FOLLOWING Uganda’s historic admission last year as the second African nation represented at the World Zionist Congress, Nigeria’s Jewish community is now preparing its own bid for recognition within the World Zionist Organization. ZIMU Launched in Mukono: Uganda’s Historic Inclusion in the World Zionist Congress.
Nigeria is home to more than six thousand practicing Jews, with communities found predominantly in Lagos, Abuja and across Southern Nigeria, and the bulk of the population concentrated in the east of the country. Anambra State stands out in particular, home to roughly twenty synagogues on its own. Over recent months, consultations have taken place across the country, drawing in members of the Judaism Fellowship Initiative, known as JFI, as well as Jewish Nigerians either affiliated or unaffiliated with any single organization, resulting in a shared understanding of how Nigeria’s bid should be carried forward, and by whom.
That mandate has fallen to Arthur Regis, president of JFI, the organization representing the largest number of synagogues and members in the country. He is expected to travel to Israel during Sukkot, the pilgrimage festival, less than a month from now, where he will formally present Nigeria’s case for admission at the offices of the World Zionist Congress. A coordinator based in Israel has been designated to manage the follow-up work that such a bid typically requires, a process that, based on precedent, can take years to conclude.
Uganda’s own path offers a clear illustration of that timeline. The Zionist Movement of Uganda, known as ZIMU, was formally launched in June last year, in Mukono, following the World Zionist Organization’s decision in January to admit the Uganda Federation as its second African member. That outcome came after more than eight years of sustained effort led by Avram Mukibi, a Ugandan Jew from Mbale, who pursued the goal from 2018 onward despite long stretches when the cause appeared to have stalled. His perseverance ultimately secured Uganda’s place at the thirty-ninth World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, making it only the second African federation admitted, after South Africa.
Nigerian Jewish leaders now point to that outcome as both inspiration and roadmap. The reasoning is straightforward: with a Jewish population significantly larger than Uganda’s, and a network of synagogues spanning multiple states, Nigeria has long had the community infrastructure to justify formal representation. What has been missing, until now, is a unified, agreed process for pursuing it.
Nigerian Jewish organizers say Regis and his designated coordinator will be the ones carrying this process forward in the months ahead.
This is not a small distinction. A seat at the World Zionist Congress is not merely symbolic. Delegates have a voice in setting policy on religious life, education, and aliyah that affects Jewish communities worldwide. For a community of Nigeria’s size, formal representation would mean a genuine platform in those decisions, including their own.
JFI itself has continued to grow as an organization with its own members, but its leadership has been clear that the bid is not being carried forward on behalf of JFI alone. The federation says it remains open to collaborating with Jewish Nigerians who are not JFI members, and has been actively reaching out to other Jewish groups and communities across the country to ensure the bid reflects the country’s Jewish population as a whole, not just one organization within it.
It would also mark another milestone for Black African Jewry on the world stage, following Uganda’s breakthrough last year. As ZIMU’s leadership put it at their launch in Mukono, the Zionist Congress is richer and stronger when it includes the full diversity of the world’s Jewish communities. Nigerian Jewish organizers are hoping their own communities, from Lagos to Abuja to the synagogues of Anambra, will soon be counted among that diversity, formally and with one clear voice.
Should the bid succeed, Nigeria would follow Uganda’s path as only the third African nation, after South Africa’s founding-era involvement and Uganda’s recent admission, to hold formal standing within the World Zionist Organization, giving Nigerian Jewry a direct voice in decisions shaping global Jewish communal life and funding.
For now, the process is just beginning. Whether Nigeria’s bid follows a path as long as Uganda’s eight-year journey, or moves more quickly, will depend on the willingness of the World Zionist Organization to engage with a united Nigerian delegation, and the patience of a community that has waited a long time to be heard.