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Copyright By Abimbola Adunni Adelakun 2017 Godmentality: Pentecostalism as Performance in Nigeria By Abimbola Adunni Adelakun Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2017 Dedication To Marcel and Athena. I am grateful for how far we have come. Like Jacob in the Bible who said, “For with my staff I passed over Jordan and now I have become two bands….” I also can proudly declare that the person that crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 2011 has greatly multiplied in all directions. Of all I have been blessed with, you two are the greatest of all. iii Acknowledgements …because it takes a village to write a dissertation In the time one takes to write a dissertation, one accumulates a string of debts that can never be fully repaid. One can only try, and do so employing words to convey the depth of one’s gratitude. First, my deep appreciation goes to my committee members: Profs. Joni Omi Jones, Lisa Thompson, Paul Bonin- Rodriguez, Charlotte Canning, and Toyin Falola. Thanks for all support, patience, love and understanding all through this project. I have worked with you in various capacities and every time you have helped me to become a better scholar and teacher. I am grateful to you all for the energy and effort you invested in my career throughout my time in the University of Texas at Austin. I must thank my family for all their support and prayers all through my time in the graduate school. Thanks to my Dad, Chief Ademola Adelakun, for the strong foundation you and my mother, the late Mrs. Mojisola Ajoke, gave me. My mother is no longer in this world but I know I would not have been here without her inspiration and her motherly love. If you ever get to read this, mother, know that the values you imparted in me right from childhood has sustained me through the years. Thanks also to my siblings: Adeola Emasealu, Oladipupo, and Afolabi Adelakun. May we always be fine and happy. I am grateful also to my grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Adeyanju who never failed to call me every Sunday morning to pray for me. Thanks for having always been my mother and my grandmother. I still have fond memories of my notoriety while growing up with you in Oyo in the 80s. To other members of my family: Funmilola Akintobi and iv her children: Tobiloba, Damilola, and Kemi. Thanks for all the time you helped me cared for my daughter while I ran around for my fieldwork in 2015. Thanks for all the times I could call on you for help for my research and you never failed me. Thanks to my aunts, Alhaja Adepoju and Bolaji Mustapha, for all the good times we share. At the end of the day, family is all we have got and I am grateful we got one another. I have always believed that I am a child of three people: my father, my mother, and my teachers. My teachers did not only teach me in the classroom, they helped me in all the ways they could to ensure my success. I am grateful to my teachers and mentors who showed me all these years, sustained me, and inculcated strength in me: Professor Biodun Jeyifo, Prof. Sola Adeyeye, Prof Ayo Ojebode, Prof. Niyi Osundare, Prof. Adetokunbo Lucas, and Prof Nimi Wariboko. At every point when I have needed help, you have offered more than enough. You have helped me stand on my feet and I hope to go through life doing for others, all you have done for me. Thanks to Prof. Ebenezer Obadare, for all the advice and the gracious ways you have pointed the way to me. Thanks also to the Nigerian professoriate in the University of Texas at Austin: Prof. Moyo Okediji, Dr. Augustin Agwuele, and Dr. Niyi Afolabi. Thank you for being diaspora fathers for me all these years. To my uncle in University of Lagos, Engineer Adelere Ezekiel Adeniran, thanks for your generous support all the times I asked you and even when I did not ask. To Yinka Odumakin (for that gracious help you offered in 2011) and Pastor Tunde Bakare (for your generous spirit), I say thanks and God bless you. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Bisi Falola who has accepted us – her husband’s students- as her own children and has v provided generous maternal support for us all these years. Thanks to you all for without you, we will not be here. I am grateful to friends whose intellect, convivial spirit, and generosity saw me through the lonesome times in graduate school: Dr. Koleade Odutola (whom I call my academic sugar daddy); Dr. Benson Eluma (for all the times you let me bother you); Dr. Adedoyin Ogunfeyinmi (for being that friend who provides a torch light in grey times); Scott Blackshire (for the love, laughter, and the tears of joy and disappointments we shared); Monisola Alabi (because friends are forever); Segun Obasa (Ore bi omo iya); Amatoritsero Ede (for all the times you checked on me and offered gracious words of advice); the sisters of the Original Five -Tolani Ogunsanya, Adenike Adeoye, Angela Eluwa, Joannah Otashu (you guys rock!); Osita Ananquenzeh (the friend who is closer than a brother). They say, "Ani o da ki a ni eni leyin. Eni ti o leni leyin, oun gbogbo ni o kuku ni." Indeed, having you behind me all the time makes me richer than anyone else on earth. Thanks to everybody that made my research a possibility: those I interviewed but cannot name for ethical reasons and those who I could name. Thanks to staff and members of Winners Chapel and Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry International for their help. I am grateful to Deacon Emmanuel Odu of Winners Chapel (thank you...thank you…thank you…); Mrs. Iyabo Ogunsola (Iya Efunsetan Aniwura); Mrs. Yetunde Ogunsola ; Mrs. Bola Akande; Kalu Chibuike of University of Nigeria. I am also deeply indebted to my cohorts in AADS and PPP for the wonderful friendship you provided in the past six years: Gustavo Melo Cerquira, Agatha Olivia, M’bewe Escobar, Amy Guethner, Bart Pritchard, Dotun Ayobade, Rudy Ramirez, Christine Gwillim, Scott Blackshire, vi and Lydia Nelson. In the past six years, my work has been generously supported by the John L. Warfield Center African and African American Studies Center, University of Texas Graduate School Fellowship program, Mellon School at Harvard 2016, and my employers at PUNCH Nigeria: Executive Director, Mr. Joseph Adeyeye, and Joel Nwokeoma, my column editor. I cannot but be grateful to my former chairman at PUNCH newspaper, Chief Ajibola Ogunsola, for what he did for me when I was a naïve employee. Thanks to him for helping me find the intellectual light that started me on this project. I am also grateful to the PCL Library staff who have always been kind to me especially in my final year when I made the library my “office.” Finally, I want to touch on the “egungun nla to kehin Igbale” and that is my advisor for the past six years, Prof. Joni Jones. My relationship with Prof. Joni Jones started when I first was admitted to University of Texas in 2010, a year earlier than my actual coming to the US. I did not make it that year due to some bureaucratic issues but I was grateful for all that she moved for me to make it. Then in 2011, I finally made it here and since then she has borne me through all these while. Through the times I was confused, uncertain, afraid, intimidated, helpless, and lost, she has patiently shown me the way. She mentored me, carefully read through my work (and what a sacrifice that was!) and made sure that she helped me find my strength. Coincidentally, as I was typing this, a track of Kollington Ayinla’s Megastar is playing in the background and he is saying what I want to say to Prof. Jones: laye mi, laye mi, layelaye mi, mi o je gbagbe yin o! Indeed, Prof. Jones, I cannot – and will not- forget all that you have done for me. vii Godmentality: Pentecostalism as Performance in Nigeria Abimbola Adunni Adelakun, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 Supervisor: Omi Osun Joni L Jones This dissertation employs the concept of “Godmentality” as a framework for capturing the embodied performances of faith actors in the Nigerian Pentecostal movement. From Africa to Asia to Latin America, and North America, Pentecostalism is a huge global phenomenon that not only imbues places and spaces with the breath of the Holy Spirit, it also inscribes time and space with its distinct flavor of worship. In Africa, the Pentecostal movement is sweeping through the urban spaces and covering the spatial and cultural landscape with its activities and promises of redemption. In Nigeria, as people perform their Pentecostal faith and make Pentecostalism a cultural performance, God and faith have become a mentality. The band of believers who form the army of God marching through times and space are continuously configured through various disciplinary viii techniques. Those subjectivation techniques turn them to subjects whose bodies have been reshaped such that the performance of their faith is a “natural” activity. Godmentality explores the subjectivity of Pentecostal Christians and the modes by which they acquire it, how their performative actions shape the social and cultural ecology of Nigeria, and how Pentecostals assert their human agency within the nexus of the various rituals of worship that revise their consciousness.

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