The Transatlantic Slave Trade began in the late 15^th century in Nigeria. By 1471, Portuguese navigators hoping to tap the fabled Saharan gold trade had reconnoitered the West African coast as far as the Niger Delta, and traded European commodities for local crafts as well as slaves, the latter which turned out to be highly lucrative. In the early stages, Europeans captured Nigerians in raids on coastal communities, but as the demand grew they relied on slaves to be supplied by local rulers, traders, and the military aristocracy, providing these agents with rum, guns, horses,...

The Aladura churches are independent African churches (or African Instituted Churches—AICs), that emphasize prayer and healing. Aladura is the Yoruba word for “praying people.” The Aladura churches reflect the indigenization of Christianity through its use of African symbols, traditional healing modalities, and worship styles.

Where earlier churches emphasized salvation in the hereafter, the Aladura churches offer solutions to this-world problems. Aladura churches are led by a...

Anglicanism is a Protestant Christian tradition that emerged during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. It includes the Church of England and a variety of others around the world united by shared doctrine and practice under the Anglican Communion umbrella organization. The Archbishop of Canterbury is regarded as the unofficial spiritual leader of the international Anglican community.

The Anglican Church Mission Society (CMS) members Samuel Ajayi Crowther—who would become Nigeria’s first African Anglican bishop—and Rev. J.F. Schön were part of the original British...

The Maitatsine riots were a series of violent uprisings instigated by Islamist militants in northern Nigeria between 1980 and 1985 and represented northern Nigeria’s first major wave of religiously-inspired violence. The riots prompted immense ethnoreligious discord between Muslims and Christians in years to come.

The Maitatsine movement was led by Muhammadu Marwa (d. 1980), a Cameroonian residing in Kano who opposed the Nigerian state (Maitatsine is a Hausa term for “He who damns,” referring to Marwa). He referred to himself as a prophet—to the extent that one...

Roughly 3,000 Nigerian Igbos practice Rabbinic Judaism, and there are around twenty Nigerian synagogues. Long referred to as the “Jews of Nigeria” (though for their flexibility and business acumen), many in the wider Igbo tribe identify themselves as descendants of a Lost Tribe of Israel, one of ten tribes that constituted the Kingdom of Israel that scattered following the Kingdom’s destruction at the hands of Assyrians in 721 BCE.

Though there are no local rabbis, the Jewish Igbo are mentored by an American, Rabbi Howard Gorin. Jewish Igbo elders...

There are roughly 14 million Baptists in Nigeria, most of whom are affiliated with churches under the Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC), an umbrella organization that grew out of missionary work begun in the 1850s by the American Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

American Baptist missionaries began arriving in what would come to be Nigeria in 1850, and included both white and black missionaries. White missionaries were initially deterred by work in Africa and instead focused on Asia, with racism being a considerable factor, followed by fears of malaria. As a result, early...

The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons was a nationalist political party founded by Sir Herbert Macaulay and Nnamde Azikiwe, and dominated Nigerian politics until the mid-1930s. After 1951, the NCNC became largely identified with Igbo interests following the inclusion of the Igbo State Union. In 1963, Azikiwe, an Igbo himself, became the first president of independent Nigeria.

The NCNC was regarded critically by other Nigerian groups for its affinity with Igbo...

The Oyo Empire (1400-1830s) was a powerful Yoruba polity in what is today southwestern Nigeria. Situated in an ideal geographic location between the Volta and Niger River, the Oyo Empire became an important trade center. Its foundation myth draws upon Yoruba religious beliefs and holds sacred the original settlement of Ile-Ife, which continues to be upheld as the creation site for the Yoruba people with significance to local religious practitioners as well as members of African-derived religions outside of Nigeria....

Pentecostalism is a charismatic Protestant Christian movement that emphasizes a personal encounter with Jesus Christ as savior and healer, with the potential for converts to be “born again” as Christians. Nigerian Pentecostalism emerged in the 1970s as university-educated, charismatic youth began creating their own spaces for worship. Its roots are in the African Initiated Churches (such as the Aladura) and especially in American and British Evangelical and Pentecostal of the 1960s,...

The Yoruba are a diverse set of various tribes that share a common language and culture, who make up about a fifth of Nigeria’s population. The Yoruba are religiously diverse as well, with most following either Christianity or Islam, though traditional indigenous religions are observed by many. The city of Ile-Ife remains an important site for Yoruba cosmology, and is believed to the point of origin for human...

Usman Dan Fodio was a Fulani scholar who launched a religious war (jihad) in northern Nigeria in 1804 that lasted for six years, the goal of which was to revive and purify Islam, and to encourage less devout Muslims to return to orthodox Islam. This influential religious revolution united the Hausa states under...

Nigeria’s Muslim population continues to grow. Estimates suggest 80-85 million Nigerians identify as Muslim (roughly 50% of the total population), of which the majority are probably Sunni (60 million), though this is not a unified identity and includes a wide variety of different viewpoints. For example, members of Sufi orders, members of the Jama‘atul Izalatul Bid’ah Wa’ikhamatul Sunnah (or Izala) movement, and members of Boko Haram might all identify as Sunni, but the Izala and...

The Baha’i faith was founded in 19th century Iran by Mirza Hosayn-Ali Nuri Baha’ullah (d. 1892) and developed from Babism, an Iranian messianic movement, and Ithna’ashari Shi’i Shaikhism. Baha’is acknowledge numerous prophets, including Muhammad, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, and most recently Baha’ullah. The Baha’i Faith is monotheistic and universalist, recognizing the truth claims of other religious traditions. Followers believe in progressive revelation, such that each age has its prophet and revelations specific to that time. Both Sunni and Shi’a Muslims consider Baha’is to be heretical,...

Sir Herbert Macauley (1864-1946) was a Yoruba Nigerian nationalist, political activist, and engineer who founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP). Macauley was also the grandson of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first African bishop in the Anglican Church. His father was, like his grandfather, a CMS missionary and the founder of...

The Ahmadiyya Movement was founded in British India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1836-1906), an Islamic reformist and mystic, who in 1891 claimed that he was a prophet, mujaddid (“renewer”), and the messiah/mahdi anticipated by Muslims. The movement split in two following the death of Ahmad’s successor, Maulana Nur ad-Din in 1914, with one group affirming Ahmad’s messianic status (The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam) and a second group regarding him as a reformer, but otherwise adhering to mainstream Islamic beliefs that understand Muhammad to have been the final prophet (the Lahore Ahmadiyya...