This study explores the impact of religion on certain aspects of Nigerians living within a secular state. Such impact is argued within the concept of interaction theory, which provides avenues for social behaviour that can be used to interpret human behaviour. As interaction provides avenues for exchanges of non-material goods and materials, we used this theory as the most appropriate in the conduct of this study. Because this theme will specifically focus on the Nigerians' experience, it necessitates the inclusion of a brief background about the country's constitutional history.

Nigeria was amalgamated by the British in 1914, granted political independence on 1 October 1960 and given republican status on 1 October 1963. The country has celebrated her 55th year of independence first under parliamentary democracy broken by military rule and then followed by a Presidential capitalist system of democracy since 1999. Nigeria is a highly populated nation whose political attempts aimed at effective governance, have led to frequent re-drafting of her written Constitution -which cannot be said to be a perfect document even after five amended Constitutions (1960, 1963, 1979, 1989, 1999), each one making Nigeria more of a secular state. It is self-evident that these constitutional drafting processes have given Nigerians some experience in the constitution-making process. In all these drafted Nigerian Constitutions, the position of law is that religious belief is not to influence any public or government decisions. However, interaction within religious groups of Islamic faith and Christian faith did indeed show evidence of one religion trying to outdo the faith of the other through aggressive conversion into political association and religion practice (Kukah 1993; Usman 1987).