I believe in dealing with the roots of a problem so as to ultimately solve it.
Religion is good and also when religion plays a major role in the society, then we have to reduce to almost zero or zero the negative aspect of the "Nigerian religion".
The following describes how religion has retarded Nigeria and Nigerians.

1. Prayer is greater/better than thinking

In Nigeria, people believe in prayer than acting on their prayers via their thinking. They rather pray, pray and pray than pray, think and think. The two should go together though, but in the Nigerian dictionary, thinking is almost removed. Nigerians are scared to reflect on issues, going back and forth on issue but can quickly jump into prayer anytime.

2. GOD has put corrupt people in position so challenging them is like challenging GOD that put them there

Somehow, Nigerians believe that any of their leaders have being put in a position by God. This ultimately reduce any resolve made by Nigerians to challenge their leaders. Even though, God knows about leaders in positions, god may not have put them their in the first place. Sometimes, if men refuse to act correctly via opportunity God has given them, God might take the back seat and keep looking at the people. Challenging evil/corrupt leaders in this case means, you are representing God to establish greatness, peace, progress, equality that God wants for everyone.

3. Nigerians respect the wealthy people in the society

Religion has made nigerians quickly assume once you are rich, you are the right person while others are wrong. In Nigeria, judgement by the people is first based on material wealth instead of the content of people's character. That is why some of us wanna get rich at all cost regardless of those that will be used for ritual cos of your wealth, those that will die early when you embezzle their pension funds and all other bad examples. Perception, mentality of a people matters a lot when it comes to what ultimately happens to them. Your judgement of an issue matters a great deal.

4. Religious communities in Nigeria support their members even if members action is wrong

In the christian circle for example, their are different denominations. If 'winners church' pastor for example does something condemnable, members of 'winners church' quickly put on a defense armor to defend the wrong actions of their leader. This same goes for other denominations in Nigeria and also among other religious faithfuls. A quick example of that is how some muslims by their actions and inactions are happy bokoharam are killing christians, burning places of worship but i guess they are waking up now to the reality because it is already consuming them too. In any issue, lets us call a spade, a spade whether he/she is my brother/sister of the same faith or not.

5. Nigerians dont put their condemnation of people into real-life action

The easiest thing a nigerian does is to condemn an act or quickly seek out the negatives of any action or issue. This attitude can also be relegated to religion. Just like one of my point above, also the 'Touch not my appointed' clause, this instead of being a blessing is a curse in Nigeria. Nigerians love to condemn especially their political leaders but when you find out about those people condemning, deep-rooted in their heart lies even more bitter corruption they condemn in others. An average Nigerian is an hypocrite, bigot, not sincere, and a deep rooted thief. This can also be corrected via looking into religion and addressing this issues.

GOD DON ALREADY BLESS NIGERIA
Source: http://futamebo.com/general-discussion/how-religion-has-mentally-retarded-nigerians