VEJOH - VERITAS JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES

Popular discourses on the COVID-19 pandemic have depicted the virus as a contemporary source of human and sundry miseries. There has been health, socio-economic, humanitarian, political, religious strains among others occasioned by the pandemic. The government’s imposed restrictions (lockdown) to checkmate the viral spread heightened issues around the pandemic in Nigeria. Similarly, some religious leaders have cried foul over the emergence and spread of the pandemic and consistently displayed their public suspicion of this public health emergency. Yet, there remains a dearth in empirical literature on the extent of debilitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic vis-à-vis its implication for the interaction between religion and society in the Nigerian context. Premised on exploratory research design, the paper seeks to examine the implications of the pandemic on religion and society in the Nigerian context. The research utilizes both primary and secondary sources of data collection. The primary source was gotten through key in-depth interview (KII), focused group discussion (FGD) and structured observation, while the secondary sources relied principally on newspapers, journal articles and books. It was discovered that religious worship and behaviour, belief, charity, and ritual practices were major areas that the COVID-19 impacted on organized religion. Also, the economy, moral-political climate and the environment were aspects of the society that were mainly affected. More importantly, the scourge threw open some implications for the interaction between religion and society by confirming that religion as a social fact does not die; that religious actors are committed to pro-social and critical support of people in need; and that religion adapts to the instrumental use of science and technology, despite the avowed ideological distinction between the religious and the secular. The paper recommends that there is urgent need for inclusion and bridge building between religion and science especially in the health and medical sector. Thus, policymakers should integrate religious voices and works more into public health, economic and social recovery frameworks in the society.

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