Religion, Political Power and the Ethics of Electoral Manipulation in Nigeria: An Old Testament Perspective

Abstract

Religion remains a powerful presence in Nigerian public life. It shapes moral imagination, communal identity, political speech and civic participation, and it can strengthen democratic accountability and peaceful coexistence. It can also be exploited when politicians or religious authorities mobilize sacred identity, clerical legitimacy and claims of divine favour for partisan gain. This study asks what is ethically at stake in such instrumentalization, and it approaches the question through selected Old Testament narratives. The method is qualitative, interpretive and library-based: a contextual reading of the biblical texts is set alongside contemporary Nigerian scholarship, constitutional provisions and electoral legislation. Six cases anchor the discussion: Jeroboam’s re-organization of worship to secure political loyalty (1 Kings 12:26–33), the manipulation of religious and legal procedure in Naboth’s dispossession (1 Kings 21:1–16), the commercialization of prophetic authority (Mic. 3:5–11), the court prophets’ accommodation of royal desire (1 Kings 22:1–28), Absalom’s cultivation of public allegiance (2 Sam. 15:1–12) and Nathan’s confrontation of David (2 Sam. 12:1–14). The texts are not read as direct equivalents of modern elections. They are used to bring out recurring patterns in the relationship between religious authority and political power. The paper argues that religious participation is legitimate when it serves truth, justice, human dignity, accountability and the common good, and that it turns manipulative when religion is reduced to a means of securing loyalty, inspiring fear, excluding others, spreading misinformation or sanctifying unaccountable power. It closes by proposing a framework built on prophetic independence, interreligious respect, truthful public communication and issue-based political judgement.