Sacred Politics: Religion, Elections, and Governance in Nigeria

SACRED POLITICS Religion, Elections, and Governance In Nigeria, religion wins elections. It almost never runs the government. Why does moral authority convert so easily into votes-and so rarely into policy? Sacred Politics confronts the paradox at the heart of Nigerian democracy. From the 2023 Muslim-Muslim ticket to the difficult politics of governance after the election, Lekan Olayiwola shows how churches and mosques can shape who gets power but struggle to shape what power does. This is not another book about religious tension. It is a sharp, clear-eyed examination of why moral authority can lose its political force once campaigning ends-and what religious institutions must build if they want their influence to survive the ballot box. Urgent. Unsentimental. Practical. For religious leaders, policymakers, political actors, civil-society practitioners and anyone seeking to understand how power actually works in Nigeria, Sacred Politics offers a different way of seeing the relationship between faith, elections and governance.