Pre-1970, Nigerian Protestantism was overwhelmingly the property of the mission churches — Anglican (CMS), Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, the Christ Apostolic Church (the Aladura indigenous Pentecostal denomination founded in the 1930s), and the smaller Salvation Army and Lutheran communities. Catholicism was the dominant non-Protestant Christian denomination, particularly in Igboland and the Mid-West.
The explosion that produced contemporary Nigerian Pentecostalism began in the early 1970s with three figures.
Archbishop Benson Idahosa (1938–1998) founded the Church of God Mission International in 1968 in Benin City after returning from short Bible-college training in Texas. Idahosa's prosperity-gospel preaching, his founding of All Nations for Christ Bible Institute (1971), and his 1980 founding of the Faith Medical Centre in Benin City made him the first nationally visible Nigerian Pentecostal figure. He ordained both David Oyedepo (1981) and Mike Okonkwo, among many others.
Pastor E.A. Adeboye took over leadership of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG, founded 1952 by Pa Josiah Akindayomi) in 1981 after Akindayomi's death. He transformed the small Yoruba-language Sabbath denomination into the largest single Pentecostal denomination in Africa — by 2024 the RCCG claims over 40,000 parishes worldwide and a global membership of over 5 million. The Redemption Camp on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, founded in 1983, hosts a monthly Holy Ghost Service that attracts 500,000–1,000,000 worshippers, the largest regular religious gathering in the world outside the Hajj.
Bishop David Oyedepo founded Living Faith Church World Wide (Winners Chapel) in Kaduna in 1981. The Faith Tabernacle at the church's Canaanland headquarters in Ota, Ogun State, was the world's largest church auditorium at its 1999 completion (50,400 seats). Oyedepo founded Covenant University (2002) and Landmark University (2011), both consistently in the top 5 of Nigerian university rankings.
Four other generation-shaping figures: Pastor Chris Oyakhilome (Christ Embassy, 1987), Bishop T.D. Jakes-influenced Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo (KICC London, founded by a Nigerian for Nigerian diaspora, 1992), Pastor W.F. Kumuyi (Deeper Life, founded 1973, the largest evangelical-non-prosperity-gospel Pentecostal denomination), and Pastor Sam Adeyemi (Daystar, 1995).
The socio-political consequences are large. Pentecostal pastors have become a primary mediating layer between citizens and the state for entire demographics. The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), formed in 1985, is the single largest civil-society coalition in the country. Two of the last seven Vice-Presidents (Yemi Osinbajo, Kashim Shettima of a different religious tradition) have been Pentecostal pastors or Pentecostal-influenced public figures. Pentecostal voting blocs were decisive in the 2015 and 2023 elections. The prosperity-gospel critique — that the doctrine of seed-faith giving extracts large transfers from the working poor to wealthy pastors — is the most consistent intellectual critique of the movement (PFN itself has issued statements distinguishing 'biblical' from 'fraudulent' prosperity teaching).