Nigeria
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and one of the most religiously significant nations on earth. The south — dominated by Igbo, Yoruba, and other peoples — became heavily Christian through 19th and 20th century mission work and is home to one of Africa's largest and most dynamic church movements. The north — dominated by Hausa-Fulani people — has been Muslim since the 11th century and includes some of Africa's oldest Islamic sultanates; the Sokoto Caliphate, established in 1804, was one of the most powerful Islamic empires of the modern era. The Middle Belt between these worlds has been the site of escalating communal violence for decades. Since 2009, Boko Haram and its offshoot ISWAP have waged a jihadist insurgency in the northeast, killing tens of thousands, kidnapping thousands of children, and displacing millions. Yet amid the darkness, Nigeria's enormous church is being called to its hardest and most important mission field: its own north.
237,528,000
People live in Nigeria today in a country of staggering scale and spiritual contradiction — 237 million people, a vibrant and growing Christian south, and a Muslim north where the Hausa and Fulani peoples remain among the least-reached in Africa. The Middle Belt bleeds from communal violence. Boko Haram and ISWAP continue to terrorize Nigeria's northeast. Yet something remarkable is also happening: Muslims who have witnessed the atrocities committed in the name of Islam are asking fundamental questions about their faith, and Nigerian churches are pressing northward with compassion ministries that create credible gospel witness in places that have never had it.
Prayer points
The Muslim North
Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north — home to the ancient Hausa-Fulani sultanates, the Sokoto Caliphate, and one of Africa's longest continuous Islamic histories — remains largely unreached. Fewer than 1% of the Hausa and Fulani peoples are Christian. Pray for workers willing to cross the cultural and spiritual frontier between Nigeria's Christian south and its Muslim north, and for the northern church — small, scattered, and under pressure — to be emboldened to witness to its neighbors with courage and love. "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes." (Romans 1:16)
Boko Haram and the Crisis of Faith
The Boko Haram insurgency has killed tens of thousands, kidnapped children, and displaced millions — and it has also created something unexpected: northern Nigerian Muslims who witnessed these atrocities in the name of Islam are questioning their faith at an unprecedented rate. Pray for the church to be present at this moment of spiritual crisis — with compassion ministries, with the gospel, and with a love that is unmistakably unlike anything the jihadists have offered. Pray for displaced people in camps across the northeast to encounter Jesus Christ. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world." (Ephesians 6:12)
Maiduguri and the Midnight Cry
Maiduguri is the capital of Borno State and the birthplace of Boko Haram — a city that has lived under siege and grief for over a decade, yet also a city where the Spirit of God is quietly at work. Pray for God to move supernaturally across Nigeria's northeast — for Hausa and Kanuri Muslims, for people in displacement camps, for former fighters who have surrendered, to encounter Jesus in vivid dreams and visions that shatter the lie that violence is God's will. Ask God to reveal Himself as the Prince of Peace to a people who have known only war in His name. "He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him." (Daniel 2:22)