Nigeria prayer times

Nigeria’s Islamic authority announces the crescent, not the daily times. This page explains the calculation the app uses instead, why the single shadow length is the right Asr default here, and what each city page shows.

Calculated · Egyptian General Authority of Survey

How these times are calculated

No national prayer timetable is published for Nigeria: the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs announces the crescent, not the daily times. The app calculates with the Egyptian General Authority of Survey method, the convention in common use across Nigerian timetables, and every row on a city page says that its time is calculated. Individual mosques and state councils often add precaution minutes, and some timetables are built on a different method, so their printed minutes can differ from the calculated ones.

Cities

Cities are listed by population. A city that is missing has no entry in the prayer-times database yet.

Calculation and source

Institution
Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA)
Method
Egyptian General Authority of Survey
Fajr 19.5°, Isha 17.5° — a calculation, not a published table.
Asr
Asr defaults to the shadow ratio of one, which is the Maliki threshold followed across the northern states and much of the southwest; the Hanafi ratio of two is selectable in the app and moves only Asr.
Precaution minutes
None. The app adds no precaution minutes of its own; many Nigerian mosque cards do add some.
Time zone
Nigeria stays on West Africa Time all year with no daylight saving. The clock is uniform but the sky is not: the country reaches from roughly four degrees north on the Atlantic coast to thirteen degrees north at the Sahel edge, so Maiduguri and Port Harcourt keep noticeably different nights across the year. Each city page is calculated from its own coordinates.
Hijri calendar and crescent
The NSCIA, through the Sultan of Sokoto, announces the start of Ramadan and the two Eids. Some state councils announce separately, so a local date can differ by a day from the national one. The Hijri date shown in the app is calculated and may sit a day away from either.

Through the Sultan of Sokoto, the NSCIA announces the sighting of the crescent for Ramadan and the two Eids. Its role in prayer times stops there: it publishes no daily timetable, and no federal or state body does.

Nigeria prayer times

Who sets prayer times in Nigeria

Nigeria has an unusually clear division between the calendar and the clock. The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, with the Sultan of Sokoto at its head, announces when the crescent has been sighted and therefore when Ramadan and the two Eids begin. It does not publish daily prayer times, and no federal or state body does. Those come from mosques and from the printed cards that circulate in each city, each built on a calculation. Recognising that split is the honest starting point for any Nigerian prayer-time page: the calendar has an authority, the daily timetable does not.

The method behind Nigerian timetables

The convention most widely used across Nigerian timetables is the one published by the Egyptian General Authority of Survey — Fajr when the sun sits nineteen and a half degrees below the horizon, Isha at seventeen and a half degrees on the other side. It travels naturally from Cairo down the same band of latitude into the Sahel and the coastal south, and it is what the majority of cards printed in Nigerian cities are built on. These pages use it, so a card built on the same angles will usually sit within a minute or two of the time shown here.

Asr in the north and the south

The northern states follow the Maliki school and the southwest is largely Maliki as well. The Maliki position on Asr uses a single shadow length — the same threshold as the Shafi position, and the reason these pages default to it. It is the time most Nigerian mosques will call. Communities that follow the Hanafi position, or that simply print a two-length Asr on their card, can switch the Asr setting in the app; the other five times stay exactly where they are.

What to expect on a city page

Each Nigerian city page carries today’s six times for that city’s coordinates, the Hijri date, and a monthly table in which every row is labelled with where the time came from. Because no Nigerian institution’s table is integrated, those labels all read as calculated. That is a description of the data, not an apology for it: a calculated Egyptian-method time is exactly what most Nigerian timetables are, and saying so is more useful than dressing it up as something official.

Questions

Does any Nigerian body publish official prayer times?
No. The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs announces the crescent for Ramadan and Eid, but neither it nor any state body publishes a daily prayer timetable.
Why does the app use a single shadow length for Asr in Nigeria?
Because Nigeria is predominantly Maliki, and the Maliki position places Asr at one shadow length. You can switch to the two-length ratio in the app if your mosque uses it.
Do Nigerian times shift for daylight saving?
No. Nigeria stays on West Africa Time, UTC+01:00, all year, so the only movement across these tables is astronomical.

Keep Nigeria prayer times in your pocket

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