Systemic covert and overt inherent ethno-religious structures remain deeply entrenched in the ideological configuration of the Nigerian state. I argue that the process of ethnic and religious gaslighting encompassing pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial socio-economic, cultural and political relations between the ruled and the rulers have had a pathologising impact, the roots of which are deeply entrenched in historical relations of class struggle and failed multiculturalism.

This paper presents a path dependency framework for comprehending how ethnic and religious markers are sustained through process tracing, which generates a causal mechanism of contemporary socio-political relations and the importance of ethno-religious gaslighting in Nigeria.

This paper offers a theoretically driven discussion which examines two questions: (1) What is ethno-religious gaslighting? (2) How are ethno-religious structures sustained and maintained?