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The secularization of the sacred and the sanctification of the secular are two ongoing processes in contemporary urban areas in Nigeria. Although, profanity and sacredness are two distinct ‘realities’ in every religious arena, observations reveal some convergences of the duo in urban market settings. This is a departure from Durkheim’s distinction between the sacred and the profane; hence, this calls for further contextual scholarly attention. Qualitative data were collected via observations, Key Informant Interviews (KII) and In-depth Interviews (IDI) which were conducted with traders and religious leaders whose churches/mosques provided trading shops/spaces to these traders, and who organized prayer sessions for traders. Data were subjected to content analysis and findings revealed that churches have shopping malls in the markets; also, a mosque let out its open space for trading. Letting was done without religious sentiment, thus, it is evident that economic bias is more important than religious sentimentality. Both Christian and Muslim traders meet from time to time at designated places in the markets for religious rituals. As a result, traders create the consciousness of divine worship and prayer to integrate sacredness and profanity into everyday market transactions, and also advance mutual trader-cohesion for individual and market success.

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Understanding development is a strategic issue in every human society. This is because central to humans is the need to develop, which is why societies over the ages have not only sought to develop, they have also attempted to understand what development is all about, how best to develop and what the outcomes of development should be. This is why scholars and nations have commonly categorized countries/societies as developed and developing/underdeveloped. Of interest however are continuous scholarly attempts at unravelling trends in development discourse. This article therefore engages the contributions of Justin Labinjoh, a foremost development thinker and scholar at the University of Ibadan until his death in 2001. Focussing on his unpublished manuscript ‘Development: A History and Critique of an Idea’, the paper reviews how the history of Western Europe informed, and is still informing Sociology as a discipline, its theories and, by extension, Sociology of Development which has been dominated by modernization theory.