Jehovah's Witnesses in Nigeria

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The Jehovah's Witnesses in Nigeria a religious minority . In 2016, around 0.22% of the population accepted this religious community.

The first members of Jehovah's Witnesses arrived in southern Nigeria in the 1920s . Since then, the group has spread to many parts of the country. In May 1940, the importation of Jehovah's Witness publications was banned; the ban was lifted in 1946. In 1949 Jehovah's Witnesses began a literacy program in Nigeria; between 1970 and 1996 alone, they taught 22,000 people to read and write. In 1970 there were 87,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Nigeria, by 2016 the number had risen to over 370,336. The fourth largest national group of Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide and the largest in Africa live in Nigeria. Parts of the Urhobo clans, the royal family of the former Okpe empire in Nigeria, belonged to Jehovah's Witnesses.

At present, Jehovah's Witnesses are not hindered in their religious practice in Nigeria, and there have only been a few cases of religiously motivated discrimination or attacks. The practice of Jehovah's Witnesses to conduct proselytizing with home visits is culturally well established in Nigeria, as strangers are traditionally invited into the house and religious discussions are common among strangers.

In 2001, Nigeria's highest court ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by Jehovah's Witnesses that people have the right to refuse blood transfusions on religious grounds.

The Jehovah's Witness printing company in Nigeria prints 41 million copies of The Watchtower and Awake! in nine languages.

Jehovah's Witnesses in Nigeria, 1930-2019

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statistics at www.jw.org
  2. ↑ Oyewole, Anthony and John Lucas. Historical Dictionary of Nigeria , 2nd edition, pages 280-281. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8108-3262-3 .
  3. ^ A b John Witte, Richard C. Martin: Sharing the Book: Religious perspectives on the Rights and Wrongs of Proselytism. Wipf & Stock, Eugene, Orgegon, 1999. p. 301.
  4. ↑ Dark time . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1972, p. 150 ( online ).
  5. ↑ 2017 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses 2017 pp. 181, 182
  6. ↑ Joseph O. Asagba: The Untold Story of a Nigerian Royal Family: The Urhobo Ruling Clan of Okpe , p. 160ff ( limited preview in Google Book Search)
  7. ↑ Nigeria: Situation of Jehovah's witnesses; whether they are victims of violence; state protection available to them . Report of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada to UHNCR, March 2009
  8. ^ Rosalind IJ Hackett: Religion in Calabar: the religious life and history of a Nigerian town , pp. 101 + 140ff
  9. ↑ Press release ( memento of June 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) of Jehovah's Witnesses Office of Public Information (2001)
  10. ↑ Offices & Visits in Nigeria
  11. ↑ Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses ( Memento from March 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) 1950-2017