Abstract

This article examines the issue of national security and development through the prism of law and religion and its nexus with the tide of insurgency. To achieve this, it starts with a retrospective analysis of the development of religious extremism and violence as a form of political ideology in Nigeria. It then proceeds to engage the post-independence issues of religious violence that manifested in the form of Islamic fundamentalism, which found enough ground to fester, and was never properly addressed. In situating these issues, this article proposes that for Nigeria to overcome the current state of insecurity there must be a conversation establishing the nexus between the monster of insurgency and the masked rise of ‘political Islam’. This article concludes that in addition to necessary constitutional reforms, for Nigeria to reach its full potential, there must be a collective decision to respect section 10 of the Constitution as the supreme law of the whole country, and this must be backed up by a corresponding strong political will on the part of government.