Praying for Peaceful Polls

Does religion matter in Nigerian politics? Will it play a significant role in the 2023 presidential elections?

Written by Charles Ekpo

Feb 22, 2023

Photo Illustration by Onyinye Dike / THE REPUBLIC.

Editor’s note: This essay is available in our print issue, Godfathers: An Introduction. Buy the issue here.

The announcement of the timetable for the 2023 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on April 2021 heralded preparations, permutations, alignments and politicking by the political elite who strategically position for the 2023 contest. The ‘winner takes all’ nature of politics in Nigeria makes this pre-election ritual an existential, though quiet process. To be better positioned, the political elite often deploy three overlapping strategies—party politicking, calculated resource redistribution, and manipulation of identities—to enhance their political fortunes. But while party politicking and strategic use of resources may be arguably benign, the manipulation of social identity (i.e. the accentuation of shared ingredients of social identity such as religion, region, or ethnicity as a stratagem for garnering political support) is dangerous. Why is this so?

Nigeria is a deeply divided society. The country bifurcates along ethnic, regional/geopolitical, and religious lines. Riding on these cleavages to political power, therefore, is sectarian with grave implications on the legitimacy of the candidate that emerges. It also sets a precedence that, in the long run, could redefine elections as a political process to sectarian and primordial gyrations. But does religion matter in Nigerian politics? Will it play a significant role in the 2023 presidential elections? What does existing data tell us about the myth of a ‘monolith north’ and the religiously bi-polar southwest? What implications will these developments have on post-election Nigeria’s stability?

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About the Author

Charles Ekpo

is a lecturer/coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Resolution programme, Department of Political Science, Arthur Jarvis University, Akpabuyo, Nigeria. He is also a junior research fellow of the African Research Institute, Budapest.

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Praying for Peaceful Polls