ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of recurrent fundamentalist religious conflicts on Nigeria’s status as a constitutional secular state. These conflicts, which more or less characterise Nigeria’s postcolonial history, have been mainly in the form of Islamic fundamentalist upheavals. Significant examples of these conflicts include the Maitatsine crisis of the 1980s, the contemporary Boko Haram insurgence and the current terrorist activities of the Islamic State in West Africa Province. A major driving force behind the conflicts, apart from the role of fiery clerics and socio-economic privations, is the tendency of the government to be involved in propping up religious institutions and bodies and even expending resources on these bodies and their activities in spite of being a secular state. These conflicts, while manifesting deep centrifugal tendencies, also suck out development initiatives and occasion the diversion of resources for development into war with insurgents and endless rehabilitation programmes. Apart from initiatives aimed at specifically tackling religious fundamentalism ranging from deradicalization to proactive containment of such tendencies, the government should strive to unequivocally restate and reinforce the secularity of the nation in its roles and engagements always.
