Christianity in Nigeria

Christianity arrived to Nigeria in the 15th century through Augustinian and Capuchin monks from Portugal.

[citation needed] By 2020, it accounted for an estimated 46.18% of the Nigerian population, two-thirds of which are Protestant.

[2] Christianity is the majority religion in the southern and central regions of Nigeria.

[10] The Archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church are Abuja, Benin City, Calabar, Ibadan, Jos, Kaduna, Lagos, Onitsha, and Owerri.

[20] The Evangelical Reformed Church of Christ was formed in Nasarawa State on 8 July 1916.

The General overseer (most senior pastor) is Enoch Adeboye, ordained in 1981.

[27] Within Nigeria, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also has a growing presence.

On January 1, 2012, the church claimed more than 100,000 members in the country[28] and had established 315 congregations.

Ositelu was born on 15 May 1900 at Ogere, ijebu-Remo, Ogun State in Nigeria.

Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones.

These include the mostly charismatic and Pentecostal denominations such as Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Streams of Joy International, Celestial Church of Christ and Dominion City.

Nigeria is number six on Open Doors’ 2023 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.

According to the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, as reported on LinkedIn, there were 52,250 Christian deaths recorded from July 2009 to April 2023.

The last time a Certificate of Occupancy was issued for a church building within the Diocese of Maiduguri was in 1979.

"[44] The ongoing killings of Christian in Nigeria is “religiously motivated” and “almost entirely fuelled by Islamist extremism”.