Two decades ago Sampson Boamah did something unusual for a Ghanaian high school student: he became a Mormon. Back then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the American Christian sect is formally known, was on the fringes in Africa. Many viewed it as “the white people’s church”. On his first mission in Nigeria, Mr Boamah encountered a woman who had been told that Mormons turned into goats at night. In Ghana it was rumoured they drank blood.
Today Mormonism still has a smaller footprint in Ghana (and in Africa) than other sects, but it is growing rapidly. Between 2011 and 2021 the number of members in Africa increased by 120%, compared with 19% globally. Matt Martinich, a demographer who runs a blog devoted to the church, says that nine of the ten countries where expansion is fastest are on the continent. Moreover, unlike in other hotspots such as South America, where much of the recent growth is on paper only, African Mormons typically remain active and devoted members long after baptism, notes Elder Adeyinka Ojediran, the church’s top official in west Africa.
At first glance the boom is surprising. Early Mormon leaders in America taught that black people were cursed, barring them from the priesthood until as late as 1978. Partly because of this, governments in post-independence Africa often viewed Mormon missionaries with suspicion. Ghana’s military regime in the 1980s briefly expelled them, accusing the church of undermining the country’s sovereignty. “A church with a lot of foreign missionaries made them a little uncomfortable,” recalls William Sowah, a Mormon elder who spent a night in jail at the time.
Yet having got started in Africa later than their rivals, Latter-day Saints are energetically catching up. More new missions are set to open in Africa in 2026 than in any other region, reflecting a “tremendous channelling of resources” to the continent, says Mr Martinich. Temples are being built from Sierra Leone to Kenya, with two new ones in Ghana in the pipeline.
According to Elder Ojediran, more than two-thirds of those who have joined the church in west Africa since 2019 have been under 26 years old. Many are drawn, at least in part, by the opportunities it offers for educational and other advancement, including financial support for higher education, vocational training and after-school classes. “If I hadn’t met the church I wouldn’t have finished secondary school,” says Mr Boamah, who recently completed a master’s degree. A study of the sect in post-independence Nigeria found that, for many African members at the time, “American religion meant American wealth.”
As in America, Mormonism in Ghana and across Africa punches above its demographic weight. Among Ghana’s 34m people, it has more clout than the size of its membership roll, which only recently surpassed 100,000, might suggest. Since 2004 a gleaming Mormon temple has occupied a large plot on Accra’s Independence Avenue, one of the capital’s most historic thoroughfares. More recently the church has taken to organising high-profile conferences aimed at promoting “family values”. These have helped it to forge strong ties with prominent African politicians, including most recently the First Lady of Sierra Leone.
Some worry this is helping fuel a backlash against women’s and LGBTQ rights. A report by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, a global media initiative, notes that the church’s conferences have been followed by “increases in homophobic violence” in west Africa. The report’s authors also say that Family Watch International, an NGO dedicated to opposing sex education that is run by a prominent Mormon activist, has helped push Ghana’s curriculum in a more conservative direction.
How much such outside influence matters is contested. Elder Ojediran argues that the church’s “moral clarity” on social issues makes it attractive to socially conservative Ghanaians. Either way, its rise in Africa looks set to continue.
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