How Religion Influences Nigeria's Business Ecosystem - 1

BY Amb. Ezra Ehoche (Facilitator)

I grew up in middle belt Nigeria, In A beautiful place called Benue. There we had a decent mixture of religions, my neighbors were Muslims, my chemistry teacher at a time was an agnostic, my grandpa was a traditionalist and I was born in  a devout protestant family.


In Nigeria there are several forms of religion.
Another of my teacher in secondary school believed in Odin {the one eyed God}
So many different beliefs in the supernatural, In fact in 2017, the yearbook of international religious demography concluded a study that showed the following information:

46.3% of Nigerians are Christians, 46% are Muslims, 7.4% hold African traditional beliefs. 0.3%   is adherents of other faiths.

 I know you just skimmed that data above 👆🏿
So I'll repeat it to you again in a more practical way.

If you randomly pick 20 Nigerians Nigerians from all the parts of the country- north, east, west, south, north central, you'll have 100 Nigerians.

46 of these 100 Nigerians will be Muslims another 46 of these 100 Nigerians will be Christians, That’s 92 people total, remaining... ?

Exactly My point is that Nigeria; although officially a secular state, is a Country of religious people.
There is virtually no established religion in the globe that doesn't have faithful in Nigeria. If you are a bit like me in your upbringing, you'll agree with me that the average Nigerian child has a fair idea of right and wrong, a notion of the afterlife, a consciousness of some Supreme being, and a strong religious influence at an early age.

There are currently over 197, 839, 000 people in Nigeria.
And 98% of them are religious. In Uyo where I live there's at least a church within every five minutes walk in any direction.

I once stayed in minna, Niger state and by 5am every morning, you'd hear the daily call to prayer. Nigerians are zealous about the convictions they hold, If you doubt me, walk into a market place and scream "God doesn't exist".  (Please don't do that).

There’s every chance that this religious zeal that we have is affecting the economy of our country.
 How then has religion affected us in our business?
That's why I'm here.
To ask and find answers on how religion has affected our business environment.
I'll be making you think in the next three days.


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This article is the first of a 3 part series on 'The influence of Religion on Nigeria's Business Ecosystem' by Amb Ezra Ehochie our facilitator for a 3- day discussion on the topic.
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