With an estimated 129 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Projected figures for Nigeria's religious demography indicate that Muslims account for nearly 50 percent of the population. Approximately 40 percent of Nigerians are Christians, and the remaining 10 percent practice indigenous beliefs, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Religion has always played a major role in Nigerian society, where there is a strong relation between ethnic and religious identity. Islam largely dominates the country's northern region, home of the Hausa and Fulani ethnic groups. Christianity is the prevalent religion in the south among the Yoruba and Igbo tribes, although the southwesterly Yorubaland contains a more diverse group of religions. The mid-section of Nigeria remains mostly neutral, with neither religion a majority.

Throughout Nigeria, religion is a tool for social mobility, providing the means for integration into business and political circles as well as educational, notes a Country Study of Nigeria published by the Library of Congress.

Since the 11th century, gold traders spread the Muslim faith from North Africa to West Africa along the Trans-Saharan trade routes, inextricably linking Islam with the local economy. According to religious historians, many tribal leaders found that adopting Islam expanded their trade network and promoted them as equal partners in business transactions with Arab merchants. With Islam's belief in unification, tribal and ethnic divisions abated and gave rise to an emirate state structure. Similar to a monarchy, an emirate is a nation or territory ruled by a single leader, the emir.

As reported by a Library of Congress study, Muslim practice currently pervades virtually all public institutions in the north. Out of Nigeria's 36 states, 12 states have embraced the Sharia, a legal code based on the Qur'an [or Koran] and the practices of the Prophet Mohammed. The vast majority of Nigerian Muslims are members of the Sunni sect and implement Maliki jurisprudence, based on the legal interpretations of Malik ibn Anas, an eighth century jurist from Medina.

Public meetings begin and end with Muslim prayer. Regardless of the individual's religious beliefs, all residents are familiar with both Muslim prayers and the five pillars of Islam. Reputations of religious piety accompanied with completion of the hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca, often yield heightened prestige.

While Nigerian law prohibits religious discrimination, conversion reportedly occurs frequently among people with political and business ambitions. In its 2002 Report on Human Rights Practices in Nigeria, the U.S. State Department noted some instances of religious discrimination in the hiring practices within both government institutions and private businesses.

Although the majority of Nigeria's Christian population is Roman Catholic, the country also has a diverse group of other churches. The Christian community includes Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Evangelists, Pentecostal Christians and Africanized sects such as the Aladura. Roman Catholics and Methodists dominate in southeasterly Igboland, while Protestants and Anglicans maintain strong influence over Yorubaland in the southwest.

Roman Catholic priests accompanying Portuguese traders in the 15th century first introduced native Nigerians to the Christian faith, but yielded few long-term converts. Missions in the 19th century attained much more significant rates of conversion, in part from their role in the abolition of slavery.

Britain's colonial rule throughout the 19th century helped formalize the geographic and religious differences between the north and the south. While the British government worked with Muslim leaders in the north, who prohibited Christian proselytizing, less central power structures in the south enabled churches to create a system of religious institutions and schools.

Beginning in the 1860s with the establishment of an indigenous leadership educated in these religious schools, the missionary movement was able to spread rapidly at the grassroots level. Missionaries of all denominations organized rural networks that provided schooling and medical care to residents, and their work continues to this day. According to the U.S. Department of State, more than 1,000 Christian missionaries currently operate in Nigeria.

As in the north, religion provided a means for social advancement in the south. Promoted by the British colonial government, missionary schools produced an elite class of interpreters and civil servants.

Since full independence from British rule in 1960, demand has grown for a greater indigenous presence in the Christian church. Many Catholic and Protestant congregations began to include native music and dancing in their services. Several independent movements have also cropped up with the purpose of creating a Christian faith that relates to Nigerians culturally. As an example, several sects have interpreted biblical passages as supportive of the native practice of polygamy.

Although a minority of the population still adheres to them, indigenous practices continue to thrive in Nigeria, especially in the southwest region of the nation. Nigeria's native religious belief ties genealogical descent to a particular site, legitimizing claims to land, resources, and leadership. According to religious scholars, the theology combines ancestor worship with the worship of primordial spirits, or the supernatural entities inhabiting a particular locale. Geographical markers, flora and fauna often embody these entities.

Regular adherence to prayer and other forms of ritual worship are thought to protect followers from misfortune and many believers use charms and talismans to ward off evil.

Throughout Nigeria, traditional beliefs have fused with imported religious tradition. It is not uncommon to find Muslims and Christians carrying out ancient religious rites — such as wearing amulets — although younger generations deem compliance with old traditions as renunciation of the newer faith.

-- By Luma Khatib, Online NewsHour

Excerpt from Things Fall Apart, a novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe

"The missionaries had come to Umuofia. They had built their church there, won a handful of converts and were already sending evangelists to the surrounding towns and villages. That was a source of great sorrow to the leaders of the clan; but many of them believed that the strange faith and the white man's god would not last. None of his converts was a man that whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people."

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe