Institutional Decay and Religious Proliferation in Nigeria: A Critical Examination

Abstract

Institutions are inevitably critical to the functioning of societies. In the face of religious proliferation in Nigeria, institutional decay is common place. The level of decay is not only frightening, worrisome, endemic and ingrained; it is gradually threatening the legitimacy, rationality and functionality of religion as the threshold of moral formation, attitudinal change and behavioural transformation in Nigeria. This paper therefore examined the relationship between institutional decay and religious proliferation and the role that religious proliferation has played in the erosion of morality in the Nigerian society. This paper, which utilized relevant secondary sources of data, contended that religious  proliferation has culminated in mere formalism, sterility, powerlessness such that; rather than strengthening the moral fabric of the Nigerian society, it has become incapacitated and, as a consequence, it is itself a channel and a facilitator of decay. The paper concluded with some useful recommendations including the exigency of a sense of cohesion and collaboration among religious groups so as to forge a united front for the creation and sustenance of a genial climate that will facilitate individual and institutional transformation through societal value re-orientation, attitudinal change and behavioral re-predisposition.

Keywords: institution, decay, religious proliferation, Nigeria