THE CHURCH AND ANTI CORRUPTION CRUSADE IN NIGERIA: CONTRIBUTIONS AND CONSTRAINTS

This work dwells on how the church can discourage corruption through their various programmes. The nexus of this work therefore, is to consider the effort of the church in the bid to fight corruption not at the individual level but as a way to complement Government efforts in fighting corruption without compromising faith. This paper consequently, challenged the church leaders and the adherents to rise to the task of waging war against corruption in the church and Nigeria society for the sake of development. Those who are members of the church and they are involving in the corrupt practices should be exposed, brought to book and legitimately dealt with. Therefore, in order to do justices to the plight reiterated above we comply with the historical analysis and biblical contextualization, with the tools of interview and consultation of relevant literature. With these methods, we shall significantly highlight the contributions and constraints' of the Nigeria churches in combating this deadly phenomenon called 'corruption'. The study discovered poor wages, high cost of living, greediness, bad leadership, and pressure from extended families, societal influence and attitude of recognizing only wealthy people, moral decadence, poverty and unemployment as roots of corruption in Nigeria. The paper is of the view that for corruption to decrease in Nigerian society, religious leaders and adherents should apply the religious tenets to their whole life. They should not limit it to religious pretense only.