. The findings of the study validate the fact that a progressive society anchored on the afore-mentioned qualities which are essential for building a progressive Nigerian Society. These qualities are the core teachings of every religion. 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. This paper asserts that it is wise and realistic for the multi religious society of Nigeria to look into the common values inherent in the various religions towards a viable and peaceful coexistence capable of enhancing holistic development of the nation.
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Keywords
Religion,, Corruption,, Nation Building, Democracy,, Nigeria