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Abstract
This paper analyses the politics of regime legitimacy through the instrumentality of religious discourse purveyed through a putative Christian ‘theocratic class’ surrounding the Obasanjo presidency in Nigeria. Though the emphasis is on Western Nigerian Christian discourse because of its undeniable influence in the polity since 1999, it incorporates Muslim and northern Nigerian religious discourse in so far as it is seen as constituting the significant discursive ‘Other’ with which the predominantly Christian geopolitical south has historically been in contention. The paper contends that the ‘Pentecostalisation’ of governance has raised the stakes as far as the struggle to define the Nigerian public sphere is concerned, further politicising religion, even as lip service continues to be paid to the secularity of the Nigerian state.
Notes
1. Sam Eyoboka, ‘Okogie, Oritsejafor, others warn: Those who killed our people must not go Scot free’, Vanguard (Lagos) 26 February 2006, p. 1.
2. See http:www.rccg.org/ the homepage of the RCCG, accessed 10 June 2006.
3. See ‘“The Covenant Church” reveals Pastor Adeboye's life secrets’, ThisDay on Sunday (Lagos), 12 April 2006.
4. See ‘From OBJ to Bishop Oyedepo’, Nigerian Tribune (Ibadan), 23 October 2004, p. 26.
5. See ‘I leave third term to God-Obasanjo’, The Punch (Lagos), 4 April 2006, p. 1.
