Nigerian Pentecostalism, Alternative State, and the Question of Accountability

Abstract

The debate on the status of the Nigerian state has been controversial, but it portends more towards a failing state, because it has low to very low levels of state capacity. Most state institutions do not have the capacity to inspire socio-economic confidence in the citizenry. Coupled with prevailing insecurity and the inability of the state to address it, many people find an alternative source of hope and confidence within Christianity, and particularly an African Pentecostal state-like formation that makes its leadership a multinational and cross-regional political leadership of a sort. While the political leadership of the failing state would be examined as the main cause for thriving Pentecostalism, there remains the question of accountability on both sides of the spectrum; especially as both concern the same citizenship, whom I will argue are cheated both ways, and yet somehow hold ambivalent attitudes towards accountability. Since there is little attention devoted to demand for accountability at both state and alternative state levels, this paper will do a contrastive analysis of both leaderships and show that the issue of accountability remains unresolved at both ends.