Nigeria\u27s Membership in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation: Origin, Nature, and Impact

This thesis explores Nigeria’s membership into the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), covertly instituted by General Ibrahim Babangida who rose to power as Nigeria’s military head of state in 1985, a strategic move that resulted in socioeconomic benefits which improved the standard of living of the people of Nigeria. Regionally divided, Muslim influence on the north, and Christian to the south. The commingling with other traditional Nigerian religious cultures, sociopolitical strategies, and legislative protocol are contested by these opposing factions on a continuum. Using archival research methods, both textual and multimedia, this work posits that despite the religious controversies and dichotomies that encompass the presence of the OIC in Nigeria’s socio-religious, political, and economic milieu, Nigeria has historically benefited and continues to profit from various extensions of the OIC, such as the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), and the Standing Committee for Economic and Financial Cooperation (COMCEC). My research expounds on the arguments against popular notions and debates of Islamization, or the process of shifting a society’s sociocultural perspectives to Islam, a notion upheld by Christians with Babangida’s ascendance to power