Nigeria’s public life is shaped by intense religious identity—and by violence, political rhetoric, and community tension that can make “tolerance” sound like an empty word. Yet when researchers ask ordinary Nigerians structured survey questions, a more layered picture appears. Most respondents say they would accept—or at least not object to—neighbours who worship differently. Far fewer say they trust people from other religions deeply. Afrobarometer’s nationally representative surveys provide the clearest public-opinion evidence on these attitudes. This article explains what that data measures, what the latest Round 10 (2024) results show, how tolerance differs from trust, and where survey findings stop short of describing everyday security or persecution.
Primary sources for this analysis are Afrobarometer’s Nigeria Round 10 Summary of Results (fieldwork June–July 2024) and Afrobarometer Dispatch AD900 on religious leaders, tolerance, and trust (based on Round 9, March 2022), which includes Christian–Muslim breakdowns and trend data from earlier rounds. Pew Research Center and Open Doors data on hostilities and persecution are cited only where they measure different things—not as substitutes for Afrobarometer attitude surveys.
How Afrobarometer Measures Religious Tolerance
Afrobarometer is a pan-African survey research network that has polled Nigerians repeatedly since 1999. For Round 10 in Nigeria, the national partner NOIPolls interviewed a nationally representative, random, stratified probability sample of 1,600 adult citizens in June–July 2024. A sample of this size yields country-level results with a margin of error of approximately ±2.5 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. Interviews were conducted in multiple languages, including English, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, and Pidgin.
The standard Afrobarometer tolerance indicator uses question Q88A (wording may vary slightly by round):
“For each of the following types of people, please tell me whether you would like having people from this group as neighbours, dislike it, or not care: People of a different religion?”
Researchers then combine three response categories into a tolerance index:
- “Strongly like” or “somewhat like” having such neighbours
- “Would not care”
Responses of “strongly dislike” or “somewhat dislike” count as intolerant on this measure. The United Nations International Day for Tolerance (16 November) is often discussed alongside this indicator because it captures everyday social distance—the willingness to share residential proximity across religious lines.
A separate question, Q87D, measures trust: “How much do you trust each of the following types of people: People from other religions?” Response options run from “not at all” through “a lot.” Analysts typically report the share who say they trust other-religion Nigerians “somewhat” or “a lot.” Tolerance and trust are related but not identical—a person can accept a neighbour of another faith while still distrusting “people from other religions” as a category.
- Afrobarometer, Nigeria Round 10 Summary of Results (2024) — methodology and question tables.
- Afrobarometer Dispatch AD900, “Nigerians view religious leaders as more trustworthy, less corrupt than public institutions” (14 November 2024).
Latest Results: Neighbour Tolerance (Round 10, 2024)
In Round 10, Nigerian responses to Q88A break down as follows:
| Response (Q88A) | Share of respondents |
|---|---|
| Strongly like neighbours of a different religion | 21.4% |
| Somewhat like | 47.1% |
| Would not care | 21.4% |
| Tolerance index (like + not care) | ~90% |
| Somewhat dislike | 7.0% |
| Strongly dislike | 2.7% |
| Dislike combined | ~9.7% |
About nine in ten Nigerians surveyed in 2024 fall into the tolerant categories on this question. Roughly two-thirds (68.5%) actively say they would like having neighbours of a different religion; another one in five (21.4%) say they would not care. Only about one in ten (9.7%) say they would somewhat or strongly dislike such neighbours.
Urban and rural patterns in Round 10 are modest. Rural respondents were slightly more likely to “strongly like” neighbours of another religion (23.1% vs 19.1% urban), while dislike rates were similar (roughly 10–11% when combining somewhat and strongly dislike in each zone). The headline finding is national: expressed neighbour tolerance is high in the 2024 survey.
Example 1: Computing the tolerance index
Scenario: A blogger rounds Afrobarometer’s neighbour question to one number.
Key insight: Afrobarometer’s published tolerance figure uses the top three rows—not “somewhat like” alone. Including “would not care” matters; it captures acceptance without warm preference.
Example 2: What 90% tolerance does not claim
Scenario: A headline says “90% of Nigerians are tolerant of all religions.”
Trust Across Religious Lines: A Lower Ceiling (Round 10, 2024)
Question Q87D produces a striking gap. In Round 10, only about 49% of respondents say they trust people from other religions “somewhat” or “a lot”:
| Trust in people from other religions (Q87D) | Share of respondents |
|---|---|
| Not at all | 12.1% |
| Just a little | 38.3% |
| Somewhat | 32.1% |
| A lot | 17.2% |
| Low trust (not at all + just a little) | ~50% |
| Higher trust (somewhat + a lot) | ~49% |
About half of respondents express meaningful trust across religious lines; about half do not. Women were slightly less likely than men to say they trust other-religion Nigerians “a lot” (14.6% vs 19.8%), while combined “somewhat + a lot” trust was nearly identical by sex (~49%). Urban and rural totals were also close (~49% each).
Afrobarometer Dispatch AD900 (Round 9, 2022) reported a similar national trust figure—about 51% trusting members of other faiths somewhat or a lot—with a much larger divide by the respondent’s own religion:
- Muslims: about 70% trusted people from other religions somewhat or a lot
- Christians: about 37%
Round 10 summary tables in the public PDF do not reproduce that Christian–Muslim split for Q87D; until a Round 10 dispatch publishes those cross-tabs, AD900 remains the best sourced breakdown for faith-group differences on trust. The gap is large enough that any national average hides opposing experiences among Nigeria’s two largest religious communities.
Example 1: National average vs Christian–Muslim split
Scenario: A pastor cites “half of Nigerians trust other religions” to a congregation.
Example 2: Tolerance without trust
Scenario: A civic group assumes high tolerance means high interfaith cooperation.
How Religious Tolerance Compares With Ethnic Tolerance
Afrobarometer asks the same neighbour question about people from other ethnic groups (Q88B). In Round 10, the pattern closely resembles religion:
| Neighbour question (Round 10) | Dislike (somewhat + strongly) | Tolerance index (like + not care) |
|---|---|---|
| People of a different religion (Q88A) | ~9.7% | ~90% |
| People from other ethnic groups (Q88B) | ~8.3% | ~91% |
On these survey measures, religious and ethnic neighbour tolerance are both high and numerically similar. That does not mean religion and ethnicity are interchangeable in Nigerian conflict data—Middle Belt farmer–herder violence, Boko Haram attacks, and blasphemy cases involve religion, ethnicity, land, and politics together. It does mean that, in a national sample, explicit dislike of religiously or ethnically different neighbours is a minority position.
By contrast, Afrobarometer’s neighbour question about homosexuals (Q88C) shows overwhelmingly negative responses in Round 10 (~88% somewhat or strongly dislike)—illustrating that high religious neighbour tolerance does not extend equally to every social category Afrobarometer tests.
Trends Over Time: Stable Tolerance, Uneven Trust
Dispatch AD900 tracks tolerance on Q88A from 2015 through 2022 using the same three-category tolerance index:
- About 83% tolerant in 2022
- A dip to about 75% in 2020
- Roughly 81–82% in 2015 and 2017
- At least three-quarters tolerant in every round since 2015
Round 10’s ~90% tolerance reading is higher than the 2022 figure. That may reflect real attitude change, sampling variation within the margin of error, or contextual differences between March 2022 and mid-2024 fieldwork. Writers should report the latest round clearly, note the trend direction since 2015 (generally high tolerance with a 2020 dip), and avoid treating a single year as an immutable national character.
Trust in people of other religions was about 51% nationally in AD900’s 2022 analysis—almost identical to Round 10’s ~49%. Trust appears more stable—and lower—than neighbour tolerance across rounds.
- Afrobarometer AD900 — Figures 5 and 6 (tolerance trend 2015–2022; trust by demographic group).
Unity, Diversity, and Perceived Unfair Treatment
Tolerance questions capture social distance. Afrobarometer also asks broader questions about national cohesion and whether religious groups receive fair treatment from government—relevant to how tolerance operates in public life.
More that unites than divides?
In Afrobarometer’s 2020 Nigeria survey (reported in AD900), about 62% of respondents said that despite ethnic, religious, cultural, and political differences, there is more that unites Nigerians than divides them. That belief was far more common among Muslims (~77%) than Christians (~47%) in the same analysis. Nigerians with primary education or less were also more likely to affirm national unity than those with secondary or post-secondary schooling.
Strength in diversity
About 73% of Nigerians in AD900’s reporting said communities are stronger when made up of people from different ethnic groups, races, or religions—including majorities among both Muslims (~77%) and Christians (~68%). Large majorities therefore endorse pluralism in principle even when trust across religious lines is uneven.
Unfair treatment by government
Afrobarometer’s 2020 Nigeria survey asked how often members of the respondent’s religious group are treated unfairly by the government. About 11% said “often” or “always,” plus 23% “sometimes”; 62% said “never.” Christians (~17% often/always) were about three times as likely as Muslims (~5%) to report frequent unfair treatment—a perception gap that helps explain why Christians report lower trust toward other religions even while many express neighbour tolerance.
These items are not direct tolerance measures, but they show that survey respondents connect religion to governance and fairness—not only to hypothetical neighbours.
Example 1: High tolerance, contested fairness
Scenario: A policy brief argues “surveys prove Nigerian Christians and Muslims feel equally treated.”
Example 2: Unity narrative vs trust data
Scenario: A politician says “Nigerians agree we are united.”
What Survey Data Does Not Show
Religious tolerance surveys answer specific, limited questions well. They do not replace other datasets—and they can coexist uncomfortably with them.
Violence and hostilities: Pew Research Center classifies Nigeria among countries with “very high” social hostilities involving religion as of 2022, noting attacks on both Muslims and Christians, Boko Haram activity, and Middle Belt conflict. Open Doors ranks Nigeria among the most difficult countries for Christians on the World Watch List. Those frameworks measure incidents, pressure, and violence—not whether a respondent would mind a neighbour of another faith.
Behaviour vs stated preference: Saying one would not dislike a neighbour of another religion is not the same as renting a flat to them, employing them, marrying across religious lines, or protecting them during an attack. Afrobarometer captures attitudes in a structured interview, not observed behaviour.
Adults only: Round 10 samples citizens aged 18 and older. Nigeria’s population is young; adult-only surveys underrepresent children’s experiences and future cohorts.
Legal and institutional context: Sharia courts in northern states, blasphemy prosecutions, and restrictions on worship in some areas shape tolerance in practice. Afrobarometer’s 2017–2020 items on whether freedom of worship is “absolute” showed about six in ten Nigerians agreeing that government should never limit speech in places of worship, while about one-third supported government power to regulate worship speech when security is threatened—showing tension between liberty and regulation that neighbour questions alone do not capture.
Two Complete Readings of the Data
Complete Example A: The optimistic reading (with citations)
Scenario: An interfaith council opening statement.
Complete Example B: The cautious reading (with citations)
Scenario: A human-rights report introduction.
Common Questions
Does high tolerance mean Nigeria is a tolerant country in everyday life?
It means most respondents in a national sample answer a standard neighbour question tolerantly. Everyday experience varies by state, ethnicity, and security conditions. Survey tolerance is one indicator, not a full social diagnosis.
Why do Muslims report more trust in other religions than Christians?
AD900 does not prove causation. Possible factors include different security experiences, political narratives, regional majority–minority status, and how respondents interpret “trust.” The measured gap (70% vs 37% trusting other religions somewhat or a lot in 2022) is large and persistent enough to report as a finding, not an speculation.
Is religious tolerance rising?
Neighbour tolerance was ~83% in 2022 (AD900) and ~90% in 2024 (Round 10 summary)—possibly upward, but within sampling margins the safer statement is that tolerance has remained high since 2015, with a 2020 dip and a strong 2024 reading.
How does this relate to trust between communities more broadly?
This article focuses on tolerance (Q88A) and cross-religion trust (Q87D). A companion piece can deepen trust in neighbours, other Nigerians, and ethnic groups (Q87B–Q87E) without repeating the full tolerance table.
Religious Leaders, Trust, and Tolerance Are Different Measures
Afrobarometer also asks Nigerians how much they trust religious leaders as a category (Q37L). Dispatch AD900 reports that about six in ten Nigerians (60%) trusted religious leaders “somewhat” or “a lot” in Round 9 (2022)—far above trust in the president (27%) or Parliament (19%). Muslims (77%) were substantially more likely than Christians (47%) to trust religious leaders; rural residents and those with no formal education reported the highest trust levels.
High trust in one’s own religious leadership does not automatically produce high trust in people of other religions. AD900 explicitly notes that Christians are less trusting of other-religion Nigerians while still often reporting tolerance on the neighbour question. Ministry and policy readers should therefore distinguish three survey layers:
- Institutional trust: Do you trust religious leaders?
- Cross-group trust: Do you trust people from other religions?
- Social tolerance: Would you accept them as neighbours?
All three can move in different directions at the same time—a pattern visible in Nigeria’s data but easy to miss when only one headline number is quoted.
Example 1: Three trust questions, three answers
Scenario: A survey of Nigerian Christians is misread from one Afrobarometer item.
Safety, Insecurity, and Stated Tolerance
Round 10 also asks how often respondents or their families felt unsafe at home or in their neighbourhood in the past year (Q9). About 37% said never; 29% just once or twice; 23% several times; and roughly 12% many times or always. That means about 63% experienced at least some perceived insecurity in the prior year—while ~90% simultaneously expressed neighbour tolerance toward other religions on Q88A.
The coexistence of high stated tolerance and widespread reported insecurity is not a statistical error. It reflects that Afrobarometer is measuring different dimensions: hypothetical acceptance of a religiously different neighbour vs recalled fear in one’s environment. Writers should not use tolerance percentages to dismiss security concerns, or use insecurity data to claim Nigerians are “secretly intolerant” without Q88A evidence.
Example 2: Tolerance data vs safety data in one paragraph
Scenario: A donor report needs both findings.
Education, Residence, and Who Expresses Tolerance
AD900’s trend analysis shows neighbour tolerance has stayed at three-quarters or more nationally since 2015, but other items vary by education. Nigerians with primary schooling or less were more likely than post-secondary graduates to say there is more that unites Nigerians than divides them (roughly 73–75% vs 54–56% in AD900’s 2020 unity question). Trust in people of other religions was highest among those with no formal education (69% somewhat or a lot in AD900) compared with secondary-educated respondents (45%).
Round 10’s national Q88A totals do not show a large urban–rural tolerance gap (~90% either way when combining like and not-care responses). Trust in other-religion Nigerians in Round 10 was also similar by residence (~49% urban and rural). The lesson for researchers is to check whether a national tolerance headline masks education or religion splits before generalizing to “all Nigerians.”
Methodology Notes
Round 10 Nigeria data come from face-to-face interviews with 1,600 adults, June–July 2024, with stratified national sampling and ±2.5% margin of error. Tolerance indices follow Afrobarometer’s standard definition (strongly like + somewhat like + would not care on Q88A). Trust figures combine “somewhat” and “a lot” on Q87D. Christian–Muslim and trend breakdowns cite Dispatch AD900 (Round 9, March 2022) and earlier rounds where Round 10 public tables do not yet disaggregate by religion.
Readers analyzing raw data can download Nigeria Round 10 datasets from Afrobarometer (SPSS .SAV format) or use the summary PDF tables. Question wording should be checked against the Round 10 questionnaire before comparing across countries.
Conclusion
Survey data on religious tolerance in Nigeria points to a consistent pattern: most Nigerians tell Afrobarometer they accept neighbours of other faiths—about 90% on the standard tolerance index in Round 10 (2024). That figure has been high for years, with a noticeable dip in 2020 and a strong latest reading. Trust is another matter. Only about half of respondents in 2024 say they trust people from other religions somewhat or a lot, and earlier rounds show Muslims far more likely than Christians to say so.
Large majorities also tell Afrobarometer that diverse communities can be stronger and that Nigeria shares more unity than division—though Christians and Muslims diverge on how strongly they believe that. Perceived unfair treatment of one’s religious group by government remains more common among Christian respondents in published breakdowns.
For churches, NGOs, journalists, and policymakers, the disciplined lesson is to quote the right indicator: neighbour tolerance for social acceptance, trust questions for cross-group confidence, and separate sources for violence and persecution. Nigeria’s survey data describe a society where religious difference is widely acceptable in a hypothetical next-door neighbour—but where trust, fairness, and security remain contested along religious lines.
Complete Reference List
- Afrobarometer. Nigeria Round 10 Summary of Results (2024). https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/R10-Summary-of-results-Nigeria-Afrobarometer-bh-7aug25.pdf
- Afrobarometer. “Nigeria Round 10 summary of results.” Publication page, 7 August 2025. https://www.afrobarometer.org/publication/nigeria-round-10-summary-of-results/
- Afrobarometer. “Nigeria Round 10 questionnaire (2025).” https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/NIG.R10-Questionnaire_27May24-FINAL.pdf
- Afrobarometer Dispatch AD900. “Nigerians view religious leaders as more trustworthy, less corrupt than public institutions.” 14 November 2024. https://www.afrobarometer.org/publication/ad900-nigerians-view-religious-leaders-as-more-trustworthy-less-corrupt-than-public-institutions/
- Afrobarometer. AD900 PDF. https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/AD900-Nigerians-see-religious-leaders-as-more-trustworthy-than-public-institutions-Afrobarometer-14nov24.pdf
- Pew Research Center. “5 facts about religion in Nigeria.” 11 November 2025 — social hostilities index context.