“Performance?! You think we are playing here? No, we are not performing here. We are making power happen. Even when you see us sing and dance, we are not playing. If we are performing anything at all, it is power! We are a people of power! Power is our identity!” (2) This response by a Nigerian Pentecostal pastor to Abimbola Adelakun’s description of her Performing Power in Nigeria illustrates the central argument of her book: Nigerian Pentecostal identity is essentially about the performance of power. Readers should take Adelakun’s use of “performance” seriously, as her application of performance studies is a genuinely new and illuminating approach to the study of Pentecostalism.
Performing Power in Nigeria is not a history of Nigerian Pentecostalism, though Adelakun aptly includes historical context where helpful and necessary. Scholars interested in the study of Nigerian religion and politics, Pentecostalism, Yorùbá religions, media studies, performance studies, and...
