Kenyans set alarms for 1:59am to join a livestream from Lagos. Now it is coming to them.

What it actually is

An hour of worship on a livestream, starting at midnight West Africa Time. Bassey began it on 1 June 2017 and the first run lasted thirty days. It has come back in editions ever since. This one opened on 5 October and closes on the 30th, going out on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

He is a gospel singer and a trumpeter, and he pastors The Oasis Lagos, the youth church of RCCG Kings Court in Victoria Island. Worth knowing before anyone decides the hour was an accident. The man who picked midnight runs a church full of young people.

The hour itself comes from Acts 16.

Bassey has never claimed the hour itself does anything. The pattern is the point. They were singing before anything moved.

About that 2am, which has been reported wrong

Nigeria runs on West Africa Time, one hour ahead of UTC. Kenya runs on East Africa Time, three hours ahead. That is a gap of two hours, not the three some of this week's coverage has printed.

So a session that starts one minute before midnight in Lagos starts one minute before two in Nairobi. The 1:59am that Kenyans quote is correct. The reasoning attached to it in places is not.

What Kenyans say they get out of it

Nation Africa spoke to several of them, and the answers are considerably less dramatic than the hour would suggest.

Zibora Simiyu, 26, put it in terms of habit rather than feeling: "It has helped me build spiritual discipline." Benjamin Kioko, a 46-year-old high school teacher, said it "reminded me that worship isn't only for Sunday." Elizabeth Mutongoi, a student at Moi University, reads the whole thing as aimed squarely at her generation: "I believe He is revealing Himself to the youth through this movement."

It wasn't about hype. It wasn't a show.

Joanne Senteko, hotelier, Nairobi

Marium Wacheke, 49, repeated a line of Bassey's that participants pass around: this has never been a concert, it has always been a revival. She is quoting him from memory rather than from any statement, but the fact that the line travels tells you what people think they have joined.

Kenyans wake each other up for it. They put session links on their status updates, type prayer requests into the comments, and download the whole thing the next morning if they slept through, which happens. Some have been to Rhema Feast, a physical gathering in Kenya that grew out of the same movement.

Nobody publishes attendance figures. Nation Africa says the 2017 run drew tens of thousands and that thousands join each midnight now. Those are the only numbers available and they are not precise, which is worth saying out loud rather than dressing up.

Dress like your miracle

On 26 October, Bassey has asked everyone to turn up to the stream dressed as the thing they are believing for.

Which is objectively a strange instruction, and also makes complete sense to anyone who has sat in a service where hope had to be made physical before it could be carried. It explains something about the reach, too. This is not a solemn broadcast. People are enjoying themselves at two in the morning, in an outfit, on purpose.

What the tour means if you are nowhere near Nairobi

Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, maybe London.

That is the list, and it is worth sitting with, because it is the entire argument for the thing being online in the first place. A tour reaches four places. The livestream reached Kenya without anyone planning it, which is how a Nigerian pastor's midnight session ended up being covered by Pulse Kenya and the Daily Nation, both mainstream secular papers rather than Christian ones. It crossed over because the behaviour was odd enough to report, and it crossed a border because nobody had to get on a plane.

For a reader in India, the same session begins at 4:29am. There is no tour date here and there is not going to be one. There is a link and an alarm.

Which is not a complaint. It is the point. The format that makes 1:59am possible in Nairobi is the same format that makes 4:29am possible in Hyderabad, and no amount of touring replaces it.

The October edition runs until the 30th. Set it for 4:25 and give yourself four minutes.

Update, 1 November 2026: the October edition has finished. Bassey has not announced when the next online run begins. The start time below applies whenever it returns.

Quick answers

What time does the Hallelujah Challenge start in Kenya? 1:59am East Africa Time. The session begins one minute before midnight in Lagos, and Nigeria runs two hours behind Kenya — not three, as some coverage has reported.

What time is it elsewhere? 11:59pm in Lagos, 1:59am in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and 4:29am in India. Each session runs about an hour.

Where is the Hallelujah Challenge held? Nowhere, in the usual sense. It is a livestream, broadcast on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, and that is the whole reason it reached Kenya without anyone planning it.

Is it running at the moment? No. The October 2026 edition ran from 5 to 30 October. It has come back in editions since 2017 without a fixed calendar, and no date has been announced for the next one.

Is it coming to Kenya as a live event? Bassey said so during the October session, listing Ghana first, Tanzania in December and Kenya in February, with London a maybe. No venue, no date and no ticketing have been announced for the Kenya event.

Who runs it? Nathaniel Bassey, a Nigerian gospel singer and trumpeter who pastors The Oasis Lagos, the youth church of RCCG Kings Court in Victoria Island. He started it on 1 June 2017 and the first run lasted thirty days.