THE QUEST FOR GOOD DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE IN BENUE STATE, NIGERIA: THE CHRISTIAN RESPONSE

SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: Religion And Human Relations

CONTRIBUTORS:

Aande, S. I;
Chiegboka, A.B.C;

ABSTRACT:

Benue State since its creation in 1976 has been pre-occupied with a political, social and
religious dilemma arising from the position of Christians as members of the body of
Christ and as members of the state. The Christian church has succeeded in many other
areas of human endeavours in the state, but not so much has been done in the political
field, because politics and governance in Nigeria and Benue State in particular virtually
has been seen from a secular or non-Christian perspective and anyone who dares to be
partisan is often thought not to be a good Christian or spiritually filled with the Holy
Spirit. Although many Christians in the state have expressed concern about the high level
of poverty in the state due to corruption and poor governance, paradoxically not many
believe and understood their responsibility toward a democratic system that will bring
about this good governance. Most of the existing works in this area of study tend to
advocate that Christians can only make input in politics through the pulpit. Not so many
scholarly works have been geared towards encouraging Christians to participate in
politics. The concern of this present study, therefore, is to demonstrate the fact that
Christians are called to be salt and light of the world; this gives Christians the divine
responsibility and commitment to penetrate every area of human society especially
politics. This can be done through the principles of solidarity and participation, which are
the underlying principles of democratic system that can bring about good governance.
The research recommends that the world government was instituted by God, and cannot
in anyway be considered to be dirty and to be avoided by faithful Christians. An
analytical method was used to achieve this set goal of the work. Suggestions and
recommendations were made to stimulate strategies to enable Christians to take their
responsibility seriously to become effective in the politics and governance of Benue State
and Nigeria at large.