The Pentecostal Explosion: From Idahosa to Adeboye
From the 1970s on, Nigeria shifted from a landscape dominated by mission churches to a global hub of Pentecostalism led by Benson Idahosa, Enoch Adeboye and others.
Pentecostalism reached Nigeria as early as the 1930s through the Apostolic Faith Mission and the indigenous Aladura churches, but the movement that reshaped public life began in the 1970s. Benson Idahosa, founder of the Church of God Mission International in Benin City, pioneered large-format healing crusades and televised preaching. Enoch Adeboye took over a small house fellowship in 1981, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, and grew it into one of the largest Christian movements in the world.
These ministries pioneered the mega-camp format (Redemption Camp on the Lagos–Ibadan expressway hosts millions during the annual Holy Ghost Congress), the prosperity-gospel media empire, and the export of Nigerian Christianity to Europe and North America.
Sociologists at Pew estimate that roughly 60 million Nigerians now identify as Pentecostal or Charismatic, making the country one of the three most important Pentecostal centres in the world alongside Brazil and the United States.