Pope John Paul II landed at Murtala Muhammed International Airport on the afternoon of 12 February 1982 — the first sitting Roman Pontiff to set foot in Nigeria — and was received by President Shehu Shagari, Cardinal Dominic Ekandem and a delegation of Nigerian bishops. The six-day apostolic journey, the most extensive ever undertaken by a Pope to West Africa, covered five cities. He addressed Shagari and the diplomatic corps at the National Theatre, Iganmu, the same evening, and on 13 February celebrated an open-air Mass at the Tafawa Balewa Square attended by an estimated 800,000 worshippers.
On 14 February he flew to Onitsha, where the open-air Mass at the Sharon Holy Family Catholic Cathedral grounds drew a crowd that local newspapers placed at over one million, the largest gathering in the city's history. On 15 February he addressed Igbo bishops at Enugu and visited the relics of the Holy Ghost Fathers at Nsukka. On 16 February he was received by the Olubadan of Ibadan, addressed Muslim leaders including the Sultan of Sokoto's representative at the Cathedral Church of St James the Greater, Oke-Bola, and held the first formal Catholic–Muslim audience in Nigerian history. On 17 February he closed the tour with Mass for over half a million people at the Murtala Square, Kaduna — a deliberate Northern Nigerian setting — before departing for Benin, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.