ANU is a private Christian university and an institution of the international Church of the Nazarene, whose mission and vision follow the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. The Church of the Nazarene sought to address the challenges witnessed in African society in the early 1980s through an institution of higher education. Due to the Kenya University’s Act of 1985 – provision for the establishment of private universities in Kenya – the Church settled on Kenya as a viable location.