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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Waja of Nigeria

The Waja of Nigeria, numbering approximately 162,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are an indigenous community of Nigeria. They are an Indigenous people in the Adamawa-Ubangi people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples affinity bloc. Their primary language is Waja and their primary religion is Animism.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Waja

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Nigeria
People Cluster: Adamawa-Ubangi
Primary Language(s): Waja (wja)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 162,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 2% or Greater but Less than 5% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG014161
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Pray for the Waja of Nigeria

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

70%
%
Animism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Waja
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

100%
%
Waja Speakers

Media Resources in Waja:

Films:

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Waja:

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Waja bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

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Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 2), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Marginally Reached People Group, (LPI: 4), 3% to 6% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 2% or Greater but Less than 5% Evangelical (GSEC: 4), this people group is greater than or equal to 2% evangelical

Next steps for the Waja:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Waja are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Waja:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Waja are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Waja:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Waja of Nigeria

Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life"
readJohn 4:13-14

Pray that those who don't know Jesus will drink of the living water that only Christ can provide and never thirst again.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
readRomans 3:23

Pray that the gospel will advance and many will acknowledge that all have sinned, fall short of God's glory, and need a Savior to reconcile them to God.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
readPhilippians 2:5-7

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will imitate His humility in all they do.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
read1 Corinthians 15:10–11

Pray that God's people will preach the message of Jesus' death and resurrection and that it will spread among the lost through the selfless witness of believers.

Waja Across Countries (ROP3 - 110632) reported in the following countries:

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Definitions page.

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