OTHERS

What will the presidential election in Nigeria mean for Christians?

Published by victor caleb on February 22nd, 2023.

The presidential election in Nigeria is heating up, and there is a lot at stake. On Saturday, February 25, polls will open.

As Africa’s largest oil producer and one of its most economically powerful, the new leader will have far-reaching consequences beyond Nigeria.

Nigeria’s current President, Muhammadu Buhari, is in the final year of his two-term term and will step down in May. Despite the fact that there are 18 candidates running for president, the frontrunners are considered to be Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

One of the major topics of debate in the run-up to the election is northern Nigeria’s growing insecurity and radical Muslim violence. Minority Christians in the north are frequently persecuted.

“The frustrating part of it, I think, when you look at it internally is that the government within Nigeria is not holding anyone accountable, so the atrocities continue,” says Greg Kelley of World Mission. People are still suffering.”

Both of Nigeria’s presidential frontrunners are Muslims who have vowed to defend religious freedom. Will the new leadership improve things for Nigeria’s Christians? Only time will tell.

However, for World Mission, the hope is not in political postures, but in getting the Gospel to northern Nigeria.

Most ministries concentrate their efforts in southern Nigeria, which is safer and already has a Christian majority. “There are major churches, what we would call mega churches, in the southern part of Nigeria with no mission emphasis on taking the Gospel into the northern part,” Kelley says.

World Mission, on the other hand, collaborates with believers to bring solar-powered audio Bibles to the volatile northern region.

“The strategy becomes finding Muslim background believers who have come from the Kanuri and the Fulani and the Hausa who were formerly Muslim and who have had an encounter with Jesus. They are the ones who are distributing our solar-powered audio Bible in literally dozens of different languages, sharing the Gospel in many of these places for the first time in history because there is simply no missionary emphasis.”

Pray that the Gospel spreads throughout northern Nigeria and changes the hearts of those who have engaged in radical violence.

“We need to pray for the maturity of the Body of Christ as it relates to Nigeria and some of these other African areas where national leaders are refusing to take the Gospel where it hasn’t been,” Kelley says.

“Then, for those who are doing it, we must pray that God will continue to give them courage and boldness as they take the Gospel into the most hostile places imaginable.”