The History of the Affiliations of Cindico and Unidico with Acadia University 1989-2006

THE HISTORY OF THE AFFILIATIONS OF CINDICO AND UNIDICO WITH ACADIA UNIVERSITY 1989-2006

W. STEWERT DOCKENDORFF

BA, Acadia University, 1979 MDiv, Ontario Theological Seminary (Tyndale), 1981 EdM, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1987

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Theology, Acadia Divinity College, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Ministry

Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University Fall Graduation 2013 / Spring Convocation 2014

This thesis by W. STEWERT DOCKENDORFF was defended successfully in an oral examination on August 21, 2013.

The examining committee for the thesis was:

______Dr. Anna M. Robbins, Chair

______Dr. Malcolm Card, External Examiner

______Dr. R. Glenn Wooden, Thesis Supervisor

______Dr. Robert S. Wilson, Faculty Examiner

This thesis is accepted in its present form by Acadia Divinity College, the Faculty of Theology of Acadia University, as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree of Doctor of Ministry.

I, W. STEWERT DOCKENDORFF, hereby grant permission to the Head Librarian at Acadia University to provide copies of the thesis, upon request, on a non-profit basis.

______W. Stewert Dockendorff

______Dr. R. Glenn Wooden, Thesis Supervisor

______Date:

To my Mother, Dorothy Eleanor (née MacKinnon) (1929 – ) and

My Father, Russell Compton Dockendorff (1927 – 2009) “Counted worthy of the Kingdom of God” II Thessalonians 2:5

Contents

Figures ...... xiv Figure 1: Africa’s Land Mass Compared in Scale ...... xiv Figure 2: Nigeria’s 36 States and Federal Capital Territory ...... xv Figure 3: Growth of Islam & Christianity...... xvi Figure 4: Protestants in Nigeria ...... xvii

Preface ...... xviii The Purpose ...... xviii

Acknowledgements ...... xx

Abbreviations ...... xxi

Introduction ...... 1 Thesis Overview ...... 1

Project Outline ...... 1

Chapter One: Biblical and Historical Foundations ...... 6 Introduction ...... 6 Section I: Biblical Theology of Missions and Education ...... 10 Theology as a Reflection of God ...... 10

The Biblical Basis of Missions ...... 12 The Biblical Focus of Missions ...... 12

The Biblical Purpose of Missions ...... 13 The Biblical Message of Missions ...... 18 The Role of the Holy Spirit in Missions ...... 18 Toward a Theology of Education ...... 20 Recapitulation and Preface ...... 24

Section II: Missions History ...... 25 The Church in West Africa and Nigeria after 1792...... 25 Poor Blacks and Sierra Leone (1786 – 1791) ...... 25 Nova Scotian Settlers and Recaptured Slaves (1792 – 1867) ...... 27 African Initiated Missions (1839) ...... 31 The Niger Expedition (1841): From Partner to Apprentice ...... 33 A Century of Bloodshed and Violence (1804 – 1903) ...... 34 The Great Century and Colonialism (1815-1914) ...... 38

Colonial Missionaries ...... 40 Samuel Crowther, the Black Bishop of Africa ...... 42 Niger Mission (1857-1890)...... 43 Summary ...... 46

Chapter Two: Three Visionaries ...... 49 Introduction ...... 49

Key Visionaries ...... 50 Odelami’s Story: Prophetic Credibility and Call to Ministry ...... 52 Odelami’s Mission ...... 54 Odelami’s Vision for Education ...... 55 Prophet (Rev.) Dr. Samuel Kayode Abiara ...... 57

Abiara’s Story: Call to Ministry ...... 58 Abiara’s Ministry ...... 60 Concern for Education ...... 62

(Rev.) Dr. Andrew Donald MacRae ...... 64 MacRae’s Early Ministry ...... 64 Professor and Principal of ADC ...... 66 Providential Placement ...... 69

Summary ...... 72

Chapter Three: The Affiliation of CINDICO ...... 74 Introduction ...... 74 CINDICO and Indigenous Christian Education ...... 75 Start Up Challenges ...... 75 CINDICO’s Affiliation Process ...... 81 The Mandate to Investigate ...... 84

“During Hayward Week” ...... 86 Planning and Preparations...... 88 Abiara and Odelami Visit Acadia ...... 90 CINDICO’s First Bachelor Degrees ...... 93 MacRae’s Visit to Review CINDICO...... 94 Gathering Support ...... 98 The Final Report ...... 104

Deliberations in the University Senate ...... 105 Affiliation Granted and Accepted ...... 109 The Larger Context ...... 111 CINDICO’s First Acadia Graduation ...... 115 Summary ...... 117

Chapter Four: The Affiliation of UNIDICO ...... 119 Introduction ...... 119

The Push to Affiliate UNIDICO ...... 120 Another Question ...... 124 Continuing Pressure ...... 125 Invitations to UNIDICO Supporters ...... 128 Faculty Development at CINDICO ...... 130

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Nigerian Student Scholarships ...... 131 Uncertain Expectations ...... 132 The Deployment of Personnel ...... 134 Searching for Additional Funds ...... 135 Developing CINDICO’s Existing Staff ...... 138 Fuzzy Focus ...... 138 Odelami’s Study Leave ...... 140 Mounting Mistrust ...... 141

Perkin in Nigeria ...... 144 Gauging CINDICO’s Progress and Support ...... 145 A Second Trip Home ...... 148 Strategic Preparation ...... 152 1993 CINDICO Review and UNIDICO Assessment ...... 156 Fast Tracking the Process ...... 160 MacRae's Report and Recommendations from Nigerian Visit ...... 162

A Different Presentation ...... 165 Strained Relations between ADC and Acadia ...... 166 Help Needed from Nigeria ...... 168 Another ad hoc Committee ...... 170

“Abolish the ‘Faculty of Theology’” ...... 171 The ad hoc Committee on External Affiliation (ahC-EA) ...... 173 Everything on Hold ...... 176

Troubled Times ...... 177 ahC-EA Deliberations ...... 181 Report of the ahC-EA ...... 183 The Affiliation of UNIDICO Accepted ...... 185 Trouble, Travel, and Transcripts ...... 187 viii

The First UNIDICO Acadia-Affiliated Graduation ...... 192 Summary Comments ...... 193

Chapter Five: Post Affiliation Addendum and Assessment ...... 196 Introduction ...... 196 From 1994 to MacRae’s Retirement in 1998 ...... 198 The McDonald Years (1999 – 2007) ...... 209 Gardner’s Term (2008 – present [2013]) ...... 217

Summary Conclusions ...... 218 Assessment of the Affiliation Suspension ...... 220 Justified ...... 221 Unfair ...... 221 Stipulations ...... 222 Obligations ...... 225 National Circumstances ...... 226

Nigerian Agenda ...... 227 ADC’s Obligations...... 229 ADC’s Missions Obligations ...... 233

Chapter Six: Thoughts and Recommendations ...... 235 Introduction ...... 235

The Future is Full of Potential ...... 236 Nigeria is Important ...... 237

Indigenous Leaders are Key...... 238 Accomplishments of the Nigerian Colleges ...... 239 Missed Opportunities ...... 242 Strengths, Weaknesses, Possibilities, and Concerns ...... 245 Underlying Assumptions to the Recommendations ...... 247

Recommendations ...... 248 Conclusion ...... 266

Addendum ...... 268 Item I: Abeokuta, “Sunrise within the Tropics” (1842 – 1853/1914) ...... 269 Item II: Abiara: Prophetic Anointings for Expanded Ministry ...... 271 The Importance and Role of a Prophet ...... 273 Item III: CINDICO: Course List 1990...... 276

Appendix A: Nigeria, the Giant of Africa ...... 278 Introduction ...... 278 The State of the Nation ...... 279 Recent Initiatives ...... 284 Nation States & Islamic Jihad ...... 288 Colonial Legacy ...... 290 Constitutional Evolution ...... 298

Since Independence ...... 301 Ethnic Division ...... 303 Religious Division ...... 304 Theocracy, or Secular State ...... 306 The Imperative of Islamic Expansion ...... 309

Shari’a Law ...... 312 Islamization in Nigeria ...... 319

Religious Violence ...... 327 Examples of Religious Violence ...... 330 The Boko Haram ...... 335 The Response of the Church ...... 338 Summary ...... 342

Appendix B: The Church in West Africa and Nigeria Prior to 1792 ...... 344 First Movement: A Fragile Faith, the Biblical Narrative ...... 346 Favourable Conditions ...... 347 Personal Witness ...... 348 A Survey of Northern Africa ...... 350 Second Movement: Expanding Horizons, the Intervening Years ...... 353 “God and the King, and Riches” ...... 354 Marks of Mission in the New World ...... 355

Mission to “Nigeria’s” Southern Kingdoms ...... 358 Reasons for Failure ...... 359 The Greatest Weakness ...... 360

Appendix C: Nigerian Christianity (1890-2013) ...... 363 Explosive Growth: Remarkable Changes ...... 364 Christian Mission Churches...... 365

African Indigenous Christianity ...... 369 Typology ...... 369 Three Fluid Time Frames...... 371 Independency and African Churches: (1888-1917) ...... 373 Prophets and AIC Churches: 1918 ...... 374

Aladura Churches: 1918 ...... 378 Pentecostalism...... 381 Nigerian Pentecostalism...... 384

Summary and Conclusions ...... 388

Appendix D: Denominational Roots of CAC and UNIGAC ...... 390 Introduction ...... 390 West African Prophets ...... 391

Aladura Roots of the Christ Apostolic Church ...... 397 British Apostles and the CAC Split ...... 402 Universal Gospel Apostolic Church of Nigeria (UNIGAC) ...... 404 Religious Context...... 408

Appendix E: African Traditional Religion and Christian Responses ...... 409 Introduction ...... 409 African Traditional Religion ...... 411

African Creation and Cosmology ...... 414 Yoruba Traditional Worship ...... 419 Cult Associations ...... 422 The Yoruba Christian Paradigm ...... 425 Belief in Invisible Forces ...... 427 Prayer (Ìwuré) ...... 429 Healing ...... 431

Threats to Christian Faith and Practice ...... 434

Appendix F: CINDICO’s 1989 Self-Study ...... 439 Supporting Documents ...... 450

Appendix G: MacRae’s 1990 Report to AU Senate ...... 456

Preamble ...... 456 MacRae’s 1990 Report ...... 459 Addendum: ADC Faculty Recommendations ...... 470

Appendix H: UNIDICO’s 1993 Self-Study ...... 472

Appendix I: MacRae’s 1993 Report to AU Senate ...... 484

Appendix J: 1994 Senate ad hoc Committee on External Affiliation Report ...... 490

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Appendix K: McDonald’s 2006 Letter of Probation ...... 494

Appendix L: Selected Photographs ...... 497

Bibliography ...... 507

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Figures

Figure 1: Africa’s Land Mass Compared in Scale

ꜛAfrica, with (from north to south) Japan, Europe, the lower 48 United States, and California, all shown for scale. The area not covered, the Sahara, is broadly comparable in size to China.1

1 Fig. from: S. L. Pimm, ed., “Africa: Still the ‘Dark Continent,’” Conservation Biology 21 (2007): 569. © 2007 Society for Conservation Biology. Used by permission from John Wiley and Sons. License no. 2740271061645.

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Figure 2: Nigeria’s 36 States and Federal Capital Territory

ꜛNigeria’s 36 States and Federal Capital Territory, Abuja

Figure 3: Growth of Islam & Christianity

ꜛ(306)ꜛ(364)Growth of Islam & Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa Since 1900

Muslims – Black, Christians – Grey (Orange), Traditional Religion – Light Grey

Source: World Religion Database. Historical data draw on government records, historical atlases and reports of religious organizations at the time. Later figures draw on U.N. population estimates, surveys and censuses.2

2 Fig. found in Preface in T. Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub- Saharan Africa, A Project of the Pew Research Center in collaboration with Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2010), i.

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Figure 4: Protestants in Nigeria

ꜛWho the Protestants Are in Nigeria3

2% 2% 5%

43% 13%

13%

15%

Pentecostals Anglican African Indep.

Baptist Methodist Luthern

Presbyterian Other

3 Fig. 4 is based on data found in T. Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, A Project of the Pew Research Center in collaboration with Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2010), 20-23. To obtain the denominational percentages relative to other Protestants groups in Nigeria, the percentage of the denomination relative to all Christians in Nigeria, including Roman Catholics, was divided by the percentage of all Christians relative to the population of Nigeria.

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Preface

This thesis had its inception in a conversation in 2007 with Dr. Andrew MacRae, then director of the Doctor of Ministry (DMin) degree. We had decided that I might do something in Nigeria where Acadia Divinity College (ADC) was providing oversight to two theological colleges that had been affiliated with Acadia University (AU) in the early 1990s. After an initial foray into “Cross-cultural Moral Development,” and as a result of a visit to Nigeria in June 2008, I finally settled on an examination of the genesis of the colleges. From my work in the church, courses I have taken at Fuller Seminary, and from my involvement in my family’s businesses, I have had a long-time interest in strategy and planning and analysis. The needs of Christ International Divinity College (CINDICO) and Universal Gospel Divinity College (UNIDICO) intrigued me and their affiliation with AU seemed to invite an investigation of the past so that ADC might best know how to respond to them in the future.

The Purpose

ꜛFor more than two decades now AU has been granting fully accredited Bachelor of Religious Education (BRE) and Bachelor of Theology (BTh) degrees to students who have been wholly trained and examined in Nigeria by Nigerian teachers. This unique arrangement was first established between AU and CINDICO in 1990. Four years later the program was expanded to include UNIDICO. In the past twenty-three years, up to and including 2012, 4604 Nigerian students have graduated with degrees from AU without having set foot on Canadian soil or having been taught by an Acadia appointed teacher.

4 This fig. is based on data from AU Convocation programs, 1988-2012, available at the registrars’ offices at ADC and AU; on data in O. Adenaike, S. K. Abiara: The Anointed Shepherd (Ibadan: Johnmof [sic] Printers, 1998), 160-61; and information provided by Dr. R. G. Wooden, Assoc. Prof. of OT Studies, ADC, and liaison for AU with the colleges in Nigeria, informal conversation, Wolfville, 2012-08-16.

xviii

The affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO with AU are now in their third and second decades respectively. If they are going to continue, one of the key issues for the future is how to be involved in their ministries in such a way that they can provide effective and legitimate training for Christian leaders in Nigeria while safeguarding the reputations of all the institutions involved. A number of questions arise from that concern, questions that have to do with the affiliation itself and the fact of its existence. This thesis attempts to uncover the original impetus for the affiliations, the original conditions of the affiliations, and the manner in which ADC, as AU’s School of

Theology, has provided oversight to the Nigerian colleges for the past couple of decades. It is important to understand the future orientation of this historical project. The hope is that as the narrative unfolds, the reader will not only see, but will sense the manner in which the affiliations were forged, the clarity or confusion of the original purposes, and the way in which the participants have since engaged the favours and obligations of their unique relationship. It is further hoped that in this seeing and sensing, that the reader will comprehend not only the achievements of the past but also the potential of the future. The intent of this entire description is to provide a critical base for the reflections and recommendations that come at the end of Chapter 6.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge with deepest gratitude everyone who helped me in the writing of this paper. It has been a rewarding and challenging time for all of us and I thank you for your encouragement and support. I am especially grateful to Dr. R. Glenn Wooden, my thesis supervisor. He has become a good friend and a valued mentor. His fingerprint is throughout this project, but I own all the smudges. Elaine Daigle formatted the material and helped me meet my deadlines. And for that, I am in her a debt. Others encouraged me along the way, and I am thankful that you helped me maintain my vision.

And I am especially grateful for the support of my family, Mary-Jean, Rebecca, and Elizabeth. It has taken a long time. But I hope you feel the satisfaction of having been there from the start and knowing that you helped bring it to fruition. I want to remember Lecke Donovan (1961-2013) here as well. Lecke spent two winters with me in Florida and he listened to my thoughts on Nigeria every day for all that time. He was, and is, a very good friend. And I am blessed to have known him. For those who shared your insights into the details in this paper, I thank you warmly for your contribution: Eveline DeSchiffart, Lorraine Higgins, Rosemary Jotcham, Shawna Peverill, Patricia Townsend, Trisha Urquhart, Robert Younker, and Drs. Christopher Killacky, Harold L. Mitton, J. R. C. Perkin, and Anna M. Robbins. In Nigeria, I am indebted to Professor Imevbore and his wife, Mary; Pastor A. O.

Akinpelu, Dr. Moses Adekola, Rev. Dr. Johnson Olunlade, Barrister Adesoji Olaoba- Efuntayo, and the many others at CINDICO and UNIDICO who spent hours talking to me about their experiences. I honour you for your Christian commitment and love.

And, of course, I would be a monster of ingratitude if I did not mention Drs. S. K. Abiara, Andrew D. MacRae, and Michael O. Odelami: “Men of their times, who saw beyond their times.” I particularly thank Michael and Naomi Odelami and their family for their hospitality during my stays in Nigeria in 2008 and 2012.

Abbreviations

ABC Atlantic Baptist College

ADC Acadia Divinity College

ADCPO Acadia Divinity College President’s Office ahC-EA ad hoc Committee on External Affiliation ahC-U/DCR ad hoc Committee re University/Divinity College Relations

AIC(s) African Independent (Initiated, Indigenous, Instituted) Churches

AJIAI Africa: Journal of the International African Institute

ATR African Traditional Religion

ATS Association of Theo. Schools in the United States and Canada

AU Acadia University

AUS Acadia University Senate

AWP Africa World Press

BWA Baptist World Alliance

CAC Christ Apostolic Church

CCC Canada Christian College

CÉTÉ Centre d’Études Théologiques Évangéliques

CINDICO Christ International Divinity College

CMS Church Missionary Society

CU Covenant University

EBF European Baptist Federation

ECWA Esther Clark Wright Archive f.f. File Folder

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IBMR International Bulletin of Missionary Research

JABU Joseph Ayo Babalola University

JAH Journal of African History

JRA Journal of Religion in Africa

MDGs Millenium Development Goals

NBTS Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary

NMDGs Nigerian Millenium Development Goals

OAU Obafemi Awolowo University

OBC Ontario Bible College sbb. spiral bound book

SBTS Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

SPAC St. Paul’s Apostolic Church of Nigeria

UBCAP United Baptist Convention of the Atlantic Provinces

UNIDICO Universal Gospel Divinity College

UNIGAC Universal Gospel Apostolic Church of Nigeria

UPA University Press of America

WAATI West African Association of Theological Institutions

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Introduction

Thesis Overview The thesis has been divided into three parts. The first part, Chapter 1, provides the background to the discussion. It outlines two theologies, one concerning missions and the other regarding education; and then, for those unfamiliar with the advent of Christianity to West Africa and Nigeria, it describes the missionary efforts of native and white workers during the hundred years from 1786-1890. The second section deals with the affiliations proper and forms the heart of the thesis. It consists of five chapters. These describe the three visionaries who brokered the relationship with AU; detail the affiliation of CINDICO and UNIDICO with AU; outline the post-affiliation years (1995-2013); and summarize the narrative, adding recommendations for the future. The third division of the thesis contains twelve appendices that are divided into two groups. The first five cover Nigeria; the church in West Africa prior to 1792; Nigerian Christianity (1890-2013); the histories of the denominations associated with the colleges – the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) and the Universal Gospel Apostolic Church of Nigeria (UNIGAC); and African Traditional Religion (ATR). The last seven appendices contain core affiliation documents and pictures of relevant people and places in Nigeria. Since the appendices taken together provide a larger view of the affiliations, they are particularly important for administrators and others who are interested in placing the colleges in the broader context of their missional, socio-political, and religious settings.

Project Outline

To better guide the reader, Chapter 1 is divided under the two major headings of theology and missions history. The theology is my own, developed over a lifetime of ministry and reading. I am comfortable that it reflects the tenor of the Scriptures and the general purpose of God’s revealed dealings with humanity. The missions history portion

1 of the chapter describes the heroic effort to bring the gospel to Nigeria after 1792. It pays tribute to the ministry of white abolitionists, freed American slaves living in Nova Scotia, and “recaptured” slaves taken from slaving ships along the West African coast. I use this section to show that the gospel, after 1792, was most effectively delivered to West Africa by black Christians and that for nearly a century Christians, regardless of origin and background, both black and white, worked well together to bring Christ to Nigeria. Chapter 2 considers the lives and ministries of Prophet (Rev.) Dr. M. O. Odelami, Prophet (Rev.) Dr. S. K. Abiara, and (Rev.) Dr. A. D. MacRae. These men were the key to the affiliations and through the narrative the reader is able to see and sense the indefatigable energy and vision of Abiara and Odelami, the Colleges’ founders, and the personal integrity and dedication of MacRae as together they worked to bring affordable theological education to indigent students in southwestern Nigeria. Chapters 3 and 4 describe in detail the processes of the affiliations, first for CINDICO and then for UNIDICO. In these chapters the narrative tells not only what happened, but why things happened. Included in these two essays is also a description of the obstacles and forces which needed to be overcome or satisfied as the proposed affiliations were first scrutinized in Africa and then negotiated in Canada. They present a tale of remarkable adventure in Christian perseverance and faith. In Chapter 5 the period between the affiliation of UNIDICO in 1994 and my visits to Nigeria in 2008 and 2012 is briefly described. The centerpiece of the chapter is the assessment of the suspension of the affiliations in 2006. The analysis grapples with the issue of whether this probation was fair or not; and of necessity it reviews the original stipulations and obligations of the affiliations and the competing viewpoints and perspectives that caused, and continue to cause, difficulties in the relationship between the Nigerian colleges and Acadia, and between themselves.

The analysis that concludes Chapter 5 sets the stage for Chapter 6 in which the entire discussion is summarized, the salient points are drawn out, the accomplishments and trials of the affiliations are highlighted, and the recommendations are described. Appendix A orients the reader to Nigeria, the “Giant of Africa,” showing that the “Giant” has had a troubled past, a difficult present, and a challenging future. The blessings of Britain might have been considerable at one point, but the costs to Nigerians have been high and enduring. It has been suggested that the excesses of Nigeria and its leadership are the excesses of Nigeria’s colonial “masters” writ large.1 And if that is true, it ought to elicit some greater sympathy for the plight of Nigeria’s current concerns and the place of CINDICO and UNIDICO in them. Regardless, Appendix A shows that despite its problems, Nigeria has tremendous potential in its people and natural resources. Appendix B covers the double advent of the Gospel in Africa prior to 1792, first from the east as Christianity spread southward into North Africa, and then from the north as Portuguese traders and priests took the message of Christ and the Church along Africa’s Atlantic coast. Appendix B seeks to answer the question of whether Christianity is a Western intrusion of cultural and religious paternalism or a truly African-based religion with credible African roots. Appendix C describes Nigerian Christianity from 1890 forward. It focuses on the African response to white missionary censure and control of African efforts. A typology and description of indigenous Christian denominations in southwestern Nigeria is provided in this chapter highlighting the historical movement from mission churches to independent African churches, and from prophetism, to Aladura churches, African

Initiated Churches (AICs), and modern Pentecostalism.

1 See M. Crowder, “Whose Dream was It Anyway? Twenty-Five Years of African Independence,” African Affairs 86 (1987): 7-24.

Appendix D describes the denominational and religious backgrounds of Abiara and Odelami. They and their ministries have been heavily influenced by Aladura, the Christian movement that burst upon the religious scene in southwestern Nigeria shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. Additionally, Abiara and Odelami both share a common denominational influence in the CAC with its prophet-based ministry and emphasis on healing and other miracles. Odelami’s church, UNIGAC, broke away from the CAC in 1946, but it did not fall far from its original stock. Appendix E shows that religion in Nigeria is much more vibrant and involving than in North America by outlining the vital indigenous religious environment found in Nigeria and Africa. The dynamic intrusion of belief and fear into practically every area of daily life is traced in the description of ATR. This overview, while not necessary in order to understand the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO with AU, allows the reader some experience in grappling with the thorny issues arising from conflicting religious worldviews. The belief in spiritual forces, prayer, and healing are used to illustrate the way in which the church has been challenged by these competing religious perspectives.

Appendices F–K contain copies of the original documents of the affiliations: CINDICO’s 1989 self-study report by provost Odelami; MacRae’s 1990 report and recommendations to the AU Senate (AUS); UNIDICO’s 1993 self-study by provost Pastor (Dr.) D. O. Olayiwola; MacRae’s 1993 report and recommendations to the AUS; the 1994 report of the Senate ad hoc Committee on External Affiliation (ahC-EA); and the letter of probation written by (Rev.) Dr. Lee Martin McDonald to the colleges in June 2006. Appendix L contains selected photographs.

In the electronic version of the thesis there are a number of embedded links. In the footnotes and bibliography, the title or author’s surname usually contains a link to the referenced material. Printed web addresses, too, are “live,” except where they have been broken deliberately for the sake of appearance. For cross references, I have used a horizontal arrow (→) at the reference end and a vertical arrow (ꜛ) at the target end. 4

Clicking on the page reference and the vertical arrow will take the reader to and from the cross-referenced locations. If two return arrows are found at the same target, the superscript number identifies the originating page, for example, pages 23 and 79 (ꜛ23ꜛ79). Copies of all of the letters, reports, and meeting minutes have been collected in a companion volume of source documents entitled “CINDICO and UNIDICO: Affiliation Letters and Documents, 1989–2006.” One copy of this material is located in the Esther Clark Wright Archive (ECWA) at AU; another copy has been placed in the ADC President’s Office (ADCPO). For those who prefer to work in electronic format, a CD affixed to the back cover of the library-bound copies of the thesis contains the thesis in PDF and all of the materials found in the companion volume of source documents. And finally, a couple of things should be noted. First, throughout the thesis, dates are formatted as YYYY-MM-DD. Thus, 2010-12-08 stands for 2010-Dec-08. Second, while most web addresses, when available, have been embedded in the author’s names in the footnotes and the bibliography, for the printed document, the information needed for internet access to articles, and the data regarding accessed dates, is located in the bibliography too. If an item is found only online, accessed dates and URL information are provided in the footnote within the main body of the text. And in accordance with standard practise, letters, reports, interviews, and newspaper articles are not listed in the bibliography. Source information for these items is provided in the thesis footnotes.

Chapter One: Biblical and Historical Foundations

Introduction ꜛ(236)ꜛ(345)For generations Africa has been known popularly as the “Dark Continent” – a Victorian metaphor pregnant in the portrayal of Africa as a dark, forbidding continent, primitively wild and desperately in need of the “white man’s” civilizing influence of commerce and culture.1 In religious terms, the phrase, “Dark

Continent,” conveys a sense of the blighted state of African souls, constrained by dark powers to live degenerate lives contrary to God and apart from Christ.2 Livingstone, perhaps the best known missionary explorer of Africa during the era when this phrase was coined, respected Africans more than most other explorers and missionaries of his day. All the same, he viewed Africans as “children” and “savages,” and believed that Africa needed to be rescued, Christianized, and thereby civilized and saved.3 The implications of this for missions in Africa were enormous. In much the same way and at much the same time as the nations of Europe were carving the continent into colonial possessions unmindful of natural tribal boundaries,4 a colonial, imperialistic mindset was affecting the way in which white mission church leaders responded to their African congregants. Instead of urging them into greater roles of responsibility, they were insisting on a longer term of apprenticeship and increasing oversight.

1 See L. Jarosz, “Constructing the Dark Continent: Metaphor as Geographic Representation of Africa,” Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography 74 (1992): 105-15. H. Stanley was the first to use the phrase “Dark Continent” in his travelogue in 1878. 2 See P. Brantlinger, “Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the Dark Continent,” Critical Inquiry 12 (1985): 166-203. 3 See ibid., 178. 4 S. L. Pimm, ed., “Africa: Still the ‘Dark Continent,’” Conservation Biology 21 (2007): 567. See also, “Concept of the Dark Continent Created Through European-Erased Maps of Interior Africa,” Jour. of Blacks in Higher Ed. 11 (1996): 53; and the 700-page tome, T. Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912 (NY: Random House, 1991).

Within a generation, beginning from around the turn of the twentieth century, the religious landscape changed and one of the key criticisms of Christian missions in Africa by Africans was that Christianity was a western “white man’s” religion, exported by Christendom to African shores as part of the continuing enslavement of African bodies and souls. Later, in the 1970s, as Africans stood with their backs turned firmly against colonialism, this sentiment was at the root of the African call for a moratorium on foreign missionaries and funding.5 The fact is, though: Christianity is a non-western religion that has long African historical roots.6 For millennia Africa has been engaged in the salvation story. Egypt and Nubia (the Upper Nile, or Cush) are woven throughout the biblical narrative. And the meeting between the Queen of Sheba and Solomon is not only a precious story, it is a treasured part of the history of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a church well over seventeen hundred years old, equally as old as the Catholic Church in Rome. Considering the church alone, it is evident that the connection between God and Africans, and vice versa, predates anything that anyone might call “Western Christianity.”

The following discussion will first examine a biblical basis of missions and a biblical basis of education. It should be noted that I use the word “mission” teleologically to identify the purpose of God and the church to make God known to the world. The term

5 See P. Kalanda, “Consolidating Christianity in Africa,” Missiology: An Intl. Review 4 (1976): 395-404. Also see E. O. Adoyo, “Mission and Moratorium in Africa: The Issues Underlying the Proposal for a Missionary Moratorium, and the Implications of Its Failure for the Future of Mission/Church Relationships in Africa (with Special Reference to English-Speaking Africa),” abstract, MPhil Thesis, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (1990). 6 See K. Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion, 2nd ed. (NY: Orbis Books, 1997); L. Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). See also L. Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983); O. Kalu, Clio in Sacred Garb: Essays on Christian Presence and African Responses, 1900-2000 (Trenton: AWP, 2008); A. F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1996); and A. F. Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission and Appropriation of Faith (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002).

“missions” is used to describe the activities that contribute to the accomplishment of that mission. “Missions” encompasses the variety of verbal and non-verbal, religious and non- religious means used by individuals and groups to fulfill the mission of the God. The context will help distinguish between the organizational purpose of missions and the corporate activities of divine mission. Activity that is deliberately focused on education, such as teaching, guiding, preaching, and instructing, is termed “educational missions.” While in a sense all missions are educational and all Christian-based education is missional, this constellation of tasks seems particularly well suited to making God known in the world, especially in a country like Nigeria where so much of mission work has been delivered through church managed schools.7 Once a basis for missions and mission-informed education has been established, the work of the church will be detailed with reference to the fulfilment of the mission of God in Africa. Over the centuries there have been three missionary approaches to the continent: first from Jerusalem in the east during the formative years of the church; then from Portugal in the north during the Age of Discovery8 as priests and traders took the gospel southward along the African coast; and finally, from the west during the modern missions era of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Appendix B describes the first two waves of this mission up to 1792; Appendix C covers the period from 1890 to the present, 2013. This chapter will focus on the story of Christian missions in West Africa and Nigeria between 1792 and 1890. The first intention of this chapter is to provide a biblical perspective for both missions and education. Since ultimately, the goal of God is to establish the church in

7 See → on page 366. 8 The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration or the Great Navigations, spanned from the early fifteenth century into the early seventeenth century. Beginning with Spain and Portugal, Europeans explored the world, mapped the globe, and established contact with Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania. See D. Arnold, The Age of Discovery 1400-1600, 2nd ed. (NY: Routledge, 2002).

8 eternity, it will be seen that missions work is not the final end of God’s purposes. The creation of the church as a community of redeemed persons living fully in the kingdom of Heaven is. Once that mission is accomplished, the work of missions will no longer be needed, at least in terms of a salvific ministry to lost humanity. God will have redeemed a community like Himself for Himself – a people who will serve Him as priests in Christ’s new kingdom, both glorifying Him and honouring His Son, Jesus, forever. It should be noted that the references that support the theologies are suggestive only and are not meant to be exhaustive. While I believe that they are sufficient to uphold the proposed premises,

I grant that there are other passages which support the concepts, and that perhaps in the reader’s mind, they might be better than the verses I have selected. The second intention of the chapter is to uncover the rich history of Christian missions to West Africa during the nineteenth century. Christianity has been in Africa for a very long time; it is truly an “African” religion. But it has had its greatest impact and increase on the continent after 1792. By beginning the story of the expansion of the church in Africa from around that date, it will be seen that the incomprehensible ignominy of the African slave trade laid the foundation for the final and most effective assault on the African continent for Christ. Out of this most shaming of human sufferings and tragedy there arose a formidable mission force: 1,200 former slaves – freed by the British during the American Revolutionary War, taken to Nova Scotia, Canada, and finally returned to Africa via Sierra Leone, the newly formed British colony on the West African coast. It was this group of Africa’s sons and daughters that formed the core of a Nigerian mission invasion. Steeped in revivalist preaching and imbued with American republicanism, the Nova Scotia “Settlers” were joined by African natives – “Recaptives” – who had not yet fully tasted slavery nor lost their longing for their African families and their African homes. Britain, newly convicted by the atrocity of human bondage and their deliberate part in it, played a key role in providing the context of culture and faith. The

9 liberated Africans, indebted to British largess, admired English customs and adopted Christianity. They sought to plant both in their homeland.9 The final intention of this chapter is to show that the most natural and effective means of Christianization is through people garbed in the same flesh and steeped in the same worldview and culture as those they are attempting to reach for Christ. The story of Sierra Leone highlights the critical work of African agents as they carried the gospel by ways and means to places and peoples that white missionaries could not. The faithful missionary men and women from Britain and America were honestly heroic, yet humanly flawed and ill-equipped. The chapter ends with the critique and censure of African- Anglican bishop Samuel Crowther by white Anglican missionaries. For those who are interested in the rest of the story, Appendix C describes the African response and the unprecedented expansion of Christianity in Nigeria and Africa in the twentieth century.

Section I: Biblical Theology of Missions and Education

Theology as a Reflection of God

In Christian theology, starting with God is the essential first step that helps to clarify issues, strengthen the ground of our thinking, and increase the likelihood of a more accurate vision of ministry. This is, perhaps, particularly important when discussing educational missions because the unique challenge in teaching-based missions is that there are so many good things to teach and so many good reasons for teaching that it is critical to focus on those things that are the best things to teach for the highest purposes. Starting with God, when discussing education and missions, also brings with it an inherent reminder that God plays a primary role in every aspect of the missional process.

9 I highly recommend the historical novel by L. Hill, The Book of Negroes, Ill. Ed. (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2009). In Aminata Diallo, Hill traces many of the themes presented in this section of this chapter, starting with Aminata’s abduction from her village as an eleven-year old child, her transport to the southern United States, living in Birchtown, NS, and finally re-crossing the Atlantic to Sierra Leone.

He is the reason for teaching and the subject of that which is taught. He is also the one who enlivens the educational experience and the one who authors its outcomes. God’s assurance to Zerubbabel, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” acts as a warning as well as a promise (Zech. 4:6). It is God, not people, who can accomplish seemingly impossible and great things as the personal and intimate purposes of God for the world are revealed. It is the Lord who holds the hearts of kings in his hand (Prov. 21:1), reverses evil intentions (Gen. 50:20), directs his church (Acts 13:2), makes it grow (I Cor. 3:6, cf. Acts 2:47), and blesses its ministry. For Westerners in Nigeria, this is, perhaps, an especially important reminder. Starting with God and understanding His personal role in missions leads more surely to educational outcomes that are sounder than goals derived from some other starting position or need. In Nigeria as elsewhere, the desire should be to follow God in the work that He is doing and intending to bless. It is important to note that the referents of the term “missions” are not limited exclusively to the direct activities of evangelism and outreach. Mission works are broader than that and include all of those activities that every part of the Body of Christ does to support and to contribute, directly and indirectly, to the goal of God’s mission. Thus in this way, both the sower and the reaper can and do rejoice together. Or, in less cryptic and more contemporary terms: both the financial and educational supporters of missions and the recipients of their support, whether as an evangelist-church planter, a pastor in an unreached field, or a soup kitchen cook in Wolfville, can share in the task and rejoice in the results of reaching the lost, expanding the Kingdom, and bringing glory to God. As applied to this thesis, then, everyone who has the goal of reaching the lost and making God known is involved in missions, whether they engage unbelievers directly or indirectly. Conversely, people and institutions that perform similar functions without the divine missional intent are not doing missions. They are generous and kind, philanthropically minded and helpful, but they are not doing Christian ministry and missions, despite the fact that the Lord may have pressed them into His service (Is. 10:5; 11

Jer. 51:20). Their involvement in the activity of God is unwitting and, perhaps, directed to other goals out of different motivations. The chief distinction here is found in intentionality and purpose and whether or not these are predicated upon a committed relationship to the Lord (Matt. 7:22).

The Biblical Basis of Missions Missions are rooted in the nature of God. In the opening verses of Genesis the Creator is described as being both relational within Himself and purposeful: “Let us make man in our own image” (Gen. 1:26). In the community of His being, God’s mind was on the human whom He had created, for whom He cared (Gen. 2:18), and with whom He sought fellowship. Significantly, one of the first things that God did was to instruct Adam concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the only tree in the Garden from which Adam was not allowed to eat (Gen. 2:16-17). And when Adam transgressed God’s directions (Gen. 3), it was God, not Adam, who sought to set things right.

The Biblical Focus of Missions

Ever since sin entered creation, the search that started in the Garden with God calling to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9) has continued down through the millennia, unadulterated from one human generation to the next. The heart of the mission is to find those who were banished from Eden (Gen. 3:23-24) and to tell them that a Way

(John 14:6) has been made so that they can be reconciled to the Creator (II Sam.14:14) and enjoy the well-being and fellowship that they once possessed in the Garden. In the Old Testament, the focus of God’s mission was primarily on the people of

Israel (Deut. 7:6). From among the nations God chose Abraham and promised to make him the father of a multitude and a blessing to the world (Gen. 17:4). Abraham’s faith- filled response to God and his commitment to Him as the one true God signaled a revolution in religious faith and commitment. The Lord’s promise to Abraham was perpetuated through Abraham’s son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob, and their offspring.

When God’s chosen people were enslaved in Egypt, their deliverance from bondage became a national turning point that marked a further development in God’s saving mission. In the Exodus Yahweh displayed His power (Ex. 14:31; Is. 63:12), secured His inheritance (Deut. 7:6), and gave the descendants of Abraham a peculiar identity that has marked them for nearly 3,500 years. Guided by divinely instituted Laws (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 4:13), they became a holy community to the Lord (Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7-8). Their unique privilege was to bear witness to the power and presence of God in the world before the nations (Is. 42:6; 49:6) and to pave the way for redemption.

If before the advent of Christ the mission of God focused mainly on a single group, in the New Testament Jesus revealed that God’s longing for the lost extended beyond the ethnic and geographical boundaries of Israel. In Christ, God’s mission was directed to non-Jews in a way that had hardly been perceived before. During His earthly ministry, Jesus deliberately restricted His outreach to the lost tribe of Israel (Matt. 15:24) and He sent His disciples throughout Israel only (Matt. 10:6). But after His resurrection, Jesus’ focus was clearly on the global witness of the church as He commissioned it (Acts

1:8) for the broader task of seeking and saving the non-Jewish sheep of His flock (John 10:16). Jesus’ caution to His followers was not to leave Jerusalem until after they had received empowerment and gifting from the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4) for this expanded work. Christ’s dual focus on lost Gentiles (Acts 28:28) and Jews (Rom. 11:25-26) continues as the mission mandate of the church until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20).

The Biblical Purpose of Missions The purpose of God’s mission flows out of the character of God. It is, first of all, a mission of revelation as God’s desire to be known is advanced. The heavens declare the glory of God (Ps. 19:1) and the earth is full of His unfailing love (Ps. 33:5). And, in addition to this natural witness, God has revealed Himself clearly through the scriptures (Deut. 4:5-6; Ps. 119:64; Matt. 22:29) and in His son, Jesus (Matt. 11:27; John 3:16) in

13 mission. Second, since God is essentially communal – He exists in the eternal company of Himself as Trinity and enjoys the community of His being (Matt 17:5; John 17:21-26; Heb. 9:14) – the purpose of God’s mission is to re-establish intimate communion with people. The separation caused by sin rendered this all but impossible but thirdly, since God is a God who actively loves His creation, who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 18:32, 33:11), and who is not willing that anyone should perish (II Peter 3:9), in missions He has purposed to restore decisively humankind’s broken relationship with Him (see Is. 30:18; Luke 13:34). After Adam’s sin in the garden, it was the Lord Himself who took the initiative in seeking the erring couple (Gen. 3:9); and ever since that time God has continued to woo those whom He loves (Deut. 30:1-5), open the eyes of the blinded and the ears of the deaf (Is. 28:18), and pursue the self-righteous (Acts 9:1-15). The Father’s intention to affect salvation regardless of the effort or cost was perfectly revealed in Jesus. For while humankind was still at enmity with Him (Rom. 8:7), Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6). As He drew His last breath on the cross, Jesus declared that His work was fully finished (John 19:30); the way to the Father had been opened (Mark 15:38; John 14:6). Finally, given that God is eternal, it seems divinely imperative that His purposes in missions and His plans for the future remain unfinished and unfolding into an unending eternity (Is. 11:6; Micah 4:3; Jer. 29:11; II Pet. 3:13). For the Lord, everlasting is truly everlasting, and neither earth’s creation nor

God’s salvific mission toward humankind can ever be the totality of His work. Inevitably, they form but a part of the Father’s intention to bring glory to Himself (Is. 48:11; Micah 2:2) and unending honour to Jesus, His Son (Matt. 17:5; John 8:54).

In the Old Testament, the purpose of God in mission for Israel was to build a community in which He would be honoured and through which He might be known. Israel was the apple of God’s eye (Zech. 2:8), the one whom He could love and to whom He would be faithful (Ps. 145:13). In the display of His mercy and power and the loving response of His people, God intended the nations to be awed (Ezek. 38:23; 39:7), false 14 gods to be unmasked (Is. 42:8; 44:6-20), and His people to be blessed (Is. 41:10, 43:2; Zech. 2:10). Further, God anticipated that the blessing of Israel would be extended to the ends of the earth and that the nations outside of His holy community would be included in His kindness and care (Jer. 4:2). Egypt would be part of His people (Is. 19:25) and Cush (Africa) would be included in grace (Zeph. 3:10). God’s vision was the vision of a holy community to which an expanded community would come to pay homage and worship Him (Zech. 8:22, 14:16; Micah 4:2). In the New Testament, the purpose of God’s mission was extended through the

Body of Christ. Like Israel, the church shares the privilege of making God known to the world. Believers are to love one another so fully that people will take notice that they are the disciples of Christ (John 13:35). And Jesus’ followers are to do and display their good works in such a way that unbelievers will glorify their Father in Heaven (Matt. 5:16). But the church, in its role as the Body of Christ, progresses the purposes of the mission of God in several important and unique areas. In the Old Testament, while Israel represented God in the world as His holy community, it was still a national and cultural unit that was in many ways exclusive in its membership by birth or conversion. A sense of privilege, pride, and separateness thwarted the mission of revelation and salvation to the wider world. Further, as seen by the Tabernacle in the wilderness (Ex. 25:8) and the Temple in Jerusalem (I Kings 6), Israel was the place where God dwelt among His

People, but it was not the place where God dwelt in them. Yahweh did fill the Tabernacle (Ex. 40:34), the Temple (II Chron. 7:1), and His servants (Ex. 31:1); His presence resided between the wings of the Cherubim (Lev. 16:2; Num. 7:89); and periodically His Spirit fell upon people for ministry (Judges 3:10, 6:34, 16:20). But He was not there to stay. God could and did leave, as when He departed from the Temple (Ez. 10:18) and withdrew His Spirit from Samson (Judges 16:20) and Saul (I Sa. 16:14). Generally, in the Old Testament, the community and individuals were filled and gifted for particular tasks

(Ex. 31:3, 36:1; Ezek. 11:5) and the spiritual graces of God were not perceived as being widespread and inclusive (Num. 11:29; Joel 2:28). With the church many of these things changed. In much the same way as in Christ we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), in a real though particular sense, Jesus lives and moves and has His being in the church. The church is the place where God and Christ, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, dwell within Christ’s people (II Tim. 1:14 [Spirit]; II John 1:2 [Christ]; I John 4:12 [God]; Eph. 4:6, 19-22). Unlike the Old Testament, the residency of the Godhead in the church is permanent (I John 3:24), inclusive (Rom. 8:9), and communal (Eph. 3:17). The gifts of the Holy Spirit are, also, now generously given to each member of the Body uniquely (Eph. 4:7) – gifts that in their totality, given to all members, are all essential to build up the Body to full maturity (Eph. 4:16). As members of the Body of Jesus (Eph. 4:4), under the Headship of Christ (Col. 1:18), every believer participates in the mission of God and its ministry (Eph. 4:12). Thus, as the biblical revelation unfolds, it can be seen that the result of God’s mission to the lost is the creation of a living, multi-faceted community (I Cor. 12), a

Temple (I Cor. 3:16) and spiritual house made of lively stones (I Peter 2:5) in which God Himself dwells. The missional purpose of this international, multi-racial mix of believers (Rev. 5:9) is quite striking for it is the vehicle through which Jesus actively pursues His mission to include the Gentiles in the community of God. As a specially created entity, the church is more than a witness to the power of God at work in the world; it is the living instrument through which the power of God operates in the world. It is God’s excellent greatness, and like its Head and its Lord, the church is under mandate to go and make stalwart disciples of the lost (Matt. 28:19). Through the centuries, countless ambassadors of Jesus have done exactly that. They have carried the Good News wherever they have gone, from courts of kings to homes of servitude and slavery. However, the vision of the mission of God does not conclude with the creation of a missionary church. God’s ultimate purpose for lost people includes at least two further 16 ends. First, by transforming sinners into saints (Eph. 2:19) who share in the inheritance of Christ (Rom. 8:17), at the conclusion of this age (Matt. 28:20) God will have established for Himself in the church an enduring display of His mercy and grace. This revelation of unfathomable love for a fallen creation will astound the spiritual powers of heaven and redound to God’s glory forever (Eph. 3:10; I Peter 1:12). The second end to the mission of God is actually a new beginning. When Christ returns at the end of the age, it will become evident then that the mission of God never really was a “mission to the lost.” It will be seen as a ministry to the redeemed (Is. 62:12;

Gal. 3:13) that centered on God. Notice the purpose that Peter sees for the church in eternity when he writes: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (I Peter 2:9). The apostle Paul adds that those who are saved through Christ (I Thess. 5:9; II Thess. 2:13) are created to do good works prepared for them by God (Eph. 2:10) – works that bring praise to the Father. Thus, when everything has been said and done and there are no more lost to be found (Rom. 11:25), the final end of God’s mission and mercy will be the creation of a re-purposed people who will worship, serve, and enjoy Him forever. As Piper puts it:

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.10 What will be left after all of the “Todays” of salvation (Is. 49:8; II Cor. 6:2; Ps. 95:7; Heb. 3:7, 15; Luke 19:9) have ended will not be the anticlimax of the salvation story, however. Instead, it will be a synthesis of sorts – the end of the beginning and the

10 J. Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 15.

17 beginning of something entirely new (I Cor. 2:9). God will be known, the lost will be found, the Kingdom will be formed, and the Father will receive honour unending through Jesus Christ, His Son. What happens after that for the church, only God knows.

The Biblical Message of Missions There is a multitude of themes in the message of the mission: freedom, eternal life, forgiveness, holy living, repentance, the Kingdom of God. But the central focus is and ought to be Jesus. On two occasions the Father affirmed His pleasure in His son, once at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry during His baptism (Matt. 3:17) and then later, on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:5). In both instances Jesus is presented as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy of God’s spirit-anointed Servant (Is. 42:1; see Matt. 12:15-21), a figure whom Jesus identified with and whom He claimed to be (see Luke 4:14-21 and Is. 61:1-2a). According to the scripture, Jesus is the paschal lamb slain for sin (I Cor. 5:7, Rev. 5:6, John 1:29), the only way to the Father (John 14:6), and the sole authority through whom humankind can be saved (Acts 4:12). For Paul the crucified

Christ was the heart of his message and the passion of his life (I Cor. 2:2; Gal. 6:14). Jesus’ mission on earth was a continuation of the mission begun in the Garden, to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Through His death and resurrection, Jews and Gentiles have become united as one in the community of faith (Eph. 2:14, Rom. 9:30- 10:4) and access to God has been secured (Eph. 3:12, cf. Heb. 4:16). The resurrection is the proof of Jesus’ pre-eminence (Acts 17:31) and divine Sonship (Rom. 1:4). Ultimately, Jesus will be supremely exalted (Phil. 2:9-11) as the heir of all things (Heb. 1:2, Eph. 1:10) and judge of the world (Acts 17:31). Until that time, He continues to seek the lost through His body, the church, as believers testify to the power of God in their lives.

The Role of the Holy Spirit in Missions

If Jesus is the focus of the message of missions, the actual work of missions is the result of the energy and effort of God’s Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, God called and

18 empowered people to accomplish special tasks (see Judges 3:10 Othniel; 6:34 Gideon; 16:20 Samson). The prophets prophesied as the Holy Spirit moved them (Num. 11:26) and when Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were appointed to be prophets, each experienced a special commissioning from God (Is. 6:1ff; Jer. 1:1-10; Ez. 2:2). The Lord spoke through His prophets (Hosea 12:10; Luke 1:70; Heb. 1:1) and Peter relates that they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (II Peter 1:20; II Tim.3:16). In the New Testament, after the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) the ministry of the Holy Spirit becomes even more evident. In relation to missions, the work of the Holy

Spirit is essential for the lost are so lost that they do not even know that they are lost. Salvation is a work of the Lord (Phil. 2:12) and apart from God’s calling and the ministry of the Holy Spirit (II Thess. 2:13) no one would, or could, respond to God’s kindness. In the book of Acts missions is clearly the result of the Spirit’s empowerment. Before the mission could begin, the disciples had to wait for the advent of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:8). In his record, Luke traces the expansion of the church as it moves out from Jerusalem (Acts 2:14), to Samaria (Acts 8:4-17), to Asia (Acts 13), and to

Europe (Acts 16:1-14). He attributes this movement directly to the work of God’s Spirit (Acts 1:1, 2:47, 11:21, 22:21) and he shows that the gospel was first shared with the Jews (Acts 13:46, 17:2) and then moved deliberately to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46, 18:6, 19:9). It is important to note here that Philip’s conversation with the Ethiopian treasurer from Queen Candace’s court in Acts 8:26-40 is hardly a chance occurrence void of any deeper meaning. It appears as a side bar to the story of the expansion of the Gospel in Acts, but it is a critical part of the record and tells the story of the first excursion of the

Gospel outside of the Jewish community (see Acts 8:4-25). Significantly, it is to none other than Africa! The same evangelist, Philip, who took the gospel to Samaria, also approaches the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:5, 26) and the account is rather dramatic. It includes an angel, a perfectly timed meeting, a key reading in Isaiah, an unexpected invitation, an inquiring mind, a decisive heart, and a dramatic exit. In the balance of the 19 book of Acts the focus is on Paul and the Roman world, but this story in Acts 8 leaves the question of whatever happened to the eunuch. And it invites several conclusions: that the expansion and care of the church is ultimately the Holy Spirit’s work; that the ministry of missions was never intended to be confined to Jerusalem; and that God’s salvific intentions are unbounded by race, place, or culture. The second part of this essay shows plainly that those who needed to be told about Christ in Africa concerned God just as much as those who needed to be told about Christ in Asia and Europe.

Toward a Theology of Education As with missions, the theology of education is rooted in the nature of God. For fundamentally, God is a God who both instructs and enjoins instruction (see Ex. 25:22). In the Garden He taught Adam and Eve concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2:15-17); on the mountain he delivered the Law and instructed Moses regarding His covenant (Ex. 19ff); and in the scriptures He preserved divine history, poetry, and prophesy, all rich in direction to serve as a guide for believers’ lives

(I Cor. 10:6). The Law of the Lord leads to salvation (Lev. 18:5) and blessing (Deut. 28:2) and is described as a delight (Ps. 119:24; Jer. 15:16), sweeter than honeycomb (Ps. 119:103), more precious than gold (Ps. 19:10), and a light that shows the right way to walk (Ps. 119:105). In the Old Testament, the law of God, even with its “eye for an eye” legislation (Deut. 19:21), highlighted the difference between the just and compassionate rule of God in Israel and the harsh hegemony entrenched in the idolatrous nations (Deut. 4:5-8) that surrounded her. Education that is Biblical instructs people concerning the things that God wants

(Deut. 10:12) or does not want (Is. 1:10-17) in their lives. Religious instruction begins first in the home and is the responsibility of parents (Deut. 4:9; Josh. 4:21-22). But, in the Old Testament, it was also the responsibility of prophets and priests (Jer. 10:21; Mal. 2:7). Understanding God’s ways and His will were considered so important for

20 leaders and leadership that upon the coronation of every new king, the scroll of the Book of the Law was to be copied by the king, in his own hand, as a means of instructing his reign and ordering his judgments (Deut. 17:18). Kings had court advisors too, including prophets and priests (I Sam. 15:10ff; II Sam. 12:1ff; I Kings 1:32) to guide them. The book of Proverbs sums up the value and importance of teaching for the nation as a whole when it says, “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.” (Prov. 29:18). The Jewish body of Wisdom literature provides beautiful and practical instruction on living rightly before God. And according to the New Testament, Old Testament literature was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and is profitable for a variety of purposes including “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (II Tim. 3:16). Unfortunately, in the Old Testament, the people often suffered from poor teaching (Ezek. 34:4) and poor leadership (Jer. 50:6). The priests came under scathing censure from God for not having performed their duties properly (Ezek. 22:26; Jer. 5:13, 8:8; Zeph. 3:4). Instead of leading the people toward the Lord (Mal. 2:7), they led them astray

(Is. 9:16). Their behaviour was immoral and unbecoming the office (I Sam. 2:12, 22). They did not explain or even teach God’s will (Jer. 2:8). In Josiah’s time the Book of the Law was discovered in the Temple and it clearly was a forgotten tome (II Kings 22:8). The court prophets were no better than the priests. They spoke falsely, covering things over with false visions (Ezek. 22:28), even contradicting true prophets that had been seconded for service directly by God (Jer. 43:2). In the New Testament era, things were not all that improved from the time of the prophets. Jesus, speaking of the religious leaders of His day, called them a brood of vipers (Matt. 23:33), whitewashed sepulchers (Matt. 23:27), hypocrites (Matt. 23:13), and blind leaders of the blind (Matt. 15:14; 23:16). He criticized them for not knowing the scriptures (Matt. 22:29), castigated them for binding intolerable burdens upon people (Luke 11:46), and condemned them for making people twice the sons of hell as 21 themselves (Matt. 23:15). He even declared, in terms so obvious that it could not be avoided, that their father was the Devil, the Father of Lies (John 8:34). However, if at times God’s people suffered from poor teaching and leadership, upon occasion they prospered under excellent instruction. In those times, the results could not have been starker in contrast. Two examples provide remarkable illustrations of the power of right teaching. The first occurred during the reign of Josiah the king. As was just mentioned, the Book of the Law was discovered in the Temple and when it was read before Josiah, it sparked a revival in the heart of the king and the nation (II Kings

23:1-26). The second example comes from the period after Israel’s 70 years of captivity in Babylon (see Jer. 25:12). The Jews had recently returned to the ruined city of Jerusalem and under Nehemiah’s direction, Ezra, a priest who had dedicated himself to studying the Law and discovering the will of the Lord for God’s people (Ezra 7:10), taught God’s word to those returned from exile. The picture of corporate repentance and remorse in Neh. 8-10 is both inspiring and instructive. In the New Testament Jesus taught people in groups (Mark 2:13) and individually

(John 3 and 4), using stories and parables (Mark 4:33) as well as plain truth (Mark 8:31-32) covering a multitude of topics. Matthew’s gospel records five blocks of Christ’s teaching: the Sermon on the Mount, 5-7; the Missionary Discourse, 10; the Parabolic Discourse, 13; the Discourse on the Church, 18; and the Olivet Discourse on End Times,

24. Teaching was so important to Jesus that he taught His disciples on the night before his death (John 13:12ff) and on the day of his resurrection (Luke 24:13ff). For Jesus, truth brought liberation (John 8:32); and He viewed knowing God (John 17:3) and worshipping Him properly in spirit and in truth (John 4:24) as humankind’s greatest achievement, far more valuable than riches, honour, and fame (Luke 19:25). In missions work, teaching is what the Body of Christ does. It is included as part of the church’s missionary mandate to “go and make disciples … baptizing … and teaching them” (Matt. 28:19). The Godhead specially gifts the church with prophets, 22 evangelists, pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11; I Cor. 12:14, 28) – all offices whose primary functions are to proclaim the gospel and to instruct believers. Peter taught the crowd gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14). Phillip instructed the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26ff). And every one of the letters in the New Testament, including the gospels, is intended to teach something whether about faith (John), the genesis of the church (Luke and Acts), holy living (the Pauline epistles), or the methods of ministry (the Pastoral Epistles). The instruction is clear and continuing: “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice”

(Phil. 4:9); and, “the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (II Tim. 2:2). Biblically-informed education is always theocentric and, therefore, it is always fundamentally and intentionally, missional. As seen in the preaching of Paul, education and evangelism may start with secular philosophy (Acts 17:28), but it never strays far from the mysteries of God (Acts 17:31). Biblically-based instruction is directed toward children (Deut. 6:7), believers (Lev. 10:11, Titus 2:15), and unbelievers (II Cor. 5:20) and ultimately, it informs society (Deut. 17:12; I Thess. 4:11-12), builds up the church (I Cor. 14:5), and brings glory to God (I Peter 2:12). That the church has taken its educational mission seriously is evident from the expansion of the church throughout the world. Starting from a tiny sect of Judaism headquartered in Jerusalem, the mission of God to reach the lost with the good news of reconciliation in Christ was conducted with great effect, taking the cosmopolitan hub of Antioch in Syria as its locus. Paul became one of the greatest missionary evangelists and teaching pastors of the early church, but he was not the only one. In fact, for the better part of three centuries Christian scholarship and apologetics were located in North Africa at Alexandria in Egypt and was conducted by some of the greatest minds of the early church – Clement (150-215), Origen (182-254), and Athanasius (296-373), all of

Alexandria; Tertullian (160-220) and Cyprian (died 258) of Carthage in present day Tunisia; and Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in present day Algeria.

Recapitulation and Preface The idea that missions and education are rooted in the character of God and that they flow from the desire of God to know and be known has had great implications for Christian missions. Proclamation and instruction have become the hallmark of the church and wherever Jesus’ disciples have gone they have always sought to reach the lost and to tell them about Christ. The next section of this chapter describes the mission of God as it was fulfilled in West Africa after 1792 and before 1900. The narrative will show that African-led missions is every bit as Spirit-led and empowered as any other missions anywhere else in the world. At times it is the story of a faltering work. But it is, above all, a work based on a “re-purposing” of the atrocity of African enslavement that can only be attributed to God. The United States, Canada, Britain, and Africa all conjoined in the infant British colony of Sierra Leone to create a potent missionary force that, once formed and commissioned, could not be turned back. The narrative reveals an obdurate forward movement as the people of West Africa and Nigeria were transformed by an increasingly indigenous encounter with Christ. Perhaps, the most instructive item to note in the story is that this effort to reach West Africa and Nigeria for Christ was at its most effective once the Body of Christ was enfleshed in native form. That the nineteenth century does not end well is not surprising given the flaws of human agency. That this failure gave rise to the unprecedented expansion of Christianity in Africa in the twentieth century is not surprising either. For those interested in that story – the tale of indigenous faith eclipsing foreign missions – it is told in Appendix C.

Section II: Missions History The Church in West Africa and Nigeria after 1792

Poor Blacks and Sierra Leone (1786 – 1791) During the American Revolution, 1775-1783,11 tens of thousands of American blacks fought for the British attracted by the promise of land12 and freedom offered by Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia.13 After the British defeat, the promise held firm, at least as regarding freedom. Most black loyalists were relocated to Nova Scotia or the West Indies, but a number made their way to England. Once there, they received either no, or stingy compensation for wartime losses from the British government. With no work and little prospects, they were forced to wander and beg on the streets.14 In 1786 a group of concerned businessmen, encouraged by Granville Sharp,15 formed the Committee to Aid the Black Poor. Resources were soon overwhelmed and the Committee, with government support, hit upon a scheme to relocate the Black Poor to the west coast of Africa, in Sierra Leone.16

11 These are the dates of the military phase of the American Revolution. The War was preceded by more than a decade of growing estrangement between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain. It was concluded with the Treaty of Paris (1783). See American Revolutionary War, accessed 2011-05-08, http://www. americanrevolutionarywar.net/. 12 See J. N. Grant, “Black Immigrants into Nova Scotia, 1776-1815,” Jour. of Negro Hist. 58 (1973): 255; and also A. P. Kup, “John Clarkson and the Sierra Leone Company,” Intl. Jour. of African Historical Studies 5 (1972): 208. 13 M. B. Norton, “The Fate of Some Black Loyalists of the American Revolution,” Jour. of Negro Hist. 58 (1973): 403. 14 Ibid., 403-07. See W. T. Smith, “An Appraisal of Thomas Coke's Africa Mission, 1796-1811,” Ch. Hist. 40 (1971): 306; and also Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 55. 15 Kup, “John Clarkson,” 203. Norton says that Sharp, a leading abolitionist in the eighteenth century, was not a member of this committee. Norton, “Fate of Black Loyalists,” 410. Sanneh sees Sharp’s role as direct and pivotal. Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 56ff. Latourette says Sharp was chiefly responsible. See K. S. Latourette, A History of Christianity, II: A.D. 1500 to A.D. 1975, rev. ed. (Peabody, MA: Prince Press, 1975), 1032. 16 See Norton, “Fate of Black Loyalists,” 407.

From the start the project was plagued by mismanagement, delays, and setbacks. Eventually, on April 9, 1787, four ships with 411 colonists sailed for Africa. They arrived at St. George’s Bay, Sierra Leone, on May 10, 1787. Thirty-five settlers had died during the passage.17 By August, 52 more were dead, and half of the remaining colonists were sick. By September their number was reduced to 268. A relief ship arranged by Sharp, with supplies and thirty-nine more settlers, arrived in August 1788.18 But the struggles were far from over. The settlement, reduced but stabilized at 120 people, was attacked by native Africans and burnt to the ground. By 1791 only sixty settlers remained. The colony was floundering and about to be lost.19 In April 1791 Sharp and other prominent abolitionists20 in the evangelical Anglican Church formed the Sierra Leone Company. The new trading company assumed responsibility for the colony on a “for-profit” basis.21 Soon Sierra Leone became the premier symbol of abolition22 for it was still to be populated primarily by freed blacks and legitimate commerce, not slaving, was to be its sole means of support.23 Sierra Leone was intended to be a beachhead for the gospel in Africa. When Liberia was founded thirty years later in 1821, both colonies were envisioned as Christian, self-governing societies that would spread Christianity to the entire continent.24 And the truth is: Sierra Leone did play a critical role in the gospel entering Nigeria.

17 Norton, “Fate of Black Loyalists,” 420. 18 Ibid., 423; Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 56. 19 See Norton, “Fate of Black Loyalists,” 423-24. 20 Also included were Thornton, Wilberforce, and Clarkson. See Kup, “John Clarkson,” 204. 21 See ibid.; and also M. B. Abasiattai, “The Search for Independence: New World Blacks in Sierra Leone and Liberia, 1787-1847,” Jour. of Black Studies 23 (1992): esp. 108. 22 Kup, “John Clarkson,” 204. 23 Ibid., 211. 24 See N. A. Blyden, “‘Back to Africa:’ The Migration of New World Blacks to Sierra Leone and Liberia,” OAH Magazine of Hist. 18 (2004): 25. The first migration of African Americans from the United States to Africa occurred in 1816 when P. Cuffee, a black New England merchant brought thirty-eight

Nova Scotian Settlers and Recaptured Slaves (1792 – 1867) ꜛ(238)ꜛ(268)1792 was a significant year for missions and for Sierra Leone.25 In Britain, William Carey26 (1761-1834) published his treatise, “An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen,”27 and in Sierra Leone, in February 1792, nearly 1,200 black loyalists from Nova Scotia, dissatisfied with conditions in Canada,28 waded ashore “Bibles in hand, singing a hymn: ‘The Day of Jubilee is come / Return ye ransomed sinners home.’”29 These hardy “Settlers,”30 – many from Birchtown, a black settlement on the Atlantic coast near

settlers to Sierra Leone. See Blyden, “‘Back to Africa,’” 24. For more on Cuffee, see Lamin Sanneh, “‘A Plantation of Religion’ and the Enterprise Culture in Africa: History, Ex-Slaves and Religious Inevitability,” JRA 27 (1997): 35. Throughout the nineteenth century, 16,000 African Americans emigrated to Liberia under the auspices of the American Colonization Society (ACS). See ibid., 24. On the ACS, its founding and failure, see W. Gray, Untitled review of P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865 (NY: Columbia University, 1961), Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 345 (1963): 172-73, accessed 2011-06-17, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1032941. For an extensive description of Liberia, up to its independence in 1847, see A. Alexander, A History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa, 2nd ed. (Freeport: Books for Libraries, 1971; repr., Philadelphia: William S. Martien, 1849). 25 Bediako makes this comparison in Bediako, “The Making of Africa: The Surprise Story of the Modern Missionary Movement,” in Christianity in Africa, 205. 26 See R. A. Tucker, “William Carey,” in From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 122-30. 27 Carey’s Treatise is available as a Project Gutenberg e-book (#11449) at: http://www.gutenberg. net/GUTINDEX.ALL. Regarding the new wave of voluntary missionary societies begun in the eighteenth century as a result of Carey’s pamphlet see A. F. Walls, “Missionary Societies and the Fortunate Subversion of the Church,” in The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1996), 241-54. See S. Neill, A History of Christian Missions, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 252 for a list of mission societies and their founding dates. 28 Grant, “Black Immigrants,” 253-58. On the Nova Scotia Settlers and especially on the black Baptist preacher, D. George, see G. Gordon, From Slavery to Freedom: The Life of David George, Pioneer Black Baptist Minister (Hantsport: Lancelot Press, 1992). Other information on the black Loyalists may be found at: http://museum.gov.ns.ca/blackloyalists/resources.htm. The following site contains primary sources and provides further background on the black Loyalists: http://www.blackloyalist.com/ canadiandigitalcollection/documents/documents.htm. See D. George’s diary at: http://www.blackloyalist. com/canadiandigitalcollection/documents/diaries/george_a_life.htm. This site has a list of secondary sources: http://www.blackloyalist.com/canadiandigitalcollection/references/references.htm. All sites were accessed 2012-05-01. 29 E. Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 163. 30 They would be known by this name in Sierra Leone. See Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 69.

Shelburne, Nova Scotia, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of AU, Wolfville – would become the backbone of the fledgling colony and the base for the missionary effort in West Africa. Every one of them was a baptized believer.31 They had already been tempered by faith, slavery, and Canadian racism.32 They were also steeped in republican ideals,33 revivalist religion,34 and an understandable distrust of white authority.35 They were led by the Baptist preacher David George; Moses Wilkinson, leader of the Methodists; and Cato Perkins for the Huntington Connection, a Calvinist Methodist group.36 Their arrival was a turning point for African Christianity and missions.37 The

Anglicans and the Quakers, as well as the Roman Catholics, would be established later.38 The Nova Scotian Settlers were joined by successive waves of black immigrants. The first to arrive were 550 Maroons, a fiercely independent group of former slaves from Jamaica who had been taken to Nova Scotia in 1796 and then transported to the colony in

31 J. Hanciles, “Back to Africa: White Abolitionists and Black Missionaries,” in African Christianity: An African Story, ed. by O. Kalu (Trenton: AWP, 2007), 175. 32 While in Shelburne, D. George was supported by, and later he baptized, a white family, W. Holmes and his wife, Deborah. See L. Sanneh, “Prelude to African Christian Independency: The Afro- American Factor in African Christianity,” Harvard Theological Review 77 (1984): 10. As a result, George’s house was overturned by a group of white ex-soldiers. He was later whipped and run out of town and his meetinghouse was turned into a tavern. See Sanneh, “‘A Plantation of Religion,’” 21-22. 33 Sanneh, “Prelude,” esp. 10ff. 34 See ibid. Also see, A. T. Porter, “Religious Affiliation in Freetown, Sierra Leone,” AJIAI 23 (1953): 5ff; and C. Fyfe, “Four Sierra Leone Recaptives,” JAH 2 (1961): esp. 78. 35 Sanneh, “Prelude,” 6. 36 Ibid., 7. Sanneh identifies Perkins as Wesleyan. He was actually with the Huntingdon group. See ibid., 22 and also Grant, “Black Immigrants,” 258. The Huntington (or “Huntingdon”) Connection was led by G. Whitefield and patronized by Lady Huntingdon. See J. F. A. Ajayi, “From Mission to Church: The Heritage of the Church Mission Society,” IBMR 23 (1999): 50-55. 37 See A. F. Walls, “The Evangelical Revival, the Missionary Movement, and Africa,” in The Missionary Movement, esp. 86. 38 The Anglicans, represented by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), were established in 1804. As the religion of the Sierra Leone Company directors, effectively, it became the official denomination of the Colony. See Porter, “Relig. Affiliation,” 8. P. Cuffee, a black entrepreneur from New England, established the Quakers in 1811 during a visit to Sierra Leone. See Sanneh, “‘A Plantation of Religion,’” 33. The Roman Catholics arrived to stay in 1864. See Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 67.

July 1800.39 They were followed by the Recaptives, slaves gathered from as far away as the Kongo40 and intercepted by the British navy while in transit to the New World. On January 1, 1807 the Sierra Leone Company, deeply in debt, transferred responsibility for the colony to the British government.41 As a crown colony, Sierra Leone now became a staging ground to enforce the prohibition on slaving.42 A Court of Admiralty was setup in Freetown and slavers intercepted by British naval vessels at sea were escorted there for processing. The ship, its contents, and its furbishing were sold at auction.43 The slave cargo was off loaded, “condemned,”44 and placed in Settlers’ homes for training in the life of the colony. Over time, villages or “parishes” under the oversight of government paid clergy were established in the area surrounding Freetown.45 Between 181046 and 1867 when the last ship was intercepted, over 50,00047 slaves were rescued. If the Nova Scotian Settlers were the foundation of the black missionary work in West Africa, the Recaptives were the core. Perhaps for the first time in Africa, European

39 Grant, “Black Immigrants,” 258-61. See also Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 70-72. 40 Porter, “Relig. Affiliation,” 5. 41 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 59. 42 Britain’s Slave Trade Abolition Act was passed on 1807-03-25 making slave trafficking illegal in the British Empire. 43 This presented an opportunity for enterprising Recaptive traders. See Fyfe, “Four Sierra Leone Recaptives,” 80. 44 ꜛ(43)ꜛ(361)Slaving ships and the slaves on board them were “condemned” in British courts in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Starting in 1807, ships of the British Royal Navy undertook the task of eliminating the Atlantic slave trade by intercepting slaving ships of all nations, seizing the vessels and releasing the slaves found on them. In later years, the British navy also destroyed slaving land bases and ratified anti- slavery treaties with African kings. For all of this the Royal Navy received a bounty for each liberated slave. In the British colony of Sierra Leone, after it had been determined that the slaves had been taken illegally from their homeland, the judge certified them as bona fide slaves, the bounty was paid, effectively buying them back through compensation, and the slaves were set free. See Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 73. See also W. E. F. Ward, The Royal Navy and the Slavers: The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 2nd ed. (NY: Schocken Books, 1970). 45 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 73. 46 This was when the first slave ship captured under the new law arrived at Sierra Leone. See A. Quilliam, “A Chapter in the History of Sierra Leone,” Jour. of the Royal African Soc. 3 (1903): 86. 47 Abasiattai, “The Search for Independence,” 111.

29 culture was a unifying, rather than a destructive, force. Far from their original homes and torn from the African communities they had known, most of them with little hope of ever being reconnected again, the Recaptives in Sierra Leone represented a multitude of tongues48 and a cosmopolitan mix of traditions and backgrounds.49 Exposed to the trauma of upheaval but not the hardships of indentured slavery, they adopted the Christian and Europeanized model presented to them by the North American blacks. They developed a uniquely African response to Christianity with a new culture and language that came to be known as Krio (Creole).50 Under British oversight, as administered by the Church

Missionary Society (CMS),51 many were baptized into the Established (Anglican) Church and given Anglicized names.52 As the Recaptives prospered, they outpaced the original Settlers.53 Despite jealousies and bickering in the community,54 the church served as a unifying force providing opportunity to exercise leadership, make social contact, receive education, and express newfound faith. All, except for the Muslims,55 readily converted to Christianity through the revivalist preaching of the Settlers and Anglican clergy. They became skilled traders and vigorous proponents of the new religion and the European manner that had been so influential in giving them freedom and a sense of place.56

48 The Recaptives spoke 117 different languages. Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 305. 49 See Porter, “Relig. Affiliation,” 3-6. See also A. F. Walls, “Black Europeans–White Africans,” in The Missionary Movement, 102. 50 Ibid., 102-05. See also Porter, “Relig. Affiliation,” 11n1. 51 The CMS and the Sierra Leone Company were closely related. Leading members of the Company were founders of the Society. By 1816 the British Government had formally agreed that the CMS would be responsible for the welfare and religious instruction of the liberated Africans and for the management of the Colonial church in Freetown. See Porter, “Relig. Affiliation,” 8. 52 Porter, “Relig. Affiliation,” 8. 53 Fyfe, “Four Sierra Leone Recaptives,” 80. 54 Porter, “Relig. Affiliation,” 5. 55 Hanciles, “White Abolitionists Black Missionaries,” 176. Quilliam argues that Muslims suffered “disabilities and proscription” in predominantly Christian Sierra Leone. See Quilliam, “A Chapter in the Hist. of Sierra Leone,” 93. 56 See Porter, “Relig. Affiliation,” esp. 12-13; and also Walls, “Black Europeans,” 105.

African Initiated Missions (1839) White missionary work in West Africa at the beginning of the nineteenth century was hampered by death, disease, and the lack of personnel. In the early days the loss of life was terrible. In twenty years the CMS lost more than fifty men and women.57 The first Methodist missionary arrived in Sierra Leone in 1811 and died the next year. In the decade between 1819 and 1829, seven of nine Methodist missionaries died in Freetown and increasingly, the Wesleyan work was left in the hands of African believers.58 Other organizations fared no better. In Sierra Leone the entire Roman Catholic mission party of five died of yellow fever within weeks of arriving in 1858.59 The average length of service for Southern Baptist missionaries in Nigeria was less than six years. In the sixty- five years between 1850 and 1915, twenty-four of sixty Southern Baptist missionaries died in the field. Another twenty-two left due to ill health.60 Numerous requests for missionary support were made by the black Christians at Sierra Leone. Most of the time answers came only after considerable delay, sometimes with disastrous results. Two Baptist missionaries, Jacob Grigg and James Rodway, came in 1795. Rodway fell sick and returned to England; Grigg fought with colonial authorities and was expelled. From that point forward Baptist missionaries were no longer welcome at Sierra Leone.61 John Ezzidio, a Nupe Recaptive, requested missionary help for the Wesleyan ministry. Benjamin Tregaskis was sent to help, but he fought with Ezzidio, divided the church, and was seen openly rejoicing at the graveside on the day of

57 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 306. See Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 134; A. F. Walls, “Missionary Vocation and the Ministry: The First Generation,” in The Missionary Movement, 171n43; and R. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, 147. 58 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 64 and 78-9. 59 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 435. 60 See J. B. Grimley and G. E. Robinson, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 281. 61 Sanneh, “Prelude,” 13-14.

Ezzidio’s funeral.62 No missionaries were sent for the Huntington Church until 1899.63 For over a century Africans conducted the work, unpaid and without supervision from Europe.64 With no white missionary help, black Christians from Sierra Leone pushed forward, evangelizing the Recaptive villages and the Africans in surrounding tribes.65 The Yoruba66 were especially anxious to carry the gospel to their families and friends, for despite their success in adjusting to their new life in the colony, many of the Recaptives were unhappy, separated from families and homes not forgotten. Encouraged by the example of two Hausa men from northern Nigeria who stopped in Freetown on their way back to Badagry in the Bight of Benin, three Recaptives bought a former slave ship, renamed her the “Queen Victoria” and took sixty-seven passengers to Badagry.67 Their goal was to conduct trade in the area and to bring the gospel to their countrymen. They requested missionary assistance and sought permission from the British government to establish a British colony at Badagry. They received neither.68 Regardless, soon hundreds of Yoruba Recaptives were returning home, resettling in Badagry, or moving

62 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 65. 63 That is, except briefly in 1853-54, and again in 1856-59. Although no formal request was made in 1899, Rev. W. Groves was sent out to take charge of the Freetown church. See Sanneh, “Prelude,” 23. 64 Ibid. 65 See ibid., esp. 12 and 23. Also see J. F. A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841-1891: The Making of a New Élite, ed. K. O. Dike, 2nd ed. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 25. 66 Liberated Yoruba in Sierra Leone were called Aku. See Ajayi, Christian Missions, 21. For more on the Yoruba and the impact of translating the Bible into Yoruba, see J. F. A. Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: The Ambiguous Mandate of Bishop Crowther, Lecture II: Crowther and Language in the Yoruba Mission” (Henry Martyn Lectures, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, October 25-26 and 28, 1999). On the Yoruba, the people group or tribe to which both Abiara and Odelami belong, see P. F. Cohen, “Orisha Journeys: The Role of Travel in the Birth of Yorùbá-Atlantic Religions,” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 47 (2002): 18; and O. Ojo, “‘Heepa’ (Hail) Òrìṣà: The Òrìṣà Factor in the Birth of Yoruba Identity,” JRA 39 (2009): 44. 67 Fyfe, “Four Sierra Leone Recaptives,” 82; and Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 81. 68 See Fyfe, “Four Sierra Leone Recaptives,” 82.

32 further inland to Abeokuta or Ibadan.69 Christianity had arrived in southwestern Nigeria in a new and, ultimately, more compelling form. The year was 1839.

The Niger Expedition (1841): From Partner to Apprentice ꜛ(232)ꜛ(269)Two years later the ill-fated Niger Expedition took place.70 The Expedition was the dream of Thomas F. Buxton. He argued convincingly that if slaving was ever going to be stopped in Africa something other than intercepting ships on the high seas had to be done. Since African chiefs on the coast were too closely invested in the continuation of the slave trade, treaties needed to be made and commerce had to be established with chiefs in the interior of Africa. A decade earlier, in 1830, the Lander brothers had discovered that the rivers of the Niger Delta were the outflow of one great river source71 and this major new water route seemed like the ideal place to begin Buxton’s policy of inland commerce. Amidst considerable fanfare in England, a team of 150 Europeans was gathered including scientists, government representatives, and commercial and agricultural agents.72 In April 1841 three newly commissioned steamships left London, stopping at Sierra Leone to take aboard twelve African interpreters and two CMS missionaries, Rev. John Schӧn and “Recaptive” Samuel

69 See further Ajayi, Christian Missions, 27-28. 70 For a detailed account from a missionary history perspective see S. Tucker, Abbeokuta; or Sunrise Within the Tropics: An Outline of the Origin and Progress of the Yoruba Mission, 4th ed. (London: James Nesbit, 1854), 55-83, accessed 2011-07-15, http://www.google.com/books?id=-ykUAAAAIAAJ. For the perspective of an African historian, see J. F. A. Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: The Ambiguous Mandate of Bishop Crowther, Lecture I: Philanthropy in Sierra Leone,” (Henry Martyn Lectures, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, October 25-26 and 28, 1999). On Buxton and the political and evangelical influences that preceded his championing of the Expedition, see R. R. Follett, “After Emancipation: Thomas Fowell Buxton and Evangelical Politics in the 1830s,” Parliamentary Hist. 27 (2008): 119-29. See also Ajayi, Christian Missions, 10-13; and M. Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, rev. ed. (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), 140-43. 71 S. Tucker, Abbeokuta, 58. 72 Ajayi, Christian Missions, 12. S. Tucker puts the number of Europeans at 190. See S. Tucker, Abbeokuta, 82. Crowder cites 145. See Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 141.

Crowther.ꜛ At the time Crowther was a teacher in the Fourah Bay Institute.73 Travelling 515 kilometers (320 miles) up the Niger, treaties were made with three local kings and a model farm was established at Iddah. But the Expedition was stricken by illness two weeks into the journey upriver. Forty-five Europeans died.74 Of the 108 Africans on the Expedition, not one of these suffered severely.75 The Expedition was ridiculed in England and declared a failure.76 As far as missions were concerned however, the Niger Expedition marked the beginning of a new missionary thrust into Nigeria. With the signing of treaties with inland chiefs, the British government showed its willingness to be involved with West African local politics. This, in turn, meant that missionaries could increasingly count on official British support and protection in their efforts. With the excitement generated in Sierra Leone regarding the role and return of some Recaptives to their homes on the Niger, interest further increased among other Recaptives to return to their former homes. And it was this flow of converts and former parishioners to inland parts of Nigeria that caused the Methodists, CMS, and Baptists to respond by extending their missions into southwestern Nigeria,77 the region where CINDICO and UNIDICO are located.

A Century of Bloodshed and Violence (1804 – 1903) The religious tension that characterizes Nigeria today has its roots in the ethno- religious conflicts in the region during the nineteenth century. For 100 years, starting in

73 S. Tucker, Abbeokuta, 61. Ajayi mentions that twenty-four Africans recruited at Sierra Leone as settlers for the “model farm” were added at Freetown as well. See Ajayi, Christian Missions, 12. The Expedition stopped briefly in Liberia on 1941-07-05 to -06. See Alexander, A Hist. of Colonization, 599. 74 Ajayi, Christian Missions, 12. Surgeons on the expedition did administer quinine for malaria. But it was given in doses too small and too infrequent to have any real effect. See P. D. Curtin, “‘The White Man’s Grave:’ Image and Reality, 1780-1850,” Jour. of British Studies 1 (1961): 108. 75 S. Tucker, Abbeokuta, 82. Tucker puts the European death toll at forty-one. 76 See Ajayi, Christian Missions, 13. 77 Ajayi, Christian Missions, 13.

1804, war ravaged the country as Muslim rulers purified their religion in the north and expanded eastward and southward. It was a very troubled, turbulent time in Nigeria and eventually it would lead to increased British intervention and control in the area, new opportunities for Christian missionaries, and a legacy of division and religious strife. Almost a millennium earlier, Islam had been introduced to Hausa and Fulani tribes in northern Nigeria by Muslim traders who crossed the Sahara Desert in search of gold, ivory, and slaves in exchange for salt, cloth, beads, horses, and European goods.78 Several Fulani clans became staunch advocates of the religion especially after the fourteenth century. By the sixteenth century, Muslim Fulani served as administrators in Hausa courts while cattle-herding Fulani remained as animists.79 Most of the Hausa kings adopted Islam as the court religion while the general Hausa population remained animists or mixed Islam with traditional religion.80 Through to the end of the eighteenth century, Muslim rulers professed Islam and maintained Muslim divines at court, but also practiced a “calculated syncretism,”81 respecting Hausa indigenous religious traditions in an effort to bolster their popular support and maintain stable government. The Fulani opposed them openly as pagans who followed an impure Muslim faith. In 1804 Usman dan Fodio, a fifty year old Torodbe Fulani and Muslim scholar, emboldened by other reform movements in West Africa declared jihad against the Hausa rulers.82 Within a few years most of the Hausa kings were swept off their thrones and during the next thirty years Fulani hegemony was established throughout all of northern Nigeria with the exception of a few pagan areas inaccessible to the Fulani cavalry.83 The

78 Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 36. 79 Ibid., 92. 80 Ibid., 36. 81 Ibid., 94. 82 See ibid., 96. 83 Ibid.

35 campaigns were ruthless and eventually became as much about territorial expansion and political realignment as about religious reform.84 Slave-raiding became commonplace and some areas were completely depopulated. Even though corruption was rife in many emirates,85 when the British took over northern Nigeria in 1903, Fulani rulers were entrenched as the basis of indirect rule by which the north was governed. In southwestern Nigeria, Yorubaland was torn by civil war for nearly the entire nineteenth century. A hundred years earlier, the old Oyo Empire86 had held an extensive territory. But weakened by periodic revolts and internal power struggles,87 and troubled by the outbreak of the Owu Wars in 1820, the Empire soon came to an end.88 It was made inevitable by the defection of Afonja, the commander of the Alafin’s army. Afonja allied himself with the Fulani and established himself as ruler in the Oyo province of Illorin.89 The Fulani mercenaries used the opportunity to extend the Fulani jihad,90 allowing Islam to gain a foothold in Yorubaland. For fifteen years, from 1825 until 1840, Fulani armies based in Ilorin destroyed large Yoruba towns in the north. Refugees from the wars fled southward away from the conflict, displacing Egba-Yoruba, destroying their cities and pushing them further south. The Egba either founded new cities or settled among existing local populations.91 In the course of the war, two major cities emerged: Ibadan and

84 Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 99. 85 Ibid., 107. 86 The Oyo Empire was ruled by the Alafin of Oyo (kingdom) from Oyo (city). At the time “the Yoruba” were comprised of several semi-independent city states or kingdoms ruled by a local oba chosen from the lineage of the founder of the town. See ibid., 110. 87 On the political insecurity in northern Yorubaland from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, see A. Usman “Crisis and Catastrophe: Warfare in Precolonial Northern Yoruba,” in Pre- colonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, ed. A. Ogundiran (Trenton: AWP, 2005), 360-83. 88 Usman, “Crisis and Catastrophe,” 108-17; regarding the Owu Wars, see ibid., 113. 89 Usman, “Crisis and Catastrophe,” 113. 90 Ibid., 105-06, quoting Ajayi, unknown source. 91 Ajayi, Christian Missions, 19. For a diagram of the various tribal groups and cities in Oyo kingdom see the map in Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 109; regarding Ile-Ifé, see ibid., 53-4.

Abeokuta. Ibadan played a critical role in halting the Fulani advance; Abeokuta was the portal through which Christian influence entered Yorubaland.92 It is difficult to exaggerate the role of slave trading both as cause and consequence of the Yoruba civil wars. Slaving was the economic mainstay of the Oyo and Dahomey93 kingdoms and provided a strategic advantage to coastal tribes who found themselves in the lucrative position as brokers between European buyers and African sellers. As the civil wars continued, the numbers of Yoruba slaves shipped through the ports on the Bight of Benin increased greatly.94 Large numbers of Yoruba from the same town were captured and sold together95 and what had started as a series of civil wars during the break-up of the Oyo Empire became more and more about gathering slaves.96 In Sierra Leone, after 1821, Yoruba comprised the second largest group of Recaptives.97 Providentially, however, both the Fulani incursion southward into Yoruba territory and the increase in Yoruba slavery helped open the way for the gospel. In 1842 Christian missionaries established the first mission station in Nigeria at Badagry; four years later they expanded to Abeokuta. Whereas everywhere else along the coast, rulers were barring the way to European intervention, at Badagry, because of the Fulani jihad, the line of defence had begun to weaken among the Yoruba.98 Returned Sierra Leone Recaptives played a leading role in urging mission to the area.

92 See Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 119-20. Abeokuta is 79 km (40 mi.) southwest of Ibadan. 93 Dahomey was to the west of Oyo. Founded about 1625, it gained independence from Oyo and became a great military power by the nineteenth century. Ibid., 111 and 119. 94 Before 1821, there were few Recaptive Yoruba at Sierra Leone. See S. Tucker, Abbeokuta, 15n. 95 Fyfe, “Four Sierra Leone Recaptives,” 77. 96 Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 118. 97 Fyfe, “Four Sierra Leone Recaptives,” 78. Only the Ibo were more numerous. 98 Ajayi, Christian Missions, 19.

The Great Century and Colonialism (1815-1914) ꜛIf the nineteenth century was a century of bloodshed and violence for Nigeria, it was also an era of growing confidence and expansion for the West and for missions. Latourette named it “The Great Century,” claiming that, “The ninety-nine years from 1815 to 1914 … constituted the greatest century which Christianity had thus far known.”99 The reason: the Christian faith was about to become a global religion. For the first time in years, starting from the beginning of the century, Europe was more or less at peace.100 Exploration and science unveiled the world to a wider view than ever before. Economic power and prosperity resulted in a self-assured imperial impulse. And successively, Britain in India and Egypt, France in Indo-China and North Africa, and Holland in Indonesia opened these areas to alien rule as well as to trade.101 By the middle of the nineteenth century, European confidence evinced a sense of mission to the world. The Second Evangelical Awakening (1800-1840) in the United States and Britain reinvigorated the sense of individual responsibility in salvation and evangelism, as old and new mission societies sent out missionaries to previously unreached regions around the globe. David Livingstone, as perhaps few others, helped focus attention on Africa.102 He revealed to the world the “open sore of Africa” – the second slave trade conducted by Swahili-Arab traders in East Africa,103 – and passionately promoted the three C’s,

99 Latourette, A Hist. of Christianity, II, 1063. 100 See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 244-45. “Never over so prolonged a period had Christendom been as nearly free from war. … It is not surprising that many were hopeful that the human race was outgrowing war. …” Latourette, A Hist. of Christianity, II, 1063-064. 101 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 247-48. 102 On the significance of Livingstone’s life and work, see G. Shepperson, “David Livingstone 1813-1873: A Centenary Assessment,” Geographical Jour. 139 (1973): 205-19. See also Latourette, A Hist. of Christianity, II, 1308-09; R. A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, 155-63; and L. Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, American Society of Missiology Series (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989), 105-17. 103 Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, xxii.

“commerce, civilization and Christianity,” as the only effective means of altering Africa’s social and spiritual condition. There was a new interest in peoples and their salvation. But this sense of responsibility and burden for others was increasingly framed in terms of the need for “superior races” to provide guidance and oversight for those in more “primitive” or “savage” states. Scientific racism was in its heyday and new “data” reported in British scientific journals and societies seemed to prove conclusively the inferiority of African peoples to the white, European races. As Darwin’s biological theory of evolution was used to explain the origin of the species, so social Darwinism was used to explain why African culture and Africans generally were in a less progressed state as compared to European civilization and culture. The burden to enlighten the “benighted” was almost as great as the sense of superiority these theories engendered.104 In Africa through much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the colonial impulse which had begun as a humanitarian effort to help freed Africans find a place in Africa away from England and America had successfully resisted becoming imperialistic.105 Initially, Britain almost single-handedly shouldered the effort to halt the slave trade, introduce “legitimate” commerce, and carry the gospel to Africa. But, over time, it had involved itself more and more in African affairs so that by 1914 a large part of Africa had been added to the British Empire.106 In the half generation of the “Scramble

104 For a description of the nineteenth century and the forces aligned against Christianity see Latourette, A Hist. of Christianity, II, 1069-077. For a discussion of the degree to which European racial attitudes were affected by the process of ending the Atlantic slave trade see S. Drescher, “The Ending of the Slave Trade and the Evolution of European Scientific Racism,” Soc. Sci. Hist. 14 (1990): 415-50. Dennis argues that in scientific racism science is often used to enact racist social policies, and that it actually has negative consequences for the dominant group as well. See R. M. Dennis, “Social Darwinism, Scientific Racism, and the Metaphysics of Race,” Jour. of Negro Ed. 64 (1995): 243-52; and also A. Bank, “Of ‘Native Skulls’ and ‘Noble Caucasians’: Phrenology in Colonial South Africa,” Jour. of Southern African Studies 22 (1996): 387-403. 105 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 248. 106 Ibid..

39 for Africa,” from 1876-1912, France, Germany, Italy, and Belgium had followed Britain’s lead. During the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885, “Africa was sliced up like a cake, the pieces swallowed by five rival nations.”107 Delegates from fourteen countries, including the United States, oversaw the partition of Africa. Thirty new colonies and protectorates were formed out of 10 million square miles of territory containing 110 million dazed new subjects.108 The only country in Africa that retained its independence was the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia.109 The idea was to bring civilization to Africa. But the result in many instances and especially in the Kongo was the exploitation of African peoples and resources. African societies were profoundly and irrevocably altered. In the four decades of colonial rule in Nigeria, Britain built schools, hospitals, roads, railways, bridges, power plants, towns, and cities in order to open up the country for commerce. But progress came at a price.110

Colonial Missionaries Missions and missionaries were not exempt either from the imperial impulse or from the effects of imperial control. While many did not agree with the colonial mandate and argued strenuously in defence of African autonomy,111 they were still affected by a

107 Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, xxi. 108 Ibid. 109 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 248. 110 C. Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, a classic in Nigerian literature written in English, vividly portrays the social disruption experienced in many regions during the transition from traditional to colonial rule in Nigeria. See K. Appiah, introduction to Things Fall Apart, by C. Achebe (NY: A. A. Knopf, 1958), ix-xvii. Some Africans today suggest, tongue-in-cheek but seriously enough, that British rule is actually preferable to independence given the lack of economic progress and the rise of corruption under African control since nationalization. See G. Mwakikagile, Africa is in a Mess: What Went Wrong and What Should be Done, 2nd ed. (Dar es Salaam: New Africa, 2006). On Achebe see a brief biography at Appiah, introduction to Things Fall Apart, by Achebe, xx-xxi; and “Achebe Chinua,” by P. Liukkonen, Author’s Calendar, accessed 2012-01-18, http://kirjasto.sci.fi/ achebe.htm. 111 See K. E. Fields, “Christian Missionaries as Anti-colonial Militants,” Theory and Society 11 (1982): 95-108. See also C. G. Mackenzie, “Demythologising the Missionaries: A Reassessment of the Functions and Relationships of Christian Missionary Education under Colonialism,” Comparative Ed. 29

40 covert, and all too often overt, racism. Whereas in the early part of the 1800’s missionaries and converts laboured together in missionary efforts, beginning around 1858 white missionaries and the societies they represented seemed increasingly reluctant to place Africans in leadership roles or to consult them in church efforts. Instead of releasing Africans into independent or at least expanding roles of responsibility, missionaries seemed struck with a patronizing, paternalistic sense of superiority – perhaps mixed with an unsettling sense of their own dispensability. They increasingly insisted upon greater and more prolonged periods of supervision and oversight. The

African church was not allowed to grow up even after it had worked side by side with missionaries for decades. And the fact that Africans had worked for years without missionary support in ministries which they had pioneered seemed to be totally forgotten. The early mission strategy of the CMS was to encourage the use of African converts to carry the gospel. At first this was a matter of expediency: given the high mortality among white missionaries, it made sense to recommend using blacks for mission work.112 When the Niger Mission was established in 1857, no whites took part.

Declaring it “all-African” later gave it an air of design.113 But after the middle of the nineteenth century with death rates diminishing among Europeans, racism amongst whites in missions, commercial firms, and colonial administrators became more evident.114 Townsend especially was a thorn in Crowther’s flesh.115 He had wanted the place that Crowther secured on the Niger Expedition; he assumed the lead at Abeokuta, despite the fact that originally the mission had no designated leader; he diminished

(1993): 45-66, regarding the role of missionaries and mission education as an arm of colonial conquest and an agent of social amelioration. 112 See Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 164. 113 See in Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: Lecture II;” and also Ajayi, Christian Missions, 209. 114 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 164. 115 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 82.

Crowther’s work in the Niger Mission; and he petitioned against his appointment as bishop.116 The greatest advantage that Townsend had in opposing Crowther was that the rest of the white missionaries agreed with him. Henry Venn,117 the Secretary of the CMS, chose to push ahead with his agenda of increasing native responsibility in mission,118 but the signs were there to be seen: the educated African who up to that point had been a partner was now considered a threat.119

Samuel Crowther, the Black Bishop of Africa

ꜛSamuel Crowther120 (1807-1891) might be considered correctly the most important African Christian figure in Nigeria in the 1800s. His life spanned almost the entire century and his career reveals the changing attitudes of white missionaries toward their African cohorts. Crowther, whose African name was Adjai,121 was fifteen when he was captured in the Yoruba Wars. Sold and loaded aboard a Portuguese slaver bound for Brazil, his ship was intercepted and boarded by two British gunboats in 1822. He was

116 Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: Lecture II.” 117 Venn (1796-1873) served as Secretary of the CMS from 1841-73. He was an outstanding administrator and one of the foremost Protestant mission strategists of the nineteenth century. See Introduction to “Papers of Henry Venn” s.vv. >dig. guides >C >CMS Archive: Sect. III: Central records, pt. 19 >intro. to pt. 19 >intro., accessed 2011-12-06, http://www.ampltd.co.uk/. 118 Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: Lecture II.” 119 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 164. 120 The material on Crowther is considerable. For further study see J. F. A. Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: The Ambiguous Mandate of Bishop Crowther,” (Henry Martyn Lectures, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, October 25-26 and 28, 1999). Also, J. J. Hanciles, “Bishop Crowther and Archdeacon Crowther: Inter-Generational Challenge and Opportunity in the African Christian Encounter,” in Religion, History, and Politics in Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ogbu U. Kalu, ed. C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji (Lanham: UPA, 2005), 52-74; F. J. Kolapo, “‘Making Favorable Impressions’: Bishop Crowther’s C.M.S. Niger Mission in Jihadist Nupe Emirate, 1859-1879,” in Religion, History, and Politics, ed. by C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, 29-51; T. Olsen “Bishop Before His Time,” Christian Hist. 79 [22, no. 3?] (2003): 10-15; A. F. Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” IBMR 16 (1992): 15-21; Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 75ff; and Ajayi, Christian Missions, chap. 7. 121 Crowther took a European Christian name, Samuel, at his baptism and used his native name, Adjai, as his middle name. The contemporary spelling, unlike the spelling that Crowther used, is “Ajayi.” See Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” 20n1.

42 condemned122 in Freetown where he converted to Christianity and was baptized three years later. After a brief stint in London, Crowther was a member of the inaugural class of Fourah Bay College in 1827, the newly established CMS training school for Africans in Freetown.123 His involvement in the Niger Expedition brought him to the attention of Venn. Crowther was to become all that anyone had ever hoped for in an African: that is, everything that an Englishman was, except white.124 In addition to being one of the first African born ordinates to the Anglican ministry (1843), he was consecrated as the first African Anglican bishop in 1864. He was instrumental in the mission to Yorubaland and he was put in charge of the Niger Mission at the age of fifty in 1857.

Niger Mission (1857-1890) The Niger Mission, part of the continuing effort of the CMS to bring “commerce, civilization, and Christ” to West Africa,125 was remarkable in a number of ways. First, it continued Crowther’s contribution to indigenous language study and translation. He studied Nupe, wrote the first book on the Igbo, and worked on a Hausa dictionary with

John Schӧn, the CMS missionary who had accompanied him on the 1841 Niger Expedition126 and who had since taken up a parish in England. The Niger Mission was also the first sustained missionary engagement with Islam in Africa in modern times.127

122 See n44 → on page 29. 123 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 306. Fourah Bay College was founded in 1827, and from 1876-1967, it awarded degrees of the University of Durham. See “Historical Background,” The University of Sierra Leone, accessed 2011-07-27, http://www.tusol.org/historical. 124 See Walls, “The Evangelical Revival,” in The Missionary Movement, 94. 125 This thesis is developed throughout Ajayi’s lecture series, “Mission and Empire.” 126 Before 1857 Crowther was to the Niger region twice: once during the Niger Expedition in 1841 and later in 1854 on an expedition sponsored by merchant McGregor Laird. The 1857 expedition, again sponsored by Laird, marked the official beginning of the CMS Niger Mission. See Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” 18. While his associate, J. C. Taylor, opened the Igbo mission at Onitsha, Crowther went up river, was shipwrecked and stranded for months, and surveyed openings to the Nupe and Hausa. Ibid. The mission did not end in 1890. This is the date in which Crowther was forced to resign. See Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 168ff; and Ajayi, Christian Missions, chap. 8. 127 Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” 19.

But perhaps most importantly, it was, almost, the realization of Venn’s much sought after vision in missions of self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating churches led by a fully indigenous pastorate. In Venn’s scheme, this was the first of the final step towards the “euthanasia of mission”: the moment when a truly native church is established and the founding mission retreats.128 In the Yoruba Mission, Townsend, younger than Crowther and less experienced than Gollmer, had assumed the lead.129 In the Niger Mission, no white missionary was involved or in control. It was comprised of an all-African team with a responsible African leader, Crowther.

1890 proved a critical year.ꜛ Venn had been dead nearly two decades130 and the CMS, under a new generation of directors, had different priorities and a new agenda. After over 30 years of ministry, the work on the Niger was reviewed by the Sudan Party, a group of “young, fervent, idealistic graduates of Cambridge University and Ridley Hall,”131 “zealous, impetuous, uncharitable and opinionated.”132 Soon it became evident that a number of things were no longer the same.133 In the course of “the momentous drama in which Bishop Crowther was intended as the sacrificial victim,”134 a number of irregularities were noted; some of them were quite alarming. In one extreme instance, Crowther, who generally did not punish erring staff in the Niger Mission harshly, appears to have fallen woefully short of appropriate

128 Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” 18-19. See also Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 170. 129 Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: Lecture II.” On Gollmer, see → on page 270. 130 Venn was still acting as the director of the CMS when he died in 1873. 131 J. F. A. Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: The Ambiguous Mandate of Bishop Crowther, Lecture III: Philanthropy in Sierra Leone,” (Henry Martyn Lectures, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, October 25-26 and 28, 1999). 132 Ajayi, Christian Missions, 250. 133 See the excellent appraisal by Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” 19. 134 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 169.

44 discipline. F. W. John, a catechist in Bonny, was caught in adultery and Crowther merely removed him from ministry and appointed him as his personal assistant and clerk. Later in Onitsha, John was still with the Mission, this time working as an interpreter. There he was convicted of torturing and beating a female domestic slave to death for trying to run away.135 Crowther himself was criticized for being too absent from the Mission and while it was intimated that he was irresponsible with CMS funds, he was never accused of embezzlement. The Mission was also castigated as being extravagant, materialistic, and lacking in spiritual zeal.136 Most of the native missionaries were dismissed and Crowther was forced to resign in disgrace in 1890. By 1893 the mission was in ruins.137 Later in 1896 H. H. Dobson, a member of the Sudan Party, would write with regret: “I burn with shame and horror now at the awful charges made … in those dark days of 1890. We have suffered, no one knows how much, by those rash and hasty actions. We condemned others and we ourselves have done less than they did.”138 The CMS review and censure of the Niger Mission could be seen as the culmination of a long European-led conspiracy against African agency in mission.139 But as Walls suggests, it also, “illustrates in brief the two evangelical itineraries: the short route via Keswick, and the long one via the White Man’s Grave, the Niger Expedition and the courts of Muslim rulers of the north.”140 The Sudan Party members were more educated than missionary candidates in previous generations. They were filled with evangelical zeal and were passionate in their understanding and awareness of God. They

135 Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: Lecture III.” 136 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 172. 137 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 172; – that is, assuming that the date given by Isichei, 1883, is a typographical error. Isichei clearly considers the accusations of the CMS review to be excessive, inconsiderate, and destructive to both the Niger Mission and its native missionaries. See ibid., 171-73. 138 H. H. Dobinson, as quoted by Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 172. 139 See Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 169ff. 140 Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” 20.

45 also were not entirely wrong in their assessment.141 But, they were unwise, and even racist in their actions.142 Not all was lost,143 however. The changes the Sudan Party forced on the Niger Mission were in part preparatory for events that they had never intended to make, and which they might have been appalled to think they were initiating. Africans were about to form their own indigenous churches independent of white control.

Summary This chapter has performed a dual function. It has located the biblical basis of missions and education in God’s intention to reveal Himself to the world and redeem believers in Christ. And it has shown the transformative nature of that mandate at work in Africa. Beginning after 1792, the providential coincidence of 1,200 Nova Scotia “Settlers,” thousands of “Recaptive” slaves, a handful of Christian philanthropists, and the military might of a morally awakened British Empire conjoined to repurpose African slavery into a potent mission force that radiated out from the English crown colony of Sierra Leone. That collection of dedication and desire resulted in a beachhead for

Christianity that ultimately accomplished the evangelization of all of West Africa. ꜛThree important observations ought to be noted from this. The first is that the most effective proclamation of the gospel in Africa took place when Africans engaged the claims of Christ for themselves and were compelled, themselves, to communicate it to others. The catalyst for this was the witness of the Americas-imported Settlers and the

141 Walls, “Missionary Vocation,” in The Missionary Movement, 106ff. See also Robinson’s comments in Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 286-90. 142 See A. Porter, “Evangelical Enthusiasm, Missionary Motivation and West Africa in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Career of G. W. Brooke,” Jour. of Imperial and Commonwealth Hist. 6 (1977): 23-46. Porter questions whether the Sudan Party actually was racist. He suggests that European expectations of mission work clashed with African perspectives, and that “racialist” views were less often the primary cause than the result of conflict. 143 See Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” 20; and J. J. Hanciles, “Dandeson Coates Crowther and the Niger Delta Pastorate: Blazing Torch or Flickering Flame?” IBMR 18 (1994): 166-72.

46 foreign-based missionaries. But the church was only truly planted in Nigeria when the Recaptives decided that, like them, their families needed to be introduced to Christ. Second, even though the ministry of the nineteenth century was flawed in places and could be amply criticized, the fact remains that it had begun and was conducted for nearly a century by semi-independent African agents. Yoruba believers had sought foreign assistance and they had wanted help to do and guide the work, but ultimately the burden of taking the gospel to the indigenous population of southwestern Nigeria and the Niger rested upon the shoulders of those who were native to the region. It all unfolded more by happenstance than design – whites died too readily on Africa’s west coast and there was a scarcity of personnel in missions organizations – but it was not entirely without intent. The progressive policies of Venn with his emphasis on the “euthanasia of missions” put Africans, if not first, at least, at the center of the missions initiative and the planting of the church in Nigeria. Third, it is important to note that it was when white missionaries became more than equals to African Christians that the mission to Africa began to unravel. Quinine, the use of English for daily discourse, and better educated missionary recruits all converged to diminish the contributions of native Christians and to augment the role of the white purveyors of an erudite, but culturally-corseted, historic faith. The divergence of western and African expressions of Christianity was inevitable as native Christians matured and fashioned Christ to their circumstance. But it was painful nonetheless, partly due to the parting, but moreso because of the manner in which the parting occurred. Fortunately, just as slavery was repurposed by God, the insulting dispute between African and western church leaders that centered on Crowther was repurposed as well. The subsequent transformation of Nigeria into the dynamic hub of Christianity that it is today is tribute to the people who continued to work in West Africa under God in the twentieth century. Having said this, some preliminary counsels that are directly pertinent to the Acadia affiliations may be noted here at this point. First, no matter the short-term results, 47 the best approach to Christian educational missions would seem to be one that makes place for African leaders who are full partners in the delivery of ministry. The people who labour at CINDICO and UNIDICO need to have a significant role in providing theological education in southwestern Nigeria, and they need to know that they are making a unique and important contribution to the affiliations of their schools with Acadia. Second, to do this well, a clearly defined and compelling long-term philosophy of interaction needs to be developed. With regard to CINDICO and UNIDICO, the ultimate objective of ensuring the viability of the colleges and the effectiveness of their leadership transcends even the delivery of quality education to worthy but indigent Nigerian students. For, if the former can be achieved, the latter will be secured through the continuing existence of the colleges. It needs to be believed that educators in Canada and those at CINDICO and UNIDICO are equals, separated only by differing skill sets. Since educational missions continues to be an important tool of the church, useful to make God known, the affiliate status that CINDICO and UNIDICO enjoy with AU through ADC is a valuable privilege and opportunity. To further elucidate the nature of the relationship between Canada and Nigeria, the following chapters will establish the historical context of the associations by examining the original understandings of the affiliations and the original vision of the mutual relationships. To do that the next three chapters will examine, in turn, first, the three men who were involved in crafting the affiliations, and then respectively, the histories of the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO to AU. The narrative may not provide all of the answers to all of the questions that could be asked, but it will provide the necessary background to offer reasonable and informed opinions regarding the future, if the affiliations are to continue. These opinions form the basis for the recommendations found in the last chapter of this thesis.

Chapter Two: Three Visionaries

Introduction In this chapter the key visionaries involved in the affiliations will be examined. The material is drawn from a number of sources: official files at ADC, formal interviews, email communication, personal conversations, and literature research.1 Regarding the formal interviews, I spoke with Dr. Andrew MacRae on two occasions in his office at

ADC in 2009, twice in 2012, and once in 2013. I found that he had an excellent memory for dates and details and that he was, generally, a very reliable source of information. I interviewed Dr. Michael Odelami four times, once at ADC in 20112 and then in Nigeria on three separate occasions in 2012. Since Odelami and his wife, Naomi, work as a team, Naomi was present during all of our conversations. I found that like MacRae, Odelami possessed a keen memory for dates and events. But he did tend to be selective when divulging information and sharing certain details. Generally, however, he was a credible source and his sense of history was acute. Although I did not interview Dr. S. K. Abiara because he was out of the country during my 2012 visit, I did read his biography. It was written in 1998, when Abiara was celebrating 35 years in ministry, by someone who was clearly familiar with him and his organization.3 While the account is an enthusiastic and uncritical description of Abiara’s life and work, it was a valuable source of information containing many details gleaned from a variety of sources and conversations.

1 Note that details regarding interviews, webpages, and unpublished documents, including dates, authors, and where to locate various items, are generally found in the citations and not in the Bibliography. 2 In 2011-10, Odelami, in his role as President of the Acadia Consortium of Affiliated Colleges in Nigeria, was in Wolfville at ADC delivering a report and participating in a review of the Colleges in preparation for a visit to Nigeria by Dr. R. G. Wooden in 2012-05. 3 O. Adenaike, S. K. Abiara: The Anointed Shepherd (Ibadan: Johnmof [sic] Printers, 1998).

The material in this chapter has been perused and checked for accuracy by several of the primary source persons, including MacRae, Odelami, Dr. A. M. A. Imevbore, Pastor A. O. Akinpelu, and Dr. R. Glenn Wooden.4 The information has also been cross- checked among the sources and where discrepancies have been discovered, these have been referenced in footnotes. The source details for the materials collected as a result of my personal research have been included in the references at the bottom of the page.

Key Visionaries

Three people played major roles in securing the affiliation of CINDICO and UNIDICO with AU. They were Prophet (Rev.) Dr. Michael O. Odelami, the founder and proprietor of UNIDICO; Prophet (Rev.) Dr. S. K. Abiara, the founder and proprietor of CINDICO; and (Rev.) Dr. Andrew D. MacRae, who served as the Principal of ADC and the Dean of AU’s School of Theology. Each of their roles was different and unique to themselves, yet together each was critical to the accomplishment of the task. Of the three, Odelami might be considered the fulcrum. He was involved in every aspect of the process and today continues as the liaison between Nigeria and Canada. His sense of being divinely appointed to establish a theological school in Nigeria predates, by almost a decade, the founding of either of the colleges.5 During his study period at ADC, he developed the relationships necessary to initiate the affiliation; and once begun, he had the passion, persistence, and skill to see it fulfilled. Abiara’s role as the visionary initiator and sponsor of CINDICO was equally essential. Despite his own lack of formal

4 Imevbore is the Chairman of CINDICO’s Governing Council. He has served in this role since CINDICO’s inception. Imevbore to Dockendorff, email correspondence, 2013-01-15. See also n25 → on page 78. Akinpelu is the Assembly pastor of CAC Agbala Itura, Ibadan. After studying at CINDICO for four years starting in 1986, he was one of the first nineteen graduands at CINDICO to receive degrees from AU in 1990. Akinpelu, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06-06. Both of these men are key primary sources; I found them to be forthright and reliable. On Wooden see → on page 217. 5 Odelami, interview by author, Wolfville, 2011-10-21; and Odelami, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 1st session. See → on page 54.

50 education, he was a keen strategic thinker who knew the value of education, discerned the changing times, and rallied the people and resources necessary to establish a school in which affordable theological education is made available. In addition, Abiara also had the wisdom to recruit Odelami’s assistance. If it were not for Abiara’s vision, initiative, generosity, and concern, the establishment of CINDICO and, likely, the affiliation of the two colleges would not have begun or been done. As for MacRae, he was indisputably the chief architect of the affiliations. As the Principal of ADC he was positioned to argue the case for affiliation before the University, and his global ministry and expansive vision ably suited him, as perhaps none other at the College at the time, to understand the issues and to see the value of affiliating AU through ADC with the two Nigerian colleges. In the following account it is important to attend to the indigenous themes in Abiara’s and Odelami’s story. The prophet-calling paradigm described in Appendix D is present for both of these leaders:6 they are very much Yoruba Christians imbued with the African worldview and approach to ministry. There is also a clear and recurring note concerning the need for education. This is accented both in Abiara’s and Odelami’s vision for affordable theological education and in their personal pursuit of studies. Despite their Anglican backgrounds, or perhaps because of it, both Odelami and Abiara stand in the Aladura heritage7 and draw a measure of legitimacy in their ministries by adhering to Christianised indigenous spiritual forms. This is most clearly seen in their calling and conversion. For Odelami, there are a number of important features in his story which provide insight into his sense of calling, his notion of who God is and how He works, and the power of his conviction to pursue the Lord’s work. Three things should be noted. First, Odelami stands squarely in the classic Yoruban prophetic office. Like other

6 See → on page 391. 7 On Aladura, see → on page 397.

Christian leaders before him in Nigeria, he claims to have been met and called into ministry by the Lord personally, in an encounter unmediated by any human. Second, he maintains that he has an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus such that he speaks with Christ and Christ speaks with him. And finally, Odelami asserts that Jesus’ words to him are effective, just as his prayers to Jesus are efficacious. Each of these points is impressive, but taken together they are especially important in Nigerian culture.

Odelami’s Story: Prophetic Credibility and Call to Ministry8

ꜛMichael Olushola Odelami grew up in an Anglican home in Akinlalu,9 sixty-five km (forty mi.) east northeast of Ibadan, in an area “filled with fetishes, witches and witchcraft.”10 His mother was a cloth dealer and the matron of the local Anglican Church. His father was a wealthy farmer from a renowned hunting family who grew, bought, and exported cocoa. He was also a generous Christian and a number of people joined themselves to him as workers under his care.11 As Odelami relates it though, in 1951 his father was put under a curse and killed by witches who were incensed with his interference in their spells. Purportedly, whenever they inflicted a person with illness, Odelami’s father would cure them for free using herbs. Odelami was saddened by his father’s death and this brought him to the Lord. When Odelami’s brother died three years later, supposedly also killed by charms, he thought that if he was going to survive, he would need the Lord’s help. Odelami says that he received assurance of God’s protection in a dream. In it he saw Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate, and he said to Pilate, “You! An idiot! If Jesus Christ

8 This section is based on my interview with Odelami in Wolfville, 2011-10-21. 9 Pronounced, A-kín-a-lu. The second syllable is stressed; the first “l” is silent. 10 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. 11 These people, although not indentured, were working for their keep. They were so close to the family that Odelami assumed that his father had begotten them. Ibid.

52 were alive, he would save me from these kinds of problems in which I was.”12 Odelami hit Pilate on the head with a stick and exclaimed, “You handed over my Lord to be killed!” Pilate ran after Odelami and Odelami hid himself. From hiding he called to Pilate and told him that he would never be released from his troubles – he would die there. Pilate, hearing the voice, threw a stick in Odelami’s direction, but he was neither able to hit Odelami nor find him for Jesus had called out, “Be hidden!” Then Odelami says that he saw Jesus again. He asked Jesus why Pilate did not see him and Jesus answered him directly: “I did that for you to keep you safe from your enemies. As from today, because you fight for me, I will always be with you. Call on me and I will answer you.” Immediately, Odelami woke up. He told his mother later, “Don’t worry about me. I will always be alive. Don’t fear. Don’t fear. I will not be killed.” For Odelami the importance of this story is in its consequence. It is not a testimony of his Christian salvation. That occurred at his father’s death. Rather, included in it equally are the assurance of divine protection in present circumstances, the implication of continuing good physical health, the resultant eschewing of all medicines of any kind, and perhaps most important of all, his credentials as a prophet who communes directly with Christ. In this story Odelami alleges that he was divinely ordained to be an apostle of Jesus. In this dream none other than Jesus Christ Himself commissioned him for his work. Odelami states:

Then I forsake all medicine — all charm. No, no, no, no. I don’t take anything. Nothing now. So! That’s how I knew the Lord. Nobody preached Jesus Christ to me … personal encounter with the Lord, that’s it [emphatic hand clap]. Since then I be having dream that I was healing people when I raise up hands like this. I say, “In Jesus,” and people will be healed. In my dream! And it was happening! It was happening! And that was what brought us overseas doing missionary work in 1976, until the Lord said, “Stop! Go and learn original languages of the Bible.”13

12 Odelami uses the past tense, referring to the problems he was having at the time of his dream. 13 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21.

Odelami’s Mission ꜛOdelami recalls that the Lord instructed him to stop and go study in 1979, shortly after he had returned to Nigeria from a second mission trip to Britain and the United States.14 He says that he understood clearly the reason for the message.15 In the 1970s oil had made Nigeria a very rich nation. In 1976 the naira was trading at ₦48.921 per $1US and $1CDN16 and he was able to travel wherever he chose at a relatively cheap cost. But he could see that things were not always going to be as easy. He knew that when the value of the naira fell, travelling outside the country would become almost impossible and education overseas would no longer be accessible to Nigerian students. Instead of them being trained in foreign lands, training would need to come to them. That required first of all qualified teachers and then a suitable school. As a consequence, he applied to and was accepted at London Bible College, University of London.17 But Odelami never made it to England.18 From August 1979, Odelami’s wife, Naomi, had been in Toronto studying pharmacy at George Brown College of Education19

14 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 1st session. See → on page 407. 15 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. 16 On the value of the US and Canadian dollars in 1976 see “Canadian dollar slides down below parity with $1 US,” s.vv. >More>Digital Archives>Categories>Economy & Business>Banks>Banks General, accessed 2012-08-14, http://www.cbc.ca/. In 1976 one US dollar traded for 48.921 Naira (₦). By 1989, the Naira was worth 2.62 times less ($1USD = $1.075CDN = ₦128.413). For historical exchange rates see “Real Annual Country Exchange Rates (local currency per $US),” s.v. >Data, accessed 2012-12- 14, http://www.ers.usda.gov/. 17 In 1978 the University of London validated the program at London Bible College (LBC). In 2004 LBC changed its name to London School of Theology (LST). See various sites, all accessed 2012-08-15 and all available from the LST homepage, http://www.lst.ac.uk/index.php. The historical information regarding LBC and the University of London was obtained in informal conversation with Dr. A. M. Robbins, former Senior Lecturer at LST (2009-2012) and Acting Principal of LST (2007-07 to 2008- 09), in her office at ADC on 2012-08-16. Dr. Robbins is currently (2013) the newly-appointed (2012-08) director of Doctoral Studies and Academic Dean of ADC. 18 This paragraph, except where noted, is based on my interview with Michael Odelami and his wife, Naomi Modupeola Ololade Odelami (née Laoye), in Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 1st session. Naomi’s father, John Adetoyese Laoye, was the ọba at Ede. It is interesting to note that ọba Laoye was a strong Christian, and in accordance with royal tradition, he had eight wives. Naomi was raised as a Baptist. 19 See George Brown College homepage, accessed 2013-06-16, http://www.georgebrown.ca/.

54 as a Nigerian government sponsored scholar. Her tuition and expenses were fully paid and she was granted a small living allowance as well. Naomi was convinced that Odelami should come to Canada for theological training and to persuade her point she applied to Ontario Bible College (OBC) in his name, paid the fees for the first year from her stipend,20 and sent his letter of admission to him in Nigeria. Odelami was persuaded.21 He applied for a visa to Canada and in April 1980, he arrived in Toronto and straightaway began work on a three-year BRE degree in Pastoral Studies beginning with classes in Greek. Studying through two summers, he graduated two years later on May 1, 1982.

Odelami then applied to five schools for graduate studies and was accepted at them all. After fasting and praying for three days, Odelami says, the Lord told him to go to Acadia, that He had a purpose for him there. That fall Naomi and their three children accompanied Odelami to Nova Scotia where Odelami joined the inaugural class of the Masters of Arts program at ADC. He was awarded an MA in Theology in May 1984.

Odelami’s Vision for Education

While Odelami was at ADC his vision for education in Nigeria was further strengthened. Not only did he gain valuable knowledge at the College, he also established important contacts with key people in academics. Before he left for Nigeria Odelami recalls having a conversation with the Principal, Dr. Harold L. Mitton, in his office22 that would prove critical for the future. In it he says that he was promised, “That if I go back to Nigeria to have a seminary, it could be affiliated.”23 Dr. Mitton does not recall the

20 M. and N. Odelami, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 21 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. 22 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 23 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. See also, M. O. Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges of Acadia University Canada in Nigeria (Christ International Divinity College and Universal Gospel Divinity College), by Dr. M. O. Odelami, President of the Consortium of Affiliated Colleges in Nigeria,” (report to ADC President, Wolfville, 2011-09-30), 2.

55 conversation; and he is sure that he would not have made such a definite commitment.24 But all the same time, twenty-eight years after the fact, Odelami remembers and recites the conversation vividly:

[Dr. Mitton] said, “Michael, do you want to go back to Africa when you finish?” I said, “Yes!” He said, “Why can’t you stay here?” I said, “I have a mission for the Lord in Africa, in Nigeria.” … He said, “Is it because we don’t believe in divine healing?” I said, “No! … I love you people ... We would love to stay but we cannot stay. I want to be with my people.”25 In his 2011 Situation Report to ADC, Odelami writes categorically: “The establishment of these two colleges [CINDICO and UNIDICO] was as a follow up of the promise given me by Dr. Mitton, the ADC Principal before I finished from Acadia in 1984 that there might be a possibility of affiliating any college I establish in Nigeria with AU.”26 It was a fortuitous exchange as far as Odelami was concerned. It strengthened his sense of mission, and later, Odelami left for Nigeria clearly convinced that if he started a college there that it would be supported by his alma mater. His recounting of events encouraged his church. A prophet claimed that the Lord had disclosed to him in 1975 that

Odelami’s denomination, then known as St. Paul’s Apostolic Church of Nigeria (SPAC), would one day have a seminary.27 Odelami gathered a group of students together and started a sub-degree teaching program. To begin, he taught all of the courses himself while at the same time providing oversight to SPAC and pastoring a church.28 The following year, 1985, Odelami returned to Wolfville for books for his school’s library.

24 Dr. H. L. Mitton, former Principal of ADC (1975-85), interview by author, at his home in Wolfville, 2012-07-31. Mitton suggests that since he was always supportive of students’ ministries that some of his parting words of encouragement to Odelami may have been misconstrued. Odelami acknowledged that as a possibility when he said during an interview, “Maybe he was joking with me, I don’t know.” Odelami, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. For a similar situation involving MacRae in 1990-07, see J. A. Abegunde to MacRae, 1991-03-27. Note regarding this letter that there is no Medical Faculty at AU. 25 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. 26 Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 2. 27 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. 28 MacRae, interview by author, Wolfville, 2009-10-19.

Dr. Jarold Zeman and other faculty at ADC generously donated a number of volumes which Odelami carried back to Nigeria with him.29 The issue of affiliating the new college with Acadia was not raised during the visit, but the progression was clear. This initiative later became the foundation upon which UNIDICO was built.

Prophet (Rev.) Dr. Samuel Kayode Abiara ꜛAs with Odelami, much of the legitimacy and power of Abiara’s ministry comes from the fact that it stands in the Aladura heritage and draws on Christianised African religious forms. Once again, it is important to remain alert to the indigenous themes in the narrative that follows. First, the prophet-calling paradigm is forcefully present.30 It is, perhaps, even more pronounced than with Odelami and at times Abiara’s experiences are reported in such a way that they mirror the calling and ministry of Joseph A. Babalola, the first Apostle and co-founder of the CAC.31 Second, the Yoruba worldview and its unique approach to religion can be seen in Abiara’s ministry.32 Healing and prayers, signs and wonders, and a practical emphasis on health, wealth, and prosperity are all a part of

Abiara’s calling and concerns. And third, the usual Nigerian appreciation for education, while not wholly necessary for Abiara given the nature of his prophetic calling, is accented through Abiara’s personal interest in study33 and his vision to provide the future leaders of his extensive ministry ready access to affordable theological education. In the following narrative, Abiara’s call to ministry and the story of the founding of CINDICO, along with the events that took place in Nigeria prior to October 1988, will

29 Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 2; and also, Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 30 See → on page 273 and → on page 391. 31 See → on page 274; and nn 43, 51, and 53 → on page 59, → on page 61, and → on page 61. 32 See → on page 60, → on page 380, and → on page 425. 33 See for example, Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 79 and 82.

57 be told. But, for a greater understanding of the nature and force of Abiara’s work, two other issues that seem integral to the story overall should be noted. First, Abiara roots his ministry in a series of divine visitations that serve both to authenticate his role and to enforce and expand his prophetic position. And second, Abiara has developed a clear understanding of the importance and role of a prophet. Both of these topics are discussed in the addendum to this thesis.34

Abiara’s Story: Call to Ministry

ꜛSamuel Kayode Abiara – “apostle of peace, renowned gospel minister, flaming evangelist, ordained prophet unto the nations, anointed for signs and wonders for the end- time harvest into God’s Kingdom”35 – was born at Erinmo Ijesa, Oṣun36 State, in August 1942. His father, Ambrose, was a Roman Catholic itinerant trader who because of his work was seldom home.37 Abiara’s mother, Comfort, was a godly Anglican woman. She was especially close to her son and exerted a positive influence on him and his ministry. At age six Abiara entered St. Peter’s Anglican School;38 five years later his father died.39

From that point forward he helped support his mother by working on farms and occasionally serving as a helper to bricklayers. He graduated from St. Peter’s in 195440 and left school with his Primary Six Certificate.

34 See → on page 271. 35 This list of soubriquets, reminiscent of oríkì, or praise songs (see → on page 430), honouring an ọba or one of the òrìṣà (Yoruba gods) is found on the title page to Abiara’s official biography produced in 1998 in commemoration of his thirty-fifth year in ministry. At the very least it is an example of the esteem in which Abiara is held among his congregants. It is not untypical of the appreciation and approach of the biographer. See, Title page to Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, by Adenaike, n.p. 36 The “dotted s” indicates an “sh” sound. 37 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 24-25. 38 Ibid., 22. 39 Abiara was around ten at the time. See ibid., 24. 40 Apparently, Abiara progressed steadily through his grades. Ibid., 27. If that is the case, the year in which he graduated from Primary Six would have been 1954. And given that his birthday was in August, Abiara would have been eleven years old at the time. The “Forward” to Abiara’s biography says that he

After working for a while as a labourer, Abiara finally found employment in 1960 as a clerk for Chief J. A. Agoro, a general merchant in Ibadan. Agoro was a dedicated Christian who belonged to the Gospel Apostolic denomination. He trusted Abiara and invited him to various church meetings. In 1963, during a revival service led by Prophet Ekundayo of the Christ Apostolic Church, Ibadan, Abiara gave his life to the Lord. He says, “Suddenly I felt the refreshing baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was like the day of Pentecost. I was touched by the Lord. I began to speak in a new language.”41 A few days later, Abiara relates how Jesus spoke to him in a dream, saying: “Emi ni eni isiwaju ati eni ikehin. Lati ma kede oro Emi Olorun ni mo pe o fun”— “I am the first and the last. I have called you to preach the Good News.”42 Initially, like Babalola, Abiara refused to heed the call. He decided to leave Chief Agoro and become a farmer instead. He applied to the government and received a land grant at Akufo Settlement, near Ibadan. But Abiara relates that about six months after his first visitation, the Lord appeared to him a second time in another dream and repeated His call. More encounters followed. One bright sunny morning, Abiara recalls, he was working on a tractor at Akufo when a message suddenly flashed into his consciousness. He immediately stopped working and went back to his house where he prayed and then fell asleep.43 Eventually, as God continued to meet him in dreams and through the Scriptures, Abiara’s struggles abated. He describes how he surrendered to God’s purpose and began preaching in open-air venues throughout the area and at local CAC churches.44

graduated Primary Six in 1957. See Forward to Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, by Adenaike, 7. It would appear that that year is incorrect. 41 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 32. 42 Ibid., 33. 43 Ibid., 35. ꜛApart from Abiara’s tractor not being disabled, this story is similar to the event that occurred when Babalola was called into ministry. For Babalola’s story, see I. O. Olofinjana, 20 Pentecostal Pioneers in Nigeria: Their Lives, Their Legacies, Vol. 1 (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2011), 20ff. 44 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 78.

As Abiara gained experience in speaking, other evangelists encouraged him. But as his confidence increased, so did his fear. He was keenly aware of the inadequacy of his education45 and he wondered how a village man with no affluence or academic background could ever be used to preach to others.46 One night, Abiara says, God spoke to him clearly in a vision and said: “I am glad you are preaching me, I shall pave the way for you to preach me all over the world.”47 ꜛ

Abiara’s Ministry

ꜛSince then, Abiara’s ministry has grown remarkably in the four decades from 1963 to 2013. From the beginning, he recalls that it has been marked by “signs and wonders”48 and strong preaching; women frequently received children in answer to prayer and water was used as a means to effect divine cures. These practises and events have not changed or abated over time. In 1989, the Agbala Itura Church publication, Torch of God (Ibadan), contained a three-page pictorial account entitled, “Miracles Galore,” listing miracles such as restored sight, improved hearing, and deliverance from secret societies and unnamed diseases and troubles.49 In a 2009 study of Abiara’s church, it was suggested that people are attracted to Agbala Itura because miracles occur there regularly and because the church deliberately seeks to blend orthodox Christianity with the African worldview and indigenous religious traditions and practises.50

45 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 45, 52, and 82. 46 Ibid., 134. 47 Ibid., 46. 48 In Abiara’s biography, this phrase is often used to describe Abiara’s ministry and to emphasize and validate his divine anointing. For example, see ibid., 45 and 91 respectively; see also ibid., 104. 49 “Miracles Galore,” Torch of God (Ibadan), June, 1989. 50 A. O. Ogunrinade, “Predilection for African Indigenous Practices in the Pentecostal Tradition of African Indigenous Churches with Reference to Christ Apostolic Church Agbala Itura,” Cyberjournal for Pentecostal-Charismatic Research 18 (2009): n.p., accessed 2009-08-12, http://www.pctii.org/cyberj/ cyberj18/adewale.html. See also, Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 84-85.

Abiara built his first church, Independent CAC, Oke-Igbala, near the Farm Settlement in Akufo on property given to him by the government.51 Shortly afterward he founded a second church, CAC Oke-Imole, and located it in a former garbage field at Agbeni, Ibadan.52 After the Agbeni church was constructed, Abiara decided to join the CAC denomination. He had not been affiliated with any group up until this point despite the urging of CAC officials, ever since Akufo in 1963, to identify with their Church.53 He was ordained as a CAC pastor at Ilesha in August 1982.54 The ministry at CAC Agbala Itura, Ibadan was started in 1977. Abiara says that in a dream, about the second week in March, he was mandated by God to build a place of wellness in what at the time was an overgrown empty field,55 a piece of land that had been donated by a grateful parishioner who had been healed from a difficult problem.56 Since its inauguration on October 12th 1977, CAC Agbala Itura (Vineyard of Comfort) has grown to include 100,000 people57 with an active ministry in the community through a Healing House, multiple Yoruba and English services, and a ministry to children and the youth. Currently there are sixty-five fulltime pastors working at the Ibadan site,58 which serves as the international headquarters for CAC Agbala Itura churches worldwide.

51 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 84. ꜛAs with Babalola and the original Aladura leaders of the Precious Stone Society, Abiara claims that God gave the name of this church to him in a dream. 52 Ibid., 86-88. Abiara claims that God revealed to him the name of this church and gave him the directive to build it on the refuse area. 53 Ibid., 88. ꜛAgain Abiara’s experience parallels Babalola’s here. Babalola began his ministry as an independent, itinerate preacher. In 1929 he was approached by officials from Faith Tabernacle and invited to join them. See → on page 400. 54 A. M. A. Imevbore, foreword to Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, by Adenaike, 7. 55 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 89-90. God gave the name of the church to Abiara twice, once each time in two dreams. 56 Ibid., 88. The man was a leading member of the Agbeni church. The “problem” is not defined but the healing is described as being “complete, both physically and psychologically.” 57 Akinpelu to Dockendorff, email correspondence, 2013-01-10. 58 According to Akinpelu, there are approximately 153 pastors working full-time worldwide in the CAC Agbala Itura ministries as of 2013. Ibid.

Each year since 1982 the church hosts a two-week prayer forum called Jesus Festival International.59 Over 50,000 people60 gather to hear internationally recognized pastors preach the Word of God. Many worshippers expect to receive divine healings. Beginning in 1980 Abiara began planting CAC Agbala Itura churches in key cities in a number of countries around the world. While these branches are open to everyone, they especially appeal to Nigerians in Diaspora. Today, in addition to CAC Agbala Itura churches located in Nigeria, the ministry has satellite sites on three continents in twelve countries.61 Most are strategically located in major centers such as

New York, Dallas, Toronto, London, and Athens. Abiara is also the Director General of his own outreach ministry, Christ International Evangelistic Ministry (CIEM), started in 1976 and reorganized in 1984 for more effective global impact using television, radio, and print media.62 As part of his expanding vision for the church, Abiara founded CINDICO in September 1986.63 Since its founding, of the ninety-five full-time Agbala Itura pastors in Nigeria, sixty-eight churches are being pastored by CINDICO graduates. Another nine CINDICO graduates are serving in Agbala Itura churches outside of

Nigeria.64 Abiara is the Chancellor and sole proprietor of CINDICO.

Concern for Education Abiara has always been concerned for education in the ministry. Early in his own work he recognized that he needed to develop spiritual and academic depth. He highlighted the critical importance of intentional learning in his biography when he said,

59 See Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 145-52. 60 Akinpelu to Dockendorff, email correspondence, 2013-01-10. 61 Ibid. 62 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 103-06ff. 63 Ibid., 153. 64 Akinpelu to Dockendorff, email correspondence, 2013-01-10.

… I realized that I had a purpose and a mission to fulfill. Therefore, I decided to brush myself up educationally. I also did not forget, I needed to grow spiritually too. I needed to have more knowledge about the Word of God so as to win people to Christ, especially the enlightened ones. It is impossible for an educationally broadminded person to allow a person of lower academic status to lead him, moreso when the latter would not be able to express himself concisely and effectively. So every night before I slept, I disciplined myself to studying for at least two hours.65 Initially tutored by his “spiritual father,” Evangelist D. O. Babajide,66 Abiara later attended the CAC Theological Seminary, Ile-Ifé, where he took pastoral training for two years.67 In 1986 he received a Doctorate in Divinity from St. John’s University Mission,

Luciana, USA. And one year later, in 1987, he was awarded a Doctorate of Humanities from International Bible Institute and Seminary, Plymouth, Florida.68 As Abiara’s spiritual empire expanded one of the evident needs for continued success in both his evangelistic outreach and church ministry was properly trained workers.69 Like Odelami, Abiara could see the necessity and the value of equipping pastors locally and he wanted to build a Bible college where qualified students could receive low-cost, rigorous instruction that would provide them with academically sound and reputable degrees. Abiara had the resources to accomplish his vision but he needed people with administrative and academic expertise to help establish the college. Someone70 approached Odelami to discuss Abiara’s idea for a school. Knowing

65 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 82. 66 Babajide served as the second General Evangelist for the CAC from 1959-1991. See “CAC Gen Evangs,” accessed 2012-08-10, http://www.cacworldwide.net/info/about.asp?idm=355. 67 S. K. Abiara, “Message from the Founder,” Torch of God (Ibadan), [June?] 1988. 68 See Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 12; and Abiara, “Message from the Founder.” 69 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 154. 70 ꜛIn his 2011 “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” on the 2nd page, Odelami writes merely, “In 1986, mysteriously, the Lord brought me into the establishment of CINDICO for Dr. Abiara.” Whoever it was, this person was not Abiara. Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21.

Odelami’s academic credentials, his passion for religious training, and his reputation for leadership in his own church, they apprised him of the need and urged him to assist.71

(Rev.) Dr. Andrew Donald MacRae The final person involved in the affiliation of CINDICO with Acadia was Dr. Andrew Donald MacRae. The following section will provide a précis of his ministerial and academic background. The discussion will extend outside the immediate frame of the narrative in order to profile several of the initiatives introduced or promoted by MacRae during his 13-year tenure as Principal of ADC (1985-1998). The thrust of this data is to show that when MacRae set out to review and later to achieve the affiliation of CINDICO with AU, he brought the same energy and focus to that process as he used elsewhere in his ministry. It will also show that MacRae possessed skills and a breadth of international experience that few at ADC had at the time. After first examining MacRae’s early ministry, the narrative will describe his principalship at ADC. It will then conclude by suggesting five reasons why MacRae might be considered to have been providentially placed at ADC for the task of associating CINDICO and UNIDICO to AU.

MacRae’s Early Ministry 72

MacRae was born in January 1933 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied theology at the University of Edinburgh and received both his BA and BD from there. He was ordained into the Christian ministry in 1957 and over twelve years he pastored three churches in Scotland (1954-1966). While at his second church in Dundee he honed his interest in evangelism, world mission, and Christian education. For fourteen years

71 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. 72 For background information on MacRae see A. D. MacRae, “Curriculum Vitae,” companion vol. of source docs., “CINDICO and UNIDICO: Affiliation Letters and Documents, 1989–2006,” ECWA/ADCPO, or the CD affixed to the back cover of this thesis; and “Andrew MacRae,” s.vv. >about >faculty, accessed 2012-09-13, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/home.html.

64 starting in 1966, MacRae served as the General Secretary and Superintendent of the Baptist Union of Scotland. During that same time he was also involved in the European Baptist Federation (EBF) where he was appointed as Vice President (1968-1970) and President (1970-1972). He ministered extensively in Western Europe and the Soviet bloc preaching and teaching. After his Presidency he served as the Chairman of the EBF’s Evangelism and Education Committee (1973-1980) for eight years. Around the time that his work with the EBF was going on, MacRae was also deeply engaged with the Baptist World Alliance (BWA, 1965-1995) where he served as both a member and the Chair of the BWA Commission on Christian Teaching and Training (1965-1975). After 1975 he was an initiator and member of the BWA Division of Evangelism and Education (1975- 1990). Between 1970 and 1975 he travelled as one of five-key evangelists appointed by the BWA to be part of their “World Mission of Reconciliation” campaign. In that role he preached throughout Asia and in other world locations.73 As a result of his global ministry MacRae had an intimate understanding of, and appreciation for, Christianity around the world. For more than two decades he showed himself to be an effective communicator and administrator outside the church. And in the course of his work he formed a number of important friendships with other global Christian leaders.74 MacRae’s experience in Nigeria began in 1968. On behalf of the BWA he preached and conducted Christian Education seminars throughout the country. He visited key churches from Lagos in the south to Kaduna in the north to the Niger Delta region in the east during the height of the Nigerian Civil War.75 It was not a time for the timid. On

73 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19; and MacRae, interview by author, Wolfville, 2012-09-12. In Asia, MacRae preached in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Indonesia (1970). For other locations during this time period, including engagements in the USSR on behalf of the EBF (1971) and in the United States (1974) and Australia (1974), see MacRae, “C. V.” 74 See MacRae’s comment in “A Word from the Principal and Dean,” ADC 1993-1994 Calendar, 5; and also MacRae, interview by author, Wolfville, 2012-09-19. 75 MacRae to Dockendorff, email correspondence, 2012-10-05.

65 one excursion near Port Harcourt, in southeastern Nigeria – in company with two Southern Baptist single women missionaries in their fifties: “Absolute saints! With the courage of lions!”76 – MacRae was stopped at a checkpoint just before a bridge, had an automatic rifle thrust against his ear, and was ordered to produce his passport. After an extremely tense couple of moments, a Corporal in the army intervened, dismissing the aggressive young soldier. He had noticed the “Baptist Mission” sign in the window of the car. He turned MacRae’s passport right side up, and after apologizing for the inconvenience and disclosing that he too was a Baptist, he waved them on their way.77

Professor and Principal of ADC In 1979, after an extended series of communications, MacRae was invited by ADC to become the first holder of the Sheldon and Marjorie Fountain Chair in Evangelism and Mission, the first Chair in Evangelism and Mission in Canada.78 By this time MacRae’s pastoral, denominational, and international experience was extensive. He had been involved, personally, in evangelistic and Bible-teaching ministry in more than fifty countries on every continent79 and he was a desirable addition to the Divinity College faculty. MacRae came to Acadia in 1980 and for the next five years he lectured full time, travelled widely across Canada and into the United States, and completed his PhD thesis. He received his degree from the University of St. Andrews in 1984. The following year, 1985, MacRae was appointed as Principal of ADC and named the Dean of the School of Theology of AU. He immediately began to increase the

76 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 77 Ibid., and MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2012-09-12. 78 See A. D. MacRae, “The Acadia Story: Training Baptist Ministers in the Maritimes, The Story of the Acadia Divinity School,” (paper prepared by MacRae and read in his absence to the Baptist World Alliance Academic and Theological Work Group at the 2001-07 General Council, Charlottetown, PE, 2001-07-05), accessed 2012-08-12, http://www.bwa-baptist-heritage.org/macrae.htm. Also see: “Andrew MacRae,” accessed 2012-09-13, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/home.html. 79 See MacRae, “C. V.”; and MacRae, “A Word from the Principal and Dean,” 5.

College’s position and prestige by securing in 1988 the University’s only doctoral program at the time.80 He was a stalwart advocate for the College before the University, and he frequently insisted that the College be recognized for its official relationship as the University’s School of Theology.81 He continued to travel extensively, making numerous trips to visit with Baptist constituents in the Maritime region of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. In keeping with his concern for the College, MacRae often favoured the interests of ADC over his own pursuits. Whereas it might have been more advantageous professionally for him to publish academic studies and books, he opted to attend conferences in which he could promote the College. On one occasion, as a direct result of these efforts and after a two-year search, he secured Dr. Jerry Barnes as professor of Evangelism. Barnes was working at the time with the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States. He was seconded to the College at no cost to ADC for Barnes’ entire three-year term.82 MacRae was also heavily involved in a three-year endowment stratagem for the College, The Living Legacy, designed to provide long-term financial stability to the School and to support its scholarship and bursary program. The campaign exceeded its $3 million target by $800,000.83 As Dean of the School of Theology, MacRae developed strategic relationships with key officials at the University and throughout the United Baptist Convention of the Atlantic Provinces

80 See, MacRae, “The Acadia Story.” In 1988-01, the DMin degree program was approved in the Senate of AU and forwarded to the Maritime Provinces’ Higher Education Commission (MPHEC) for consideration. See Acadia University Senate (AUS) Mins., 1988-01-11, 61, f.f. “Senate Minutes 1987- 1988,” ECWA. In order to ensure its credibility as a substantive academic degree, MacRae insisted that the program had to be endorsed by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) as well as by MPHEC. (MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2012-09-12.) Both bodies approved the DMin in 1988 after a rigorous collaborative examination. (MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2012-09-19.) 81 See → on page 166. 82 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 83 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2012-09-12.

(UBCAP).84 He deliberately restricted his travels to North America, except to provide oversight to affiliated colleges on behalf of AU. Between 1989 and 1998 he visited CINDICO and UNIDICO six and five times, respectively.85 MacRae’s tenure as the Principal of ADC and Dean of Acadia’s School of Theology was longer than any of his predecessors.86 He retired in 1998 after thirteen years of service. In retirement, in addition to teaching in Evangelism and Mission, he pastored Grace Chapel in Halifax (1999-2003) half-time, and also worked as the Director of Doctoral Studies (2000-2010).87 In 2004, after having already received a Doctor of

Divinity (DD) degree from Campbellsville University, Kentucky in 1979, MacRae received another honourary doctorate, this time from AU. As of 2013 he continues as ADC’s Sheldon and Marjorie Fountain Professor of Evangelism and Mission, Emeritus (1998-present), Senior Consultant to the Doctor of Ministry Program, Life and Ministry Coach, and Liaison for Hong Kong Ministries (1997-present).88

84 In 1905-06, three groups of Baptists in the Maritimes joined to form the United Baptist Convention of the Maritime Provinces (UBCMP). After Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, UBCMP changed its name in 1963 to the United Baptist Convention of the Atlantic Provinces (UBCAP), the name used during MacRae’s principalship. In 2001 UBCAP was changed to its present form, the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches (CABC). See “Our history,” s.v. >our convention, accessed 2012-09-15, http://baptist-atlantic.ca/our-convention/our-history/; and P. Reid, ed., 2012 Year Book of the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches A1-A6, accessed 2012-09-15, http://baptist-atlantic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012 /02/convention_yearbook_2012.pdf. When referring to the Convention, this paper uses the name that was used by the Convention during the time period being discussion. 85 See MacRae, “C. V.” 86 See MacRae, “The Acadia Story.” 87 MacRae, email correspondence, 2012-10-05. During the years that MacRae was not at Grace Chapel, he carried full-time responsibility for directing the DMin program (2004-2010) at ADC. Under his leadership it reached its highest growth period to that date. MacRae to Dockendorff, email correspondence, 2012-12-24. 88 DeSchiffart to Dockendorff, email correspondence, 2013-03-19. See also “Andrew MacRae.” accessed 2012-09-13, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/home.html.

Providential Placement From a faith perspective it would appear that MacRae was providentially placed at ADC to fulfill the vision that God had planted in Odelami’s heart. There are five considerations that might support this idea. First, MacRae combined his passion for the Gospel with a global perspective. His years of active involvement in personal and crusade evangelism fuelled a conspicuously inclusive worldview. He had worked with divers people in a number of different countries and was sensitive to cultural conditions and needs in other regions. Second, MacRae brought an “outsider’s” perspective to the

College’s mission. He was and continues to be the only person not from North America to have served as the principal of ADC. All of the others have either been from Atlantic Canada or the United States.89 Named as the College’s Principal only three years before Odelami’s suit for affiliation in 1988, MacRae was prepared for the challenge of a non- Western, international affiliation as few others at ADC might have been at the time. Third, MacRae possessed a keen mind and a determined spirit. He readily engaged new ideas and untried projects. As an academic, who had previously been immersed in educational programs for years, he was professionally qualified to evaluate Odelami’s

89 ADC was founded in 1968 as a concession by AU to UBCAP during the secularization of the University. Originally founded by the Baptists as a nondenominational school in 1838, in 1966 when control of the University was finally transferred to the Board of Governors of Acadia from the Convention, AU granted UBCAP the right to continue theological education through a separate yet affiliated School of Theology housed in its own facility located on the University campus. Dr. M. Cherry, a Southern Baptist from Kentucky who had been the professor of Theology at AU since 1957, became the new School’s first Principal (1968-71). Abner Langley (1971-75), a Baptist from Atlantic Canada, followed him, and H. L. Mitton, (1975-85), originally a Baptist born in 1919 in Moncton, NB, was called to be Principal while serving a church in Calgary, AB. Andrew MacRae was a Scotsman, born in Edinburgh. The longest serving Principal to date, he served for thirteen years from 1985-98 after having filled the Chair of Evangelism from 1980-85. Lee McDonald (1999-2007), an American Baptist from California, succeeded him as “President” of the College. Harry G. Gardner (2008- present) is the current President of ADC. A Baptist, he was born in NS and served as the Executive Minister of CABC (1996-2007) for twelve years. See MacRae, “The Acadia Story”; Reid, 2012 Year Book of CABC, A-6; “Harry G. Gardner,” s.vv. >about>faculty, accessed 2012-09-15, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/home.html; Harold L. Mitton, “Interview with Dr. Harold Mitton Pt1.m4v” (Video interview), interview by Dr. Bob Wilson, 1995-12-14, Living History, interviews with past ADC faculty, accessed 2012-09-15, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzA0Zh59HJM&feature =relmfu; and “Andrew MacRae,” accessed 2012-09-13, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/home.html.

69 efforts, and as a practitioner he was personally provoked by the opportunity for further global Christian expansion and training. In 2001 he wrote regarding his leadership at the College: “One of my dreams, which the college Faculty and Board shared, was to try to enlarge the influence of the college in partnership with schools in other lands and cultures.”90 Before the end of his tenure he had supervised the affiliation of three new theological colleges with AU through ADC: CINDICO and UNIDICO in Nigeria and Bethel Bible Seminary in Hong Kong. These three were added to the affiliation already secured in 1980 by Mitton with the Centre d’Études Théologiques Évangéliques

(CÉTÉ)91 in Montreal.92 Fourth, MacRae was a powerful advocate for causes in which he believed. Once he had investigated the situation in Nigeria and was convinced of the integrity of the work and of the value and potential of providing accredited theological training locally, he argued the affiliation persuasively before the AUS based on the merits and promise of the relationship. Between 1989 and 1998 he made 6 visits to Nigeria93 to confer more than 160 degrees,94 to award two full scholarships to Nigerian students,95 and to conduct triennial affiliation consultations and reviews. Fifth, and perhaps the most important of all for MacRae, he always attempted to respond to what he sensed clearly to be God’s will for him. He comments,

90 See MacRae, “The Acadia Story.” 91 In 1994 the name of the school was changed from CÉTÉ to the Faculté de Théologie Évangélique (FTÉ). For a brief history, in French, of the Faculté, see “Historique,” s.v. >À propos, accessed 2012-09-21, http://www.fteacadia.ca/. 92 See MacRae, “The Acadia Story.” For more on the four colleges affiliated with AU through ADC, see Acadia Divinity College Handbook, 2012-2013 Academic Year, 6-7, accessed 2013-08-01, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/adc/Admissions/ADC%20Calendar%2012-13%20-%20FINAL.pdf. 93 See MacRae, “C. V.” 94 See MacRae, “The Acadia Story.” 95 Full scholarships were given to A. Kuyebi and E. Tukasi in 1990 at CINDICO’s graduation (MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19). Full scholarships were awarded to L. Lasisi and S. Okunola in 1991. See MacRae, “Convocation Address at CINDICO Graduation, January 1993,” 1993-01-16, 1-2, delivered at Erinmo, January 16, 1993, ADCPO. See also → on page 131.

“If God is calling, and you once know it, your options are closed.” That’s a phrase I use personally. It’s burned into my thinking, into my soul, because that was my experience. If you are sure God has called, you don’t get in the way. You just say, “Yes, Lord. Now give me the grace to do what I have to do.” … I have a very deep conviction that I ought not to make a move unless I am sure God is in it, and is mandating it. But once I’m clear about that, if I’m clear about that, then, the game’s over! The fighting is gone and I won’t fight it anymore.96 On at least three occasions prior to 1988 MacRae sensed that the Lord’s direction for his ministry was particularly evident. The first was in 1966 when he was elected as General Secretary and Superintendent of the Baptist Union of Scotland at the age of thirty-three. There were nineteen people on the selection committee; the youngest was sixty-five. After a rigorous search, they were each given a list of nineteen candidates and asked to identify the single name on the paper that they would recommend to be the next General Secretary. On every sheet the sole name underlined was “Andrew MacRae.” The second was when he was nominated as the Vice President of the EBF. In 1968 Ronald Goulding, the BWA Secretary for Europe who was living in London at the time, asked MacRae to accompany him to Hamburg, Germany, for an EBF Council meeting. As

MacRae recalls, “I went as an onlooker. I came back as Vice President! And two years later I was President.”97 The other incidence was when he was nominated to be the principal of ADC. According to MacRae he was totally disinterested in the position and he told the Chairman of the ADC Board of Trustees, George Lohnes, that he felt absolutely no conviction to have his name stand for the position. However, when Lohnes approached him after a Board meeting three weeks later and said that he had been unanimously selected as Principal by his colleagues and the Board, MacRae and his wife,

Jean, sought God’s will in the matter and became convinced that God truly was in the

96 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2012-09-12. 97 Ibid.

71 appointment.98 In light of MacRae’s sensitivity to divine leading, unbeknownst to Odelami, the manner and the conviction with which he presented his request to MacRae was destined to have great bearing upon how willing MacRae was to help and how confident he was to work to secure CINDICO’s goal. That story, and its outcome, will be told in the next chapter.

Summary This chapter has described the background and ministry of the three people key to the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO with AU. The purpose of the narrative was to reveal the strength of their convictions, gifts, and experience in order to understand better how their character and abilities helped them to establish the unique relationship that exists between the colleges in Nigeria and AU. While they are inimitable as individuals, it should be noted that they shared five characteristics that suited them particularly for the work of affiliation. First, each of them possessed a high sense of the call of God on their lives and a deep commitment to do whatever they were convinced He was asking them to do. For Abiara and Odelami their experience of Jesus was mediated in visions and dreams. For MacRae, his conviction of being in Christ’s service was, perhaps, less dramatic, but it was no less real. Regardless, all of these men, once persuaded of having been appointed to an inviolable purpose, were completely dedicated to the task. Second, each of them was an accomplished and visionary leader prior to the initial request in 1988 to affiliate CINDICO with Acadia. Importantly as well, their experience extended to the global stage. Their perspective of God and His mission was expansive and unrestricted by parochial interests and concerns. Third, each of the key leaders in the affiliation was dedicated to teaching others about God and all of them were convinced of the value and need of education and educational missions. As individuals they were committed to

98 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2012-09-12.

72 personal, continual learning; and as a group they were intent on helping others acquire quality education and training so that the next generation of Christian leaders might be properly equipped to represent God effectively to the world and in the church. Fourth, each of these men was accustomed to accomplishment. Not only had they maintained ministries, they had created them. They had envisioned preferable futures, equipped themselves with the skills necessary to bring them to pass, identified and rallied scarce resources, and persevered until their visions had become realities. They were strategic thinkers. And finally, they had been recognized by their peers for their talents and achievements. They were effective leaders with credible ministries who others trusted not only to lead but to have the necessary integrity to attract others who would follow. In the next chapter the narrative continues. It will describe how this constellation of characters and talents helped unite a newly-founded college in Nigeria with one of Canada’s oldest educational institutions. Begun in October 1988, the affiliation of CINDICO with AU was accomplished sixteen months later in January 1990. It would require all of the patience and persistence of people who, once convinced of the necessity and value of the work, would not relax until they completed what they felt God had asked them to do. The next chapter will pick up the narrative with the founding of CINDICO in 1985. The challenges and circumstances of that start-up were to lead directly to Odelami’s request, during ADC’s Hayward Week, for a partnership with his alma mater.

Chapter Three: The Affiliation of CINDICO

Introduction Most of this chapter will describe the founding of CINDICO and the pioneering work that helped establish the College’s affiliation with AU. The history will be traced from 1985 when Abiara first organized CINDICO, through to 1988 when Odelami and Babs Mala first visited MacRae, to 1990 when the first Acadia degrees were passed out at the newly-affiliated college. It is a remarkable story of collaboration and diplomacy, of determination and success. The chapter will conclude by identifying several background issues that makes the affiliation of CINDICO to AU all the more noteworthy. As with the previous chapter, the material in this narration is drawn from official files at ADC, formal interviews, email communication, personal conversations, and literature research. The content of the chapter has been checked for accuracy both by persons directly involved in the negotiations and by others knowledgeable in different aspects of the affiliation.1 It has also been cross-checked using a variety of literary sources.2

1 I interviewed and confirmed material with Drs. Imevbore, MacRae, Odelami, Perkin, and Wooden. I also spoke with or contacted A. O. Akinpelu in Nigeria, R. Jotcham, the registrar (2013) of AU, S. Peverill, the registrar and manager of Student Services (2013) at ADC, L. Higgins, assistant to S. Peverill (2013), as well as Drs. C. Killacky, H. Mitton and A. Robbins. References to these people in the text include brief descriptions of their roles, as warranted. I was unable to obtain an interview with Dr. S. K. Abiara since he was out of the country during my visit to Nigeria in 2012, but I did read all of the correspondence written by and to him in the official College files located in ADCPO. In accordance with convention, source details for interviews are found in the notes and not in the Bibliography. 2 I rigourously reviewed the correspondence exchanged by the various leaders in the affiliation processes, including, but not restricted to Abiara, MacRae, Odelami, and Perkin. In addition, I consulted university websites, journal articles, unpublished ADC reports and memos, Agbala Itura Church magazines, Acadia University Senate (AUS) Minutes, AU Convocation records, and Graduation bulletins from the Nigerian Colleges. Details regarding webpages and unpublished documents, including dates and where items are located, are found primarily in the citations, not in the Bibliography. Copies of most letters, reports, and meeting minutes cited in this chapter and in Chapters 4 and 5 may be found in the companion vol. of source docs., “CINDICO and UNIDICO: Affiliation Letters and Documents, 1989–2006,” ECWA/ADCPO, or the CD affixed to the back cover of this thesis. AUS mtg. mins. are located in ECWA.

CINDICO and Indigenous Christian Education As Abiara’s spiritual empire expanded, one of the evident needs for continued success in both his evangelistic outreach and church ministry was properly trained workers.3 Like Odelami, Abiara could see the necessity and the value of equipping pastors locally and he wanted to build a Bible college where qualified students could receive low-cost, rigorous instruction that would provide them with academically sound and reputable degrees. Abiara had the resources needed to accomplish his vision but he had to find people with sufficient administrative and academic expertise to help establish the college. At the time Odelami had only just returned from studies at ADC. He had already started a Bible school of his own and he was overseeing SPAC as well. So when plans for CINDICO were announced in 1986, someone approached Odelami to discuss Abiara’s idea for a theological school.4

Start Up Challenges The cornerstone for CINDICO was laid on December 14, 1985 at Abiara’s birthplace, Erinmo Ijesa.5 The College was opened nine months later on September 13, 1986 with 100 students.6 Prior to the opening Odelami met with CINDICO’s Board of Trustees.7 According to Odelami, originally he was supposed to have been hired as the

3 See Adenaike, S. K. Abiara: The Anointed Shepherd (Ibadan: Johnmof [sic] Printers, 1998), 154. 4 See n70 → on page 63. 5 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 154. 6 Mala and Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on Christ International Divinity College, Erimo-Ijesa, Osun State, Nigeria Presented to Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University, Wolfville, Canada” (report submitted for triennium affiliation review, [Erinmo-Ijesa, Nigeria, 1993-01?]), 1. 7 Odelami mentions merely that he met with CINDICO’s Board. Odelami, interview by author, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. According to MacRae’s 1990 “Report to AUS,” which followed the governance described in Odelami’s 1989 “Self-Study Report on CINDICO”, the College was governed by three Boards: the Board of Trustees, the Senate, and the Academic Board. Of these three, likely only the Trustees Board, a small group of five people, was constituted at this point. See A. MacRae, “Report and Recommendations to Acadia University Senate,” report presented to the AUS, Wolfville, 1990-01-08, 4; and Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on Christ International Divinity College Erinmo Nigeria Presented to Acadia Divinity College as a Basis for Requesting Affiliation with Acadia University by the Provost, Dr.

College’s Provost but because of his academic training he was asked to teach the students instead.8 Rev. Dr. Peter Ayọdele, a Baptist minister,9 who was retained as interim Provost,10 and Rev. M. Agbebakun, the Administrative Secretary, shared administrative responsibilities.11 Odelami helped interview the incoming students for the inaugural class, developed the curriculum, and prepared lectures based on his studies at OBC and ADC. Initially he taught almost all of the subjects. Naomi, his wife, lectured in Church History, Methods of Bible Study, and Womanhood;12 and as other teachers were added later that fall, Odelami handed over responsibilities for courses to them.13 Unfortunately, shortly into the academic year the Provost “messed up.”14 Odelami left the College after the first semester at the end of December 1986 and took a position as lecturer at the University of Ifé, Ile-Ifé (now known as Obafemi Awolowo University [OAU]15) on a one year

M. O. Odelami,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, Nigeria, 1989-09?]), 2. The Senate was CINDICO’s Board of Management, which as a result of affiliation, was later reorganized and renamed the Governing Council. 8 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21; and Odelami, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06- 18, 2nd session. 9 Rev. (Pastor) J. O. Olunlade, Provost of CINDICO (2008-present[2013]), interview by author, Afotem Hotel, Ibadan, 2012-06-11. 10 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 11 Mala and Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, 1993-01?]), 1. 12 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 13 Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21. 14 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. See also M. O. Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges of Acadia University Canada in Nigeria (Christ International Divinity College and Universal Gospel Divinity College), by Dr. M. O. Odelami, President of the Consortium of Affiliated Colleges in Nigeria,” (report to ADC President, Wolfville, 2011-09-30), 2. During Odelami’s interview, he did not disclose the nature of the problem. 15 The University of Ifé was founded in 1962. Its name was changed to OAU on 1987-05-12 in honour of Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909–87), the first premier of the Western Region of Nigeria. See, “The White Paper on the Visitation Panel to OAU (Series VII),” (OAU publication, 2012-05-14), accessed 2012-12-9, http://bulletin.oauife.edu.ng/component/content/article/17-may14th/187-visitation?format=pdf. See also, D. Oluodo, “Nigeria’s ‘name-branded’ Universities,” The Nation Online, 2012-03-06, accessed 2012-12-09, http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/online-special/48860-nigeria%E2%80%99s -%E2%80%98name-branded%E2%80%99-universities.html.

National Service posting.16 Ayọdele was dismissed and Rev. E. L. Ashamoah, a Ghanaian,17 took his place. Without Odelami’s strong academic skills and administrative abilities, CINDICO was in danger of floundering. The first set of students was scheduled to graduate in May 1989 and as of yet no suitable accreditation had been secured for the school. Abiara had approached Grace College, a private liberal arts college at Winona Lake, Indiana,18 for affiliation, but negotiations had fallen through primarily for economic reasons.19 In 1986 the Naira underwent a drastic devaluation, losing over half of its value.20 As a result, it was all but impossible to conclude an arrangement that would have required Nigerian students to study and stay at Grace College for their fourth and final year of schooling. But not being able to achieve affiliation with Grace College and have it grant Bachelor degrees to qualified students was only part of the problem. Of a much larger concern was CINDICO’s institutional legitimacy and legality. Since independence, by 1988, Nigeria had been ruled by Islamic leaders for nearly sixteen of twenty-six years.21

16 Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, 1989-09?]), 1; also, Odelami, interview, Wolfville, 2011-10-21; and Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 17 Olunlade, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-11. 18 Grace College is associated with the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches (FGBC). For Grace College see the homepage, accessed 2012-08-25, http://www.grace.edu/. For the FGBC see their homepage, accessed 2012-11-15, http://www.fgbc.org/. And for the FGBC history see “The FGBC Story,” accessed 2012-11-15, http://www.fgbc.org/contents/show/33. 19 1988-89 CINDICO Prospectus, (Ibadan: Oluwadunsin Printing, [1987?]), 11. 20 In 1986 the Nigerian government introduced a scheme called the Second Tier Foreign Exchange Market (SFEM) as part of its attempt to reduce debt and satisfy creditors within the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Immediately the Nigerian currency was negatively affected. For more on SFEM and its impact on Nigeria during the 1980s see “The Foreign Exchange Market in Nigeria,” s.vv. >international operations >FX market, accessed 2012-08-25, http://www.cenbank.org/; and D. N. Ike, “The Evolution and Operation of the Second-Tier Foreign Exchange Market (SFEM) in Nigeria: An Appraisal,” The Indian Jour. of Economics 70, pt. I (1989): 93-108, accessed 2012-04-26, http://eprints.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/id/eprint /681. For historical exchange rates see “Real Annual Country Exchange Rates (local currency per $US),” s.v. >Data, accessed 2012-12-14, http://www.ers.usda.gov/. 21 Nigerian’s first president, Balewa, was a Muslim; he served six years from 1960-66. Shagari, a democratically elected Fulani Muslim, served as Nigeria’s president for four years from 1979-83. Buhari, a Hausa Muslim, ruled for a year and a half, 1984-85, until Babangida, a Hausa Muslim, deposed him and

During that time Nigerian universities had become heavily impregnated by an Islamic bias and Christian students were finding it difficult to gain admission to national universities such as Ibadan, Lagos, and Ifé. Their numbers were deliberately restricted.22 What is more, when CINDICO was founded the country was ruled by Babangida (1985- 1993) and under him the Nigeria government was no longer licensing new colleges and closing institutions operating without proper credentials.23 For new Christian colleges, affiliation with a local university was unattainable, so the only other remedy was to establish affiliation with a recognized foreign university. If that could be done, then

CINDICO would immediately gain both credibility and sanction in Nigeria.24 If a foreign affiliation could not be negotiated, then, inevitably, the college would be forced to close. In 1988, both Abiara and Imevbore,25 the chairman of CINDICO’s Board, urged Odelami to return to CINDICO as its Provost.26 Odelami agreed on the condition that he

assumed military control. After 1985, and including Babangida’s rule, successive Islamic military governments would be in power for another fourteen years until 1999. 22 MacRae, interview by author, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. See Imevbore’s comment, “Much has happened (in Nigeria) to heighten differences between (Christianity and Islam) … especially within institutions of higher learning. … Christianity is facing a challenge of a scale and immediacy unlike any we have had before.” Imevbore to Perkin, “Message of Appreciation by Dr. A. M. A. Imevbore, Chairman, Governing Council of Christ International Divinity College, (CINDICO), Ilesha Nigeria to the Senate of Acadia University, Canada,” [1990-05?], 2. 23 See Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27, encl. “Notice of Meeting with the Association of Approved Continuing Education Centres.” 24 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. One of the favourable considerations regarding Grace College for CINDICO was that it was “an American University recognised by the Federal Government of Nigeria.” 1988-89 CINDICO Prospectus, 11. In 1990-03-27, after affiliation with Acadia had been achieved for CINDICO, Odelami remarked to MacRae concerning his college, UNIDICO: “A letter of affiliation is just enough to convince our government that we (UNIGAC) have an Overseas backing and the college (UNIDICO) shall not be closed down.” In an address originally intended to be read at the 1990-05 Acadia Convocation (see Abiara to MacRae, 1990-04-05), but redirected to the Acadia Senate (MacRae to Abiara, 1990-05-02), and eventually given as a letter to Perkin (see note attached to Imevbore’s address), Imevbore reported that, “Private Universities have been banned by law. … Moreover, the Theological Colleges set up by bodies outside Universities are now being asked by the National Universities Commission … to seek affiliation with Universities.” Imevbore to Perkin, “Message of Appreciation,” [1990-05?], 2. 25 ꜛ(50)ꜛ(80)Imevbore earned a PhD from the University of London (1964) and taught at OAU for thirty years (1964-1994), retiring as Professor of Zoology (1994). He has published or contributed to nine books and authored seventy-eight scholarly journal articles and fifty-four technical reports. He played a

78 was given full academic control of the College.27 Abiara agreed and Odelami took over as Provost of CINDICO on April 1, 1988.28 The first and most critical task was to obtain accreditation for the college and Abiara urgently requested Odelami to approach AU.29 Odelami began his work by implementing four actions. First he insisted that the College operate on a basis similar to institutions in North America. He made all of the standards for grading of students, evaluation of students, and appointment of faculty parallel to the standards used at AU.30 Second, he ensured that the program was specific to the Nigerian context. Many of the courses taught at CINDICO were based on

Odelami’s studies in Canada. But in addition to this, Odelami included indigenous subjects such as ATR,31 Islam in West Africa, and Prophetism. He also required a course in Agricultural Science.32 The intention was to teach CINDICO’s ministerial students industry and self-reliance and to make them valuable assets in their communities: they could both lead their parishioners spiritually and they could instruct local farmers in modern crop cultivation skills. Just as importantly, perhaps, by farming the land themselves, the pastors were expected not to be a burden to their churches and to be less

seminal role in the founding of the Nigerian Environmental Society and the establishment of the Amelioration of Ecological Problems Fund. Active in the church, Imevbore is an ordained CAC clergy (since 1968), the Chair of CINDICO’s Governing Council (since its inception in 1985), Chair of the Joseph Ayo Babalola University (JABU) Planning Committee (2002-06), and JABU Pro-Chancellor (2006 – present [2013]). For further details see Professor A. A. M. Imevbore, “C. V.,” 2013-01-13, companion vol. of source docs., “CINDICO and UNIDICO: Affiliation Letters and Documents, 1989–2006,” ECWA/ ADCPO, or the CD affixed to the back cover of this thesis. 26 Odelami, interviews, Wolfville, 2011-10-21 and Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 27 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19; and Odelami, interviews, Wolfville, 2011-10-21 and Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 28 Odelami to MacRae, 1988-03-21. 29 Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 2. 30 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. In this list MacRae had included “admission of students,” but in fact, the admission of students to CINDICO was based on admission requirements used at the University of Ibadan. 31 See → on page 411. 32 See the CINDICO course list in MacRae, “Report to AUS,” 7-8.

79 tempted to consider the church as a means to social status and affluence.33 Third, Odelami established strong ties with Christian faculty in local universities.34 When CINDICO had first been founded, key people from nearby schools were appointed as members of the Management Board.35 Odelami continued this practice, and following a pattern similar to that which had been used in British colonial institutions, he enlisted examiners from some of the most prestigious and respected universities in the area to review CINDICO’s academic work and to certify that the results would meet the expectations required from their institutions. Finally, to bolster the college’s meager library resources, he secured access for CINDICO students to library holdings of recognized institutions in the area, including OAU, the University of Ibadan, and the College of Education in Ilesha.36 While these initiatives were being implemented, Odelami contacted MacRae in Wolfville, requesting a meeting with him.37 Finally, after six months, in October 1988, he

33 Imevbore, Wooden, Odelami, Dockendorff, informal conversation, Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, 2012-06-01. 34 According to MacRae, Odelami knew that if he was going to satisfy Acadia, or any other North American institution, he would have to subject the work he was doing in Nigeria to the scrutiny of academics and professors in other universities. MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 35 CINDICO’s Management Board was responsible for evaluating course proposals, deciding academic standards, and approving degrees recommended by the Faculty. In his “Report to AUS,” MacRae, following Odelami’s “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO [1989],” refers to this Board as “the Senate.” In 1989 membership included Imevbore, Director of the Institute of Ecology at OAU; Mala, the Acting Head of the Religious Department (serving 1988-90) at the University of Ibadan; T. O. Adekanye, State Commissioner of Agriculture for Oyo State; Dr. I. O. Osafehinti of Lagos State University; Dr. C. O. Akinwusi, a leading educationalist; and Dr. A. A. Gbemi, Director of Overseas Scholarships in Ibadan. See MacRae, “Report to AUS,” 3-4 and 8; and 1988-89 CINDICO Prospectus, 66. As a result of the affiliation the Management Board was renamed the Governing Council. Mala sat on the Council until his death in 1996. For more on Imevbore see n25 → on page 78; and http://www.cacconvention.org/na/speakers.asp? idm=3, accessed 2012-08-25. ꜛOn Mala see Mala to MacRae, 1990-07-16, encl., Mala’s “C. V.”; and J. Kenny, former Head of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Ibadan, “A.G.S. [Assistant General Superintendent, Christ Apostolic Church] Pastor Samuel Babatunde Mala: Grave-Side Address,” 1996-06-28, accessed 2012-08-25, http://www.josephkenny.joyeurs.com/funerals.htm#4. 36 MacRae, “Report to AUS,” 9; and MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 37 Odelami to MacRae, 1988-03-21; and MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. Apparently Odelami also called from Nigeria seeking a visit. MacRae, interview by author, Wolfville, 2012-09-12.

80 and Babs Mala, (MA, McGill, 197338), a member of CINDICO’s Board of Management and the Acting Head39 of the Religious Studies department at the University of Ibadan, travelled to Canada looking for a school willing to affiliate with the fledgling college in Nigeria. Odelami was particularly anxious to claim the promise that he felt Mitton had given him four years earlier at ADC.

CINDICO’s Affiliation Process Before going to Acadia, Odelami and Mala flew to Toronto where they met with representatives of Canada Christian College (CCC), a privately funded, evangelical college40 that had been recommended to them by Nigerian friends who had attended there at the same time as Odelami was studying at OBC.41 When Odelami visited CCC in 1988, the College did not have the right to grant degrees in Ontario. That had been revoked six years earlier in 1982.42 Regardless, before they left Toronto, Odelami and

38 See Mala to MacRae, 1990-07-16, encl., Mala’s “C. V.” 39 In Canada, the “Acting Head” of a Department is an “interim” or “provisional” Head – someone who takes the place of someone else until they return, or serves for the time being until a replacement is found. In Nigeria, the Acting Head of an academic Department serves as the Head of a Department, but because they have not yet attained the status of a Professor in their subject, serves under the overall supervision of the Dean of the Faculty. In their capacity as the appointed Head of the Department, the Acting Head attends the University’s Senate, provides general supervision to the Department, overseeing the Department’s teaching, research, and examinations. Imevbore to Dockendorff, email, 2012-12-20. 40 According to The Canadian Information Centre for International Credentials (CICIC), Canada Christian College is a “private non-profit institution authorized to grant specific credentials.” Search for “Canada Christian College,” s.vv. >Studying in Canada >Postsecondary Education in Canada >Directory of Universities, Colleges and Schools in Canada, accessed 2012-09-09, http://www.cicic.ca/2/home.canada. CCC is authorized to grant fourteen different degrees, including five Bachelors, five Master, and four Doctoral degrees. See, Bill PR4, “An Act respecting Canada Christian College and School of Graduate Theological Studies,” Chapter Pr2 Statutes of Ontario, 1999, 3rd Session, 36th Legislature, Ontario 48 Elizabeth II, 1999 (Legislative Assembly of Ontario): 2, accessed 2012-09-09, http://www.cicic.ca/docs/ postsec/Canada%20Christian%20College.pdf. See also Canada Christian College Academic Catalogue, 7, s.vv. >courses >catalogue: pdf format, accessed 2012-10-08, http://canadachristiancollege.com/ccc_cms/; and “About Us,” accessed 2012-09-09, http://canadachristiancollege.com/ccc_cms/. 41 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. Whoever the “Nigerian friends” were, they likely included Odelami’s wife, Naomi. Naomi obtained a BA in Biblical Studies from CCC in Spr. 1983. See R. G. Baxter, [then ADC] Dir. of Admissions, to Mrs. [Naomi] M. O. Odelami, 1992-02-11. 42 The issue was not effectively addressed until 1998 when the Ontario provincial government ordered the College to cease operations. Subsequently, on 1999-05-04, BillPR4 was passed in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario giving CCC authority to grant degrees in Ontario. See M. McDonald,

Mala received assurances from College officials that CCC would award CCC degrees to qualifying students at CINDICO’s graduation in Nigeria the following year.43 En route to Wolfville to meet with AU, Mala questioned the necessity for this leg of the trip; he reasoned that they had already accomplished their mission to secure affiliation with a Canadian college.44 It was a sentiment that would be shared later by others in Nigeria, including Pastor Samuel O. Folahan, who was Abiara’s assistant45 and the Secretary of CINDICO’s Management Board.46 ꜛEven Imevbore, the Board Chairman, agreed. He thought that it was “a pipe dream” to hope that an institution of

Acadia’s academic standing would affiliate with CINDICO and award its degrees in Nigeria without ever seeing the students or charging anything for the concession. He believed that if it ever did happen, it would be nothing short of a miracle.47 Odelami was adamant, however, both in Canada and in Nigeria. He was determined to pursue affiliation with Acadia for two reasons: first, it was his sincere desire to have CINDICO accredited by a highly regarded university, and second, he knew that in the future he wanted to affiliate his own college, UNIDICO, with Acadia and he felt that if he offered

“Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: the rising clout of Canada’s religious right,” Walrus Magazine, Politics, 2006-10, accessed 2012-10-07, http://walrusmagazine.com/articles/2006.10-politics-religion- stephen-harper-and-the-theocons/; and also, Bill PR4. CICIC notes that “The Ontario government does not require programs offered … by this institution to be reviewed by any of the province’s quality assurance bodies.” Accessed 2012-09-09, http://www.cicic.ca/en/postsec.aspx?sortcode=2.20.24.26&id_postsec=89. 43 Odelami had contacted CCC prior to their meeting together. He had been told that by the time he arrived for the interview, his proposal would have been discussed at CCC and a decision would have been made. Apparently the decision to affiliate was rendered after the delegation left the meeting in Toronto but before they arrived at Acadia. Odelami, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06-13. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 See 1988-89 CINDICO Prospectus, 67. CINDICO’s Board of Management is now called the Governing Council. S. O. Folahan died in 2002. His funeral was held at the Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba in Ibadan on Friday, 2002-05-31. Apparently it was attended by a huge crowd. See I. Akinrosoye, “Nigeria: A Pastor's Million Naira Burial,” Tempo (Lagos), 2002-06-06, accessed 2012-08-23, http://allafrica.com/stories/200206080019.html. 47 Imevbore, Wooden, Odelami, Dockendorff, informal conversation, Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, 2012-06-01.

82 anything less than a university affiliation to CINDICO, Abiara would be displeased with the difference between his school’s affiliation and Odelami’s.48 Mala and Odelami arrived in Wolfville in October 1988 during Hayward Week.49 They met Mitton at one of the lectures and Odelami informed him that he had come to claim his promise. Mitton, who had retired as the principal of ADC in 1985, passed them over them to MacRae.50 The next day the delegation met with MacRae in his office and they put the proposal to him. MacRae remembers the meeting:

When [Michael and Babs Mala] came … they shocked me completely by saying, “We would like to affiliate CINDICO to Acadia University.” I said, “I don’t know how to do that.” They said, “Well, we think it can be done and we think you are the person who can make it happen and we believe God has told us so.” Well, at that point … (laughing) I just won’t (sic) answer! After all, there is … in African culture amongst Christians, a very high level of expectancy that God will do something, and not just be sitting on the sidelines waiting for Christians to think up good ideas. And so they said, “We are persuaded that this should happen and we are equally persuaded that God intends you to bring it about.” Well, it took me a while to get over that shock!51 Despite MacRae’s protest that he didn’t know of any university in North America at that time that would affiliate a school without requiring students to come to the affiliating school in the West for at least one academic year,52 and unmindful of the difficulty of his

48 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-13. 49 Hayward Week is an annual three-day lectureship in theology and related subjects begun in 1964, supported by a $50,000 endowment provided by Mrs. C. C. Hayward of Wolfville, NS, and held every year during the second week of October. See ADC Handbook, 2012-2013, 18, accessed 2013-08-01, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/adc/Admissions/ADC%20Calendar%2012-13%20-%20FINAL.pdf. In 1988 Hayward Week was held Mon., 1988-10-10 through Wed., 1988-10-12. 50 Odelami, interviews, Wolfville, 2011-10-21, and Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 51 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. MacRae might well have been surprised. In a handwritten letter written to MacRae, dated 1988-09-23, Odelami states that “[The Board of Management is] now resolved to ask Acadia Divinity College Acadia University for affiliation. As I hinted you the other time, the purpose of our visit to Acadia is to discuss this question of affiliation. As the result of cealess (sic) prayers and long deliberations we will … visit Acadia from the 11th of October 1988.” The letter was not received at the College until 1988-10-20. By that time the delegation had returned to Nigeria. 52 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19.

83 expectation, Odelami told MacRae, “The Lord told me, ‘You will do it!’ You will do it! … The Lord will make it easy for you.”53

The Mandate to Investigate Over the course of the visit, McRae and Dr. Oliver Ohsberg,54 the Associate Dean of the College, had a number of meetings with Mala and Odelami. MacRae arranged for the Nigerians to meet with David Green, the registrar for Acadia, and to meet briefly with Dr. J. R. C. Perkin, the President (1981-1993) of the University.55 According to Odelami he did not plead the issue of affiliation with either of these two authorities since he had given the matter over to MacRae and was obliged to leave it with him to pursue.56 But both Green and Perkin were already apprised of the purpose for the visit, for MacRae’s first call had been to Green.57 According to MacRae:

Oh yes! I called the registrar [David Green] while they were here … and I said, “David,” … I actually asked him if he was sitting down and if not, would he please do so. When I presented this “unseemly request” he said, “Well, I don’t know how you can do that, Andrew.” He said, “It’ll not work.” I said, “That’s what I’ve told them!” And then I said, “They’re convinced that [pause] God wants it to work.” And David wasn’t a Christian. “OK, so I’ll come and have a look at it,” [he said]. And when he

53 Odelami, interviews, Wolfville, 2011-10-21, and Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 54 Rev. Dr. O. Ohsberg was born in Mckeesport, Pennsylvania and although much of his training was in the United States, his teaching and ministry was primarily centered in Canada. Ohsberg received a PhD degree from the University of Pittsburgh and he taught in Edmonton, AB. He also served churches in Edmonton, AB, Winnipeg, AB, and Moncton, NB. At ADC Ohsberg was Assistant Professor in Practical Theology, a full professor of Christian Education, and the Associate Dean. Following retirement in 1991 he continued teaching at the College for several years and ministered as a teaching pastor on an interim basis at New Minas Baptist Church, located just outside of Wolfville. He authored two books and a number of articles in various publications. Ohsberg died on 2008-06-12 at the age of eighty-two. See “Rev. Dr. Harry Oliver Ohsberg,” s.vv. >News & Events >Obituaries >2008 Clergy Obituaries, accessed 2013-01-12, http://baptist-atlantic.ca/. 55 MacRae, “Christ International Divinity College, Nigeria,” aka, “During Hayward Week,” memo/report, [1988-10?], ECWA/ADCPO. This two-page memo was apparently written shortly after the Nigerian delegation’s departure. It describes the events during the 1988-10 visit; and it summarizes the findings and recommendations of the meetings. 56 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 2nd session. 57 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19.

came up and I put it down in front of him the next morning, he looked at it and he said, “Could you send these people out for a coffee or something?” So I said, “Sure.” So I got somebody to take them out for a coffee. He said, “Andrew, I’ve been examining this; it’s marvelous! It’s an incredibly good program!” And he said, “Their standards! They’re aiming to have standards that will match ours.” He said, “Frankly, I think it can be made to work.”58 After Odelami and Mala left for Nigeria Perkin called MacRae to assure him of his interest and to encourage him to follow up on their discussions.59 Earlier, in 1980, Perkin had supported the affiliation of CÉTÉ with AU.60 He was an ordained Baptist minister,61 sympathetic to the initiatives of the Divinity College, but careful not to allow his personal views to interfere with his responsibility to Acadia as a secular institution.62 When he had examined CINDICO’s curriculum during Odelami’s visit, Perkin was genuinely impressed with the program. MacRae recalls,

[Perkin] said, “Andrew, this is amazing! They are very creative.” I said, “They’re extremely creative. They also think we can do it.” He said, “Well, you have to talk to the academic vice-president,” who at that time was Kelvin Ogilvie. And I thought, “Well this man is agnostic and I don’t think we got a chance!” However … [I] called him, and he said, “Come on down,” so I did.63 Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie64 was the final University authority who needed to sanction the initiative before the affiliation of CINDICO with Acadia could be

58 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 59 MacRae, “During Hayward Week,” 2. 60 See “Historique,” s.v. >À propos, accessed 2012-09-21, http://www.fteacadia.ca/. 61 Perkin and Dockendorff, telephone interview, Wolfville, 2012-10-17. According to Perkin he was ordained in Britain, but his credentials were never properly transferred and recorded in Canada. 62 For example, see J. R. C. Perkin, introduction to “AU Report of the President to the Board of Governors and the Senate: For the Year 1990-91” (ECWA, AU, Wolfville, 1991), vii-viii. 63 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 64 Dr. K. K. Ogilvie (1993-2003) would succeed Perkin (1981-1993) as the 13th President of AU. For a brief biography of Ogilvie see, “Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie,” s.vv. >Senators and Members >Current Senators, accessed 2012-10-10, http://www.parl.gc.ca/. Also, see Ogilvie discussing three of his most significant and innovative scientific discoveries at “Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie,” (youtube video), accessed 2012-10-10, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l06wVr3GUjU.

85 investigated officially on behalf of the University. Ogilvie had grown up in a religious home; his father was a deacon in the local Baptist church. But he was not inclined to favour religiously based initiatives merely upon sentiment. Like Green and Perkin, though, he was willing to examine the materials supplied by Odelami and to consider the proposal based on its merits. When MacRae met with him, Ogilvie studied CINDICO’s curriculum, and in concert with the others, he was impressed. As MacRae says,

I laid the thing [the curriculum] out before him and he examined it as carefully as he could and he said, “This is a remarkable program! How did they come up with this?” I said, “Well, they’re trying to base it on standards that would be acceptable at Acadia.” He said, “Well they have done that already!” So he said, “What do you want to do?”65 Naturally enough MacRae said that he would like to investigate it further, to which Ogilvie replied, “Well Andrew, this has all kinds of promise but we can’t do anything with it until you go to Nigeria and examine it.”66

“During Hayward Week”67 The preliminary discussions during Hayward Week noted a number of important details concerning CINDICO. It was discovered that the College was already in operation; it had just completed two full years of teaching. The faculty consisted of seven full-time instructors plus another five part-time lecturers from the Universities of Ibadan and Ifé (now OAU). The program consisted of four courses: a two-year certificate, a three-year diploma, and two four-year degrees – a BRE and a BA in Biblical Studies. All of the students were full-time and there was a large student body at the lower levels. Seven had completed their second year in the Bachelors programs. Two Boards governed

65 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 66 Ibid. 67 This section is based almost entirely upon the two-page memo that MacRae wrote shortly after Odelami and Mala returned to Nigeria. It describes the events during the 1988-10 visit and summarizes the findings and recommendations of the meetings. See MacRae, “During Hayward Week.”

86 the College – a Management Board that dealt with administrative issues and a Faculty Board that looked after academic concerns. Odelami was the newly appointed Provost, or Principal, and under his leadership the College used both indigenous and international standards: AU was the template for CINDICO’s courses, grading, and school year; admission of students was the same as at the University of Ibadan. And finally it was learned that CINDICO was “very interdenominational.”68 Three key terms of reference were defined during Hayward Week. These were intended as guidelines to the affiliation process if it went forward. First, it was understood that any proposal that advocated the affiliation of Acadia with CINDICO first needed to be thoroughly examined by the faculty of ADC and then to be sent to the Senate of the University as a recommendation originating from and endorsed by the Senate of the Divinity College. Second, it was suggested that someone from ADC would need to visit Nigeria in order to explore and evaluate CINDICO’s facilities, faculty, and library resources. And third, it was agreed that CINDICO’s professors and lecturers would be assessed using standards indigenous to Nigeria and not those used in the West.69

Since Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville, Kentucky maintained an affiliation with the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary (NBTS) at Ogbomosho, it was thought that this relationship might serve as a model for Acadia70 and Acadia’s registrar, David Green, suggested that SBTS should be asked concerning their operational protocols. It was also supposed that the arrangement that existed between AU and CÉTÉ might act as a paradigm for any formalized relationship between Acadia and CINDICO. Note was taken of the various difficulties that Nigerian Christian schools

68 MacRae, “During Hayward Week,” 1. 69 See ibid., 2. These three recommendations are a summary of six items that are purported to be a précis of the understandings which resulted from the discussions held with Green, Perkin, Ohsberg, Odelami, Mala, and MacRae. 70 MacRae to R. Honeycutt, Jr., President, SBTS, 1988-11-17.

87 encountered as they attempted to achieve government recognition and it was particularly observed that affiliation with a recognized Western institution was especially helpful.71 The fact that the proposed affiliation could help ADC fulfill its mission to train world leaders was acknowledged too. ꜛShortly after Odelami and Mala left for Nigeria, Ohsberg commented: “We may end up doing our own Globalisation!”72 But for that to become a reality there was a great deal of work that yet needed to be done. MacRae’s visit to Nigeria several months later would involve an intensive investigation of a number of criteria set out in this preliminary series of meetings and in subsequent conversations.

Planning and Preparations The Nigerians were very grateful for the reception that they received at AU. Abiara, Folahan, and Odelami all wrote letters of appreciation. Abiara remarked on MacRae’s speedy response to the issue and assured him that a delegation from Acadia would be most eagerly received.73 Folahan thanked MacRae on behalf of the Board of Management. He urged MacRae to let the Board know as soon as the date for Acadia’s visit was set since they were very anxious that the affiliation review could commence in no distant future.74 And Odelami – in a letter that was delayed for five months because Naomi, his wife, had been seriously ill – thanked MacRae for the October meeting, telling him, “I had described you to Pastor Mala less than what we saw in you.”75 From the beginning MacRae was encouraging but clear. He wrote to Abiara within days of the Hayward lectures indicating that, based on their meetings, he was very hopeful that affiliation talks could move forward. However, he cautioned that the

71 MacRae, “During Hayward Week,” 2. 72 Ibid. 73 Abiara to MacRae, 1988-11-20. 74 Folahan to MacRae, 1988-11-20. 75 Odelami to MacRae, 1989-03-21.

University would need to explore all aspects of the Nigerian college.76 For his part, Odelami pursued the affiliation aggressively. He telephoned MacRae twice in January but on both occasions MacRae was unavailable to take his calls.77 Within weeks of the initial meetings, MacRae wrote Roy Honeycutt, Jr., the President of SBTS, regarding NBTS.78 He asked about the arrangement between the two institutions and he outlined to Honeycutt Acadia’s affiliation with CÉTÉ. For MacRae, CÉTÉ would increasingly serve both as a precedent and a model for the CINDICO affiliation. He believed that exactly as with CÉTÉ, ADC, as AU’s School of Theology, would be regarded as the natural liaison between Acadia and CINDICO and that the College would represent the University’s interests. Honeycutt’s reply to MacRae in December 1989 described the Southern Baptist’s involvement with the seminary in Ogbomosho and verified the claim that Christian schools in Nigeria had considerable difficulty in being properly recognized by the Nigerian government outside of a western affiliation. The college in Ogbomosho had been started by Southern Baptist missionaries in 1898 and the relationship between SBTS and NBTS had been established in the late 1940’s. A couple of decades later, coincident with the rise of nationalism in the late 1960’s after Nigerian independence, SBTS decided that it might be best to have NBTS award its own degrees in its own name. But immediately after Southern Seminary quit awarding degrees in Ogbomosho, the rating of the graduates was drastically reduced and they were placed on the same level as those qualified to teach in the public school system only. The situation was finally rectified when SBTS arranged to have NBTS accredited in the United States through the Southern

Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), one of six regional accreditation

76 MacRae to Abiara, 1988-10-19. 77 MacRae to Green, 1989-02-21. 78 MacRae to Honeycutt, 1988-11-17.

89 organizations in the United States recognized by the US Department of Education.79 As part of the arrangement, the Board of Trustees of SBTS became responsible to elect the Board of Governors in Ogbomosho. Periodic reviews of the Seminary for accreditation were conducted by the Southern Association and SBTS made occasional visits to Nigeria for other reasons, but these occurred not more than once every two to three years.80 MacRae passed Honeycutt’s letter on to Acadia’s registrar, David Green, pointing up the importance of a western affiliation for Nigerian Christian schools and suggesting that ADC would be prepared to do whatever was required by Acadia, if Acadia agreed to award the degrees at CINDICO, including the provision of some occasional faculty assistance to the School and periodic visits by him to the campus for review purposes. Honeycutt had suggested that he and MacRae could speak later in the summer, but MacRae advised Green that there was no need to delay any appropriate action until after that time. He solicited Green’s thoughts and proposed that they should talk soon. He had just received a letter from Nigeria showing concrete interest in the affiliation and asking specifically when MacRae intended to come to Nigeria to conduct the expected review.81

Abiara and Odelami Visit Acadia Efforts were made by the Nigerians to hasten MacRae’s visit to Nigeria. Folahan noted that CINDICO’s graduation was on May 20, 1989, and Abiara, perhaps wanting to urge the process along personally, decided to visit Acadia with Odelami in April.82 He changed his trip to late April when he discovered how busy MacRae’s schedule was and

79 See “Accreditation in the United States,” accessed 2012-11-10, http://www2.ed.gov/admins/ finaid/accred/accreditation_pg6.html. Southern Association is the Association responsible for accrediting educational institutions in the southern (southeastern) region of the United States. See SACS’s official website, accessed 2012-11-10, http://sacscoc.org/. 80 Honeycutt to MacRae, 1988-12-22. 81 MacRae to Green, 1989-02-21. 82 See Folahan to MacRae, 1989-02-11.

90 even offered to shift the date of the graduation in order to accommodate MacRae’s timetable.83 But MacRae was not to be rushed and he demurred. He argued that his visit should take place after Abiara’s trip to Canada and that it should proceed only with the University’s sanction.84 He saw Abiara’s visit to Wolfville as an important opportunity to arrange meetings with various University officials, especially the registrar, in order to discuss the conditions for affiliation.85 He pressed both Folahan86 and Abiara87 for a definite meeting date and clearly indicated that a return trip in the spring was out of the question because of other commitments.88 Abiara’s visit was eventually scheduled to coincide with Acadia’s convocation on May 8, 1989.89 At that time the mission met with Green and Perkin, and according to MacRae, the discussions progressed well.90 In preparation for the affiliation review in Nigeria, CINDICO was asked to provide a self- study detailing such things as curriculum, course descriptions, staffing, and organization. Initially requested in May91 and again in June so that it might be available for perusal prior to MacRae’s visit,92 the document proved difficult to get. At the end of July Odelami was still working on the report.93 In August, MacRae asked that it be available

83 Abiara to MacRae, 1989-03-18. 84 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-04-04. 85 MacRae to Folahan, 1989-02-27; and MacRae to Abiara, 1989-04-04. 86 MacRae to Folahan, 1989-02-27. 87 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-02-27; and MacRae to Abiara, 1989-04-04. 88 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-02-27. Even if the CINDICO graduation was postponed, a Nigerian visit was undoable. See MacRae to Abiara, 1989-04-04. 89 As guests of the University, Abiara and Odelami were invited to march in the Convocation procession. See MacRae to Abiara, 1990-01-09. The following year, after the affiliation with Acadia had been granted to CINDICO, Abiara, Odelami, and Imevbore attended Acadia’s Convocation in May and all three marched in the Convocation procession. See ibid. 90 MacRae to Folahan, 1989-05-10. 91 Ibid. 92 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-06-09. 93 Odelami to MacRae, 1989-07-31, 2.

91 to be read and used when he arrived in Nigeria in early September.94 Although the study was a large undertaking, this pursuit of documentation augured some of the difficulties that ADC would encounter in later years in getting timely responses from Nigeria. Among other things, MacRae and Abiara apparently used the May visit as an opportunity to exchange letters of invitation for future visits.95 MacRae’s letters to Abiara and Odelami were open-ended;96 Abiara’s invitation to MacRae was for the period from July to September.97 Curiously, in MacRae’s invitation letter to Odelami, MacRae also invited three elders from Odelami’s church to come to Canada to engage in negotiations with the University.98 This is the first appearance of any formal effort to have UNIDICO affiliate with Acadia and there is nothing to suggest one way or the other that Abiara knew of this initiative. Regardless, the visits did not take place, for no one from either of the two Nigerian colleges visited Acadia after May 1989 prior to CINDICO being granted affiliation in January 1990. When Abiara returned to Nigeria, he sent a letter of appreciation to the Divinity College in which he reaffirmed MacRae’s visit to Nigeria, expressed his hope for a positive review by the College’s Senate in October, and offered to come to ADC at that time, if needed.99 Meanwhile, in preparation for graduation, Odelami appointed three professors from the Universities of Ibadan and Ifé as external examiners to review the final year’s work of the degree students.100

94 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-08-11. This letter was sent three days before Odelami’s letter (which was dated Jul. 31st) arrived on Aug. 14th. 95 The letters are all dated 1989-05-10 and look as if they were printed on a dot matrix printer similar to that used to produce MacRae’s letters. 96 MacRae to Odelami, 1989-05-10; and MacRae to Abiara, 1989-05-10. 97 Abiara to MacRae, 1989-05-10. 98 MacRae to Odelami, 1989-05-10. The three elders were Ibukun Efuntayo, Samuel Orowumi, and Samuel Oshunbiy (sic). 99 Abiara to MacRae, 1989-05-23. 100 Odelami to MacRae, 1989-03-21. When Imevbore convened the Graduation assembly he noted that professors from the University of Ibadan had moderated the final papers of the graduates. See “CINDICO, 2nd Graduation Ceremony,” prog. booklet for ceremonies at Erinmo, Nigeria, 1989-07-15, 6.

CINDICO’s First Bachelor Degrees The first degrees presented at CINDICO were not given by Acadia. Dr. Elmer S. McVety, the president of CCC, awarded them during the College’s second101 graduation ceremony held at Erinmo Ijesa on Saturday, July 15, 1989. Seven graduates received BTh degrees.102 MacRae, apparently, was aware that CCC had agreed to grant degrees at CINDICO for in a letter written shortly after the graduation, Abiara told MacRae that the graduation ceremony had proceeded as MacRae had directed.103 It would seem that with negotiations between CINDICO and Acadia still unresolved, MacRae had advised that no good purpose would be served in delaying the graduation and awards. In the following year, 1990, the affiliation with AU would be secured and Acadia would confer Bachelor degrees instead of CCC. But even before the academic review had begun or the affiliation had been granted, Abiara hoped that MacRae would award Acadia degrees to graduates when he visited Nigeria to examine the college in September 1989.104 MacRae clarified the situation in a note dictated to his secretary while he was travelling. He admonished, “As you appreciate, this visit will be for evaluation purposes

… While I will be happy to encourage your graduates, I will not be able to present degree certificates before the establishment of the relationship we are working to achieve.”105

101 By 1989 the College had been in operation for three years. Certificates and diplomas were handed out at the first graduation ceremony the previous year on Sat., 1988-05-21. See the following three articles, all in Torch of God (Ibadan), [June?] 1988: Imevbore, “CINDICO Graduation Ceremony: Speech delivered by Professor A. M. A. Imevbore at the Graduation Ceremony of CINDICO on 21st May, 1988 at Erinmo;” S. K. Abiara, “CINDICO Students Graduate: The Presidential Address Delivered by Pastor (Dr.) Samuel Kayode Abiara, on Saturday, … Erinmo-Ijesha, Oyo State of Nigeria;” and Chief A. O. Adegoke, “Graduation Ceremony: A Key Note Address Delivered by Chief A. O. Adegoke at … on Saturday May 21, 1988.” 102 Odelami to MacRae, 1989-07-31, 1. See also, “CINDICO, 2nd Graduation Ceremony,” 10. 103 Abiara to MacRae, 1989-07-18, 2. 104 Ibid. 105 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-07-26.

MacRae’s Visit to Review CINDICO MacRae’s visit was set for September 13-20, 1989;106 the college’s matriculation was scheduled for the first Saturday after his arrival, on September 16th.107 Since Abiara had agreed to underwrite the trip, arrangements were made for him to pay for MacRae’s ticket.108 A detailed itinerary was drawn up.109 And MacRae landed at Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed International Airport on September 14th in the evening.110 Prior to his departure for Nigeria MacRae informed Perkin of the trip and outlined his hope to bring a report to the ADC Senate in September, followed by a proposal to the University Senate in October.111 Unfortunately, since both Imevbore and Babs Mala had been called away to Europe on state business, they were not available for the affiliation review.112 MacRae’s visit was brief and demanding. After arriving from Canada late Thursday, he attended CINDICO’s matriculation on Saturday and met with the College’s faculty and Board. The next day he preached twice at Agbala Itura, Ibadan. There were 15,630 people at the 7 a.m. Yoruba speaking service; 828 people gathered for the 9 a.m. English service. Later that evening in Lagos, MacRae spoke to a group of 2,000 people.

On Monday he visited the librarians and some of the professors at the neighbouring Universities of Ibadan and OAU to discuss the arrangements and support that they were providing to the fledgling college. ꜛIn the afternoon, in a digression from investigating CINDICO, MacRae met with members of UNIDICO’s Boards of Management and

106 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-06-09. 107 Odelami to MacRae, 1989-07-31, 1. 108 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-06-09 and 1989-07-26; and Abiara to MacRae, 1989-07-18, 1. 109 Abiara to MacRae, 1989-07-18, 1. 110 MacRae to Abiara, 1989-08-11; Peter Apesin, Asst. Sec. to the Board, to MacRae, 1989-09-01. 111 MacRae to Perkin, 1989-08-11. 112 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter on UNIDICO letterhead, 1989-08-23. Odelami attempted unsuccessfully to persuade MacRae to postpone his trip by a week because of their absence.

Trustees and received a self-study of that College from its Provost, Olaoba-Efuntayo Adesoji.113 That evening he preached at the open-air crusade held nightly at the Revival Ground in Ibadan. Over 2,000 people attended. Finally, on Tuesday MacRae met with Abiara and his Board for most of the day before travelling back to Canada at 6 pm.114 In his address at the matriculation service Abiara accented what he believed were the key elements that had benefited CINDICO and contributed to its success over the past three years. He emphasized the quality of the College’s faculty and the ability to enhance its academic programs by accessing the libraries and staff from nearby institutions: the

University of Ibadan, OAU, the College of Education in Ilesha, and the Federal University of Technology at Akure.115 At the same time, he revealed the College’s efforts to affiliate with AU through ADC and affirmed that CINDICO would comply with any suggestions that Acadia might have as the two schools worked toward affiliation.116 ꜛWhen MacRae viewed the recently acquired fifty-acre site for CINDICO in Erinmo Ijesa, the main classroom and administrative building was under construction. The offices and classrooms for the college were in rented facilities a few 100 meters nearby.117 CINDICO teachers were housed in rented apartments scattered all over the

113 See A. O. Olaoba-Efuntayo to MacRae, “Application for Affiliation,” 1989-09-14; A. O. Olaoba-Efuntayo, “A Self-Study on the Universal Gospel Divinity College (UNIDICO) Ile-Ifé Nigeria Presented to Acadia University, Canada for the Purpose of Affiliation by the Provost, Pastor, A. O. Olaoba- Efuntayo,” (Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, [1989-09?]); and Olaoba-Efuntayo Adesoji to MacRae, 1989-11-19. 114 “Itinerary of Dr. MacRae’s Visit,” memo, [Sept?] 1989; A. MacRae, “Church Growth in Nigeria,” (article submitted to the Atlantic Baptist Magazine, [1989?]); and MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 115 It is interesting to note that the closest of these institutions is just under forty kilometres away from the College. Thus, from CINDICO at Ilesha, Oṣun State, Nigeria to OAU at Ile-Ifé, Oṣun State, thirty- eight km (twenty-four mi.); to University of Ibadan Gate, Oyo Road, Ibadan, Oyo State, 112 km (seventy mi.); to Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, sixty-eight km (forty-two mi.); and to the Oṣun State College of Education, Oṣun State, sixty-six km (forty-one mi.). All information accessed 2012- 10-23, http://maps.google.ca/. 116 Abiara, “Welcome Address Delivered by the Chancellor (Rev. Dr. S. K. Abiara) on the Occasion of the 4th Matriculation of the College at Erinmo, Nigeria,” speech delivered on 1989-09-16. 117 1988-89 CINDICO Prospectus, 19.

95 town118 and students attending the college had to fetch drinking water from a nearby stream.119 In MacRae’s 1990 “Report to AUS” he would describe the physical plant and library facilities with such phrases as “sparsely equipped,” “marginally adequate,” “serious lack,” “exceedingly meager,” “barely exist,” and “serious deficiency.” But in an effort to reveal the harsh conditions in Nigeria, he cautioned, “It should be remembered that what we regard as inconvenient, Nigerians find quite acceptable and manageable.”120 The students were an interdenominational amalgam. Gathered from ten different Nigerian states, they represented seven different denominations including three indigenous churches and four mission church groups.121 Costs were extremely low. The annual tuition fee for the degree program was ₦500, roughly equivalent to $3.89USD or $4.19CDN.122 Abiara took a keen interest in the operations and was very generous. In addition to personally financing the College, he sponsored many of the indigent students and paid the academic expenses for others who no longer were supported by their families because they had converted to the Christian faith.123 In CINDICO’s self-study,124 Odelami described the College’s history, staff, governance, and purpose; the various programs offered by the College and several of the courses; the grading and requirements for admission and graduation; and the College’s

118 Abiara, “Presidential Address,” Torch of God (Ibadan). 119 Akinpelu, interview by author, CAC Agbala Itura Church, Ibadan, 2012-06-06. 120 See MacRae, “Report to AUS,” 8-9. 121 There were students from the Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, and Roman Catholic churches, as well as the Christ Apostolic, the Universal Gospel Apostolic, and the Cherubim and Seraphim churches. See, 1988-89 CINDICO Prospectus, 67. 122 Ibid., 22. In 1989 $1USD = $1.075CDN = ₦128.413. Values are based on historical exchange rates. See “Real Annual Country Exchange Rates (local currency per $US),” s.v. >Data, accessed 2012-12- 14, http://www.ers.usda.gov/. 123 Abiara, “Presidential Address,” Torch of God (Ibadan). Abiara’s generosity is confirmed by Odelami, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06-18, 1st session; MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19; and Imevbore, Wooden, Odelami, and Dockendorff, informal conversation, Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, 2012-06-01. 124 See Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, 1989-09?]), Appendix F.

96 facilities, library, and need for affiliation. He particularly highlighted CINDICO’s nondenominational status and noted that until the establishment of CINDICO there had been only two theological colleges in Nigeria, the Baptist Theological Seminary at Ogbomosho and the Anglican-Methodist school, Immanuel College of Theology in Ibadan.125 At the time Nigeria had a population of 100 million people, 40% of whom were Christian, and Odelami argued that these two denominationally based institutions often discriminated against students from other mission and indigenous churches.126 Although CINDICO’s 1988-89 Prospectus describes fifteen courses that are particularly tailored to the indigenous context and others that operated within it,127 Odelami’s self- study did not emphasize this. The main thrust of the document is found in the section that argues CINDICO’s need for affiliation.128 Odelami identifies three issues: the dire state of the nation’s economy and the intolerable burden that this placed on students, especially those who could not find academic placement in Nigeria and who were forced to seek theological training outside of the country; the lack of acceptance and legal status for Christian institutions in Nigeria unless they were able to establish ties to nationally recognized Overseas colleges; and CINDICO’s deliberate attempt to develop programs and courses based on standards similar to those at AU.

125 Actually there were more theological colleges in Nigeria than these two. In 1989 Mala listed forty-eight members in the West African Association of Theological Institutions (WAATI). See MacRae to Perkin, 1989-12-15, encl., Mala, “WAATI” membership list. 126 See Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, 1989-09?]), 3. 127 Included among these courses are Agricultural Science (for men), Home Economics and Home Management (for women), History of Christianity in West Africa, Islam in West Africa, ATR, Comparative Religion, Prophetism, and Religious Education of Youths. See, 1988-89 CINDICO Prospectus, 50-65. 128 See Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, 1989-09?]), 11.

Gathering Support MacRae returned to Canada and in keeping with the original understanding developed in October 1988, he shared his findings with the faculty of the Divinity College.129 After describing the situation at CINDICO, he made seven recommendations that endorsed the College’s program and supported their request for affiliation. The proposals covered a variety of issues including the joint granting of degrees, CINDICO’s infrastructure, physical security, and library holdings, and ADC’s role in providing oversight and approvals. The initial seven “Recommendations to [ADC] Senate” were:

(1) That Christ International Divinity College degree programmes be recognized as fulfilling the requirements for Bachelor’s degrees in Theology and Religious Education. (2) That CINDICO be granted provisional affiliation in respect of these two degree programs for a period of three years, and that Acadia University agree to award the degrees of Bachelor of Theology and Bachelor of Religious Education, jointly with CINDICO. (3) That degree awards by Acadia University be conditional on the written recommendation of graduands by the Senate of CINDICO. (4) That CINDICO be required to demonstrate significant progress in Library development during the next three years, to the satisfaction of an academic review by the ADC Principal or his appointee, with the concurrence specifically of the members of the CINDICO Senate who are also Faculty members of University Faculties in Nigeria (5) That evidence be available of significant developments in physical plant, and in physical security during the next triennium; (6) That proposed alterations to the curriculum and appointments to Faculty of CINDICO during the next three years, be subject to the approval of the Principal of ADC, the University’s Dean of Theology; (7) That the provisional affiliation take effect immediately, and that a review be undertaken during the July 1992 – June 1993 academic year, by the Senate of Acadia Divinity College, and that a recommendation concerning continuing affiliation be submitted to the Senate of Acadia University.130

129 The basic approach is outlined in a letter written by MacRae to Abiara after the affiliation had been achieved. See MacRae to Abiara, 1990-01-09. 130 See MacRae, “Recommendations to Senate,” handwritten, yellow lined paper, [Oct. 1989?], 1.

MacRae included in his report to the ADC faculty three other recommendations pertaining to the governance and administration of CINDICO. These were:

1. It is recommended that the present Board of Trustees of five members be renamed, with the use of a suitable title such as The Chancellor’s Advisory Council, and that it still be responsible for securing adequate funding for the College, and for advising the Chancellor on appointments to Boards, Faculty and Staff. 2. It is recommended that the Board of Trustees be enlarged to around fifteen members, including the five members of the Chancellor’s Advisory Council, and others representative of academic, administrative and ministry experience. Probably several members of the present Senate could give wise counsel in this Board. The Board of Trustees should be responsible for the general oversight and management of the affairs of the College, and for the development of its policies, in consultation with Faculty and Senate. 3. It is recommended that the Senate be a body of around ten persons, including the Provost, as Chairperson, the General Secretary (or Assistant General Secretary), at least two other members of Faculty, two members of the Board of Trustees, and up to four other persons with academic experience who are sympathetic to the Institutional Purpose of the College.131

According to MacRae, the faculty of ADC discussed the proposal thoroughly and was very impressed with the developments in Nigeria.132 A committee struck by the faculty and comprised of Drs. Allison Trites, Miriam Ross, and MacRae examined the report and after correcting one minor issue in wording, inserted into the report the list of courses offered (required and elective) in the BTh and BRE degrees at CINDICO. They also expanded item six of MacRae’s original suggestions and added two further recommendations. The course list can be found in Appendix G and → on page 276.ꜛThe changes and additions made by the Faculty Committee were as follows:

131 MacRae, “Recommendation re Governance & Administration,” handwritten on yellow lined paper, [Oct. 1989?], 1 page. 132 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19.

Item 6 was changed to read:

6. That proposed alterations to the curriculum and appointments to Faculty of CINDICO during the next 3 years, be subject to made with the approval of the Principal of ADC, the University’s Dean of Theology, and the endorsement of the Senate.133

The new proposals, added as recommendations eight and nine, were:

9. ꜛThat further consideration be given to the request from the Universal Gospel Divinity College, with a view to a decision being made following submission and examination of further information. 8. That Acadia University and Divinity College explore possible ways of assisting in the enlargement of the College’s Library holdings by making duplicate volumes available, where such action is not detrimental to Acadia’s library services.134 MacRae gave the report and recommendations to Green for perusal and Green advised that MacRae should first seek approval from the ADC Senate before approaching the University Senate with the final document.135 The faculty accordingly sent the modified report to the ADC Senate for consideration.136 Apparently the Senate was delighted with the proposal to affiliate AU with the colleges in Nigeria.137 They accepted the recommendations on governance and generally agreed with the other recommendations as proposed by the faculty.138 The report was

133 See MacRae, “Report and Recommendations to [ADC] Senate,” draft-typewritten doc. ed. in ink, [Oct. 1989?], 11. In the document, deleted words were crossed out and MacRae wrote in the changes by hand. In the quote above, the deletions have been stricken through and the changes are in italics. The Senate referred to in this recommendation is the Senate of ADC. See the final report recommendations in MacRae, “Report to AUS,” 11. 134 See MacRae, “Report and Recommendations to [ADC] Senate,” draft-typewritten doc. ed. in ink, [Oct. 1989?], 11. MacRae handwrote the new proposals; they were added after the original seven typewritten recommendations. The recommendations were written in the order and with the final numbering as shown above. Originally the items, written as above, were numbered eight and nine, but then they were renumbered and changed from eight to nine and from nine to eight. Item nine was circled and an arrow was added to show that it was to be placed below the new number eight. 135 MacRae to Perkin, 1989-12-15. 136 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 137 Ibid. 138 See, “Report from Faculty Committee re-CINDICO,” [Nov. 1989?].

100 then returned to the Faculty Committee for further consideration. After reviewing the report again, the Committee recommended that the governance clauses be endorsed without change and that the first eight recommendations to the University Senate be accepted with amendments to three of them; they dropped entirely the clause regarding UNIDICO, item 9.ꜛ The new revisions were very generous to CINDICO graduates from 1988-1989 and very considerate of students who, even though the College might fail to renew its affiliation with Acadia in 1992-93, might have completed courses successfully in the triennial review year. The Committee revisions were as follows:

2. That CINDICO be granted provisional affiliation in respect of these two degree programs [for a period of three years,] until the end of the 1992/93 academic year, in the first instance, and that Acadia University agree to award the degrees of Bachelor of Theology (B.Th.) and Bachelor of Religious Education (B.R.E.), jointly with CINDICO. Students in the program at the end of the 1992/93 academic year will receive academic credit for courses successfully completed at that time, if CINDICO should fail to achieve renewed affiliation. 3. That degree awards by Acadia University be conditional on the written recommendation of graduands by the Senate of CINDICO. Students already recommended for graduation at the end of the 1988/89 academic year should be included in the first graduating class. 8. That Acadia University and Acadia Divinity College explore possible ways of assisting in the enlargement of the College’s library holdings by making duplicate volumes available, where such action is not detrimental to Acadia’s library services.139 The Faculty Committee also developed ten other items, many in the form of suggestions or questions, which were meant to be proposals from the ADC faculty to CINDICO in the event that Acadia agreed to grant degrees jointly with CINDICO. The counsel covered concerns for student transport, suggested course changes and additions, and improvements in written English style. The faculty of ADC opined:

139 See, “Report from Faculty Committee re-CINDICO,” [Nov. 1989?]. In the quote, the abandoned text is shown in square brackets and the revisions and added material are in italics. In the original there are no square brackets or italics.

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The following recommendations and proposals should be made to CINDICO, if Acadia University accepts the preceding recommendations [regarding affiliation], but they should be without detriment to the above recommendations. They are offered to a view to enriching or adjusting the program, and a preliminary response to these proposals and suggestions should be expected by the end of the present [1989/1990] academic year.

1. In the interests of increasing access to nearby libraries, could the College make provision for regular transportation from the College to the various Institutions whose library holdings are open to students? 2. While commending the College on the inclusion of instruction in African Traditional Religions (sic), and Inter-Faith dialogue, some concern exists on the teaching of Theology? (sic) Is a serious effort made, in survey courses on Systematic Theology, to deal seriously with distinctively African perspectives on Theology, and to consider the relationship of Christian theology to religio-cultural features of African life, eg. witchcraft. (sic) 3. The feeling exists that some place should be found for a course on Marriage and the Family, in the light of the nature and the problems of the family in a West African context. 4. Is there a need for balance in offering a more composite course on Womanhood and Manhood, rather than the limited offering on the Biblical Concept of Womanhood? 5. While an emphasis on music is good, the question is raised as to whether there is any instruction in Worship? Could these two emphases be combined? 6. The proposal to ask representatives of a University Department of Religious Studies, as suggested by the Head of Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan, to monitor the College’s progress in implementing the requirements of Acadia University. 7. Questions were raised about the necessity for courses in Hebrew and in French, in an undergraduate degree, when substantial English and Greek requirements are also made. Is there a special reason for suggesting French? Would the result of making Hebrew an elective, rather than a required course make teaching time available so that some of the other courses suggested here may be offered? 8. There seems to be no course offering in General world history and the inclusion of a course as general, even, as Perspectives on World History, could be valuable. 9. We further recommend that an attempt should be made to provide some instruction in written English style, with a view to improving the quality of presentation in written term papers, theses, etc.

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10. When the CINDICO Calendar is revised, it should be done in consultation with Acadia Divinity College, through its Principal.140 At the end of this process, after three months, MacRae was positioned to bring what was, effectively, a strong proposal from Acadia’s School of Theology to Acadia’s Senate recommending the affiliation of AU with CINDICO for the granting of two Bachelor degrees in Nigeria. This trail of support and endorsement was essential in order to bring the proposal properly to the University. Even though ADC was a legally recognized educational institution in its own right, a Schedule of Agreement had been affixed to its 1968 Act of Incorporation whereby AU had agreed to award AU degrees to qualified ADC graduates.141 Since CINDICO’s proposed affiliation would be with the University through ADC, the University Senate, as a joined partner with ADC, needed to endorse the proposal. Their decision would be based in part upon their perception of the strength of support from the School of Theology and their confidence that the proposal had been adequately examined, thoroughly discussed, and appropriately handled by the entire College before being added to their agenda.

140 See “Report from Faculty Committee re-CINDICO,” [Nov. 1989?]. These suggestions were later reformulated from questions and suggestions into specific recommendations phrased in terms of directives. They were then included as an addendum to MacRae’s “Report to AUS” and entitled “Acadia Divinity College Recommendations to CINDICO.” The introductory paragraph was also expanded to include the sentence “All of the following recommendations are made with openness to the African, as distinct from, the North American, context.” See “Addendum” to “Report to AUS” by MacRae, 1990-01- 08. Still later the recommendations were included with MacRae’s “Report to AUS,” as 13-14, and all sent as an enclosure to a letter written by MacRae to Abiara immediately after AU had granted affiliation to CINDICO. However, the recommendations were not those submitted to the AUS. They were those found in the original “Report from Faculty Committee re-CINDICO,” [Nov. 1989?]. No longer phased as directives, they were posed in terms of queries and suggestions, as above. Item six was reworded to become: “It is proposed to ask …” See MacRae to Abiara, 1990-01-09, encl., “Report from Faculty Committee re- CINDICO,” 13-14. 141 See MacRae, “CINDICO,” 3-page preamble to MacRae’s “Report to AUS,” 1990-01-08.

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The Final Report142 ꜛIn December MacRae sent the final copy of the 1990 “Report to AUS” to Green and Perkin.143 As supporting documentation, MacRae included a letter from Imevbore, two letters and the membership list for WAATI from Mala, and, as an Addendum, the ten suggestions offered by the ADC faculty to CINDICO.144 One of the letters from Mala was actually a letter of reference for the affiliation of UNIDICO with AU. The recommendations from the ADC faculty had been reformulated from questions and suggestions into specific observations phrased in terms of directives145 and MacRae indicated to both Perkin and Green that they were not intended to be sent to the Senate. To Perkin MacRae further revealed that his “major concern” was whether he should show Ogilvie the report in advance of the presentation so as to address any issues that might be better discussed prior to the Senate meeting. He was willing to follow Perkin’s judgment. MacRae raised an additional point with both Green and Perkin though, that went beyond a mere attentive interest in detail and diplomacy. To Green he wrote that some faculty members “feared raising hostility” if the recommendations were not brought to the Acadia Senate specifically as the University Faculty of Theology.146 And to Perkin he explained, “The attempt, in [the] phrasing is to demonstrate that ADC, as an academic

142 This doc. is available in its entirety as Appendix G. 143 See MacRae to Green, 1989-12-15; and MacRae to Perkin, 1989-12-15. 144 See MacRae to Perkin, 1989-12-15, with 5 encls.: Imevbore to MacRae, 1989-09-06; Mala, “WAATI” membership list, [Sept. 1989?]; Mala to the Pres. of AU, “Letter of Reference: Affiliation of Universal Gospel Divinity College with AU,” 1989-09-12; Mala to the Provost of CINDICO, “Confidential Report on the B.Th and B.RE,” 1989-05-14; and MacRae, “Addendum: Acadia Divinity College Recommendations to CINDICO” [Nov. 1989?]. 145 Compare the “Report from Faculty Committee re-CINDICO” [Nov. 1989?], with MacRae to Perkin, encl. “Addendum,” 1989-12-15. 146 MacRae to Green, 1989-12-15.

104 institution, recognizes the legitimacy of CINDICO’s program, while submitting its judgement to the approval of the University Senate.”147 The issue that the College was so carefully attempting to negotiate centered on the legal and perceived association of ADC with AU.148ꜛ(114)ꜛ(166) Ever since the secularization of the University and the establishment of ADC as an institution apart- from yet related-to AU, relations between the College and certain elements in the University had been strained and, at times, contentious.149 This disharmony generally existed outside of the administration,150 but the College faculty was clearly concerned about the potential for opposition to the recommendations based on the unfriendly perception of ADC. MacRae was certainly sensitive to that too. By wording the introduction to the recommendations to the University Senate so deliberately, the hope was to avert any negativity that might cloud the objective assessment of the factual issues relating to the affiliation.

Deliberations in the University Senate

The proposal concerning CINDICO was considered by the Senate of AU at its monthly meeting on January 8, 1990 with thirty-six members present.151 MacRae’s report is a concise and closely reasoned argument in favour of affiliation. It consists of two parts. The first section presents the request clearly in the opening paragraphs and then

147 MacRae to Perkin, 1989-12-15. The proposal was written: “The Senate of Acadia Divinity College [the academic institution] … is now prepared to validate the academic programmes of the Christ International Divinity College, and makes the following recommendations, as the University’s Faculty of Theology [the institution under Agreement with Acadia] …” See MacRae, “Report to AUS,” 11. 148 This issue was examined in 1992-93 by the Senate ad hoc Committee re University/Divinity College Relations (ahC-U/DCR). See → on page 166. For the ahC-U/DCR report, see n228 → on page 167. 149 Mitton, interview by author, Wolfville, 2012-07-31; and also, MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2012-09-12. 150 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2012-09-12. 151 AUS Mins., 1990-01-08, 1, f.f. “Senate Minutes September 1989-October 1990,” ECWA.

105 summarizes the situation as MacRae found it in Nigeria. The background of the College, the political, social, and religious context, and CINDICO’s governance, programming, curriculum, academic quality, facilities, and purpose are all covered. The heart of the document is in the second section. It contains the eight recommendations from the School of Theology that were to govern the affiliation. The ten suggestions to CINDICO from ADC’s faculty were included as an addendum to the report.152 MacRae’s oral presentation, however, given as a preamble to the discussion, contains his most powerful argument. In it he sets the context for the debate and argues the broader case for affiliation. He reminded the Senate that one of the recent major emphases of theological education in North America, as supported by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS), was globalization. The effort across the continent was increasingly to take a larger role in world leadership training and cross-cultural awareness. Using CÉTÉ as both the example and paradigm, he pointed up the precedent already established for theological affiliations with Acadia through ADC. He noted the religious situation in Nigeria and encouraged the Senate to consider sympathetically the circumstance where Christian institutions were proscribed by Islamic forces in the national government while at the same time those same Christian institutions were supported by the religious departments of the national universities. ꜛIn his conclusion MacRae emphasized the non-confessional history of the Baptist tradition at both the Divinity College and University and he iterated that CINDICO was pledged to safeguard a similar interdenominational stance.153

152 See MacRae, “Report to AUS.” 153 See MacRae, “CINDICO,” 3-page preamble to MacRae’s “Report to AUS,” 1990-01-08.

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According to MacRae, in the discussion that followed, the key issue that secured the affiliation was the way in which the curriculum had been so carefully prepared to address the needs of the Nigerian context.

I think the big thing was: they did such a thorough job in preparing a contextualized program – very much in Nigerian dress, very much. That’s what really got the affiliation for them. … To a western university to recommend that the required courses in agriculture, unheard of in a theological school. That convinced them. … Somebody on the Senate said, “I’m amazed!” … Now this program dealt with the indigenous stuff from day one. [It] really did. And that’s what secured the approval. … It was only when I took their curriculum, which was very carefully designed by them, and it was designed not according to North American culture, but according to Nigerian culture: that has to be said! They took very seriously the needs of their own culture when they mapped out their curriculum.154 But the course in agriculture and the indigenized curriculum were not the only important items. The fact that the degrees and instruction conformed so closely to the standards of AU, and that other universities in the area supported the fledgling college, were of great advantage to CINDICO. In his address at the first awarding of Acadia degrees in July 1990, MacRae noted that the cooperation that CINDICO had received from the surrounding universities and the College’s willingness to have external monitoring both from these neighbouring institutions and from Acadia were major factors in gaining approval for affiliation.155 Surprisingly, issues regarding things of positive net benefit to the University were not raised during the discussion of CINDICO. Unlike affiliations established between Acadia and other institutions, questions of levying tuition fees, requiring residency and study in Canada, or securing similar benefits that would ordinarily accrue directly to the

University from the relationship, were not broached. In September 1991, just twenty-one

154 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19, emphases not added. 155 MacRae, “Address by the Principal,” delivered at CINDICO’s 1st Convocation for awarding AU degrees, Erinmo-Ijesha, 1990-07-14.

107 months after CINDICO was affiliated, a motion was made in the Senate seeking approval for AU to negotiate an agreement with Sunway College, Malaysia. According to the proposal document, when completed the contract between the two institutions was intended to obligate Acadia to accept fifty students from Sunway College into the third year of a four-year program for five consecutive semesters. The benefits and safeguards, as outlined in the document, are substantial in favour of Acadia and, by contrast, make the meagre stipulations of CINDICO’s affiliation with Acadia all the more remarkable.156 Today, in 2013, AU has relationships with hundreds of national and international schools. Some are “2 plus 2” arrangements whereby students begin their program in another institution and finish their final two years at Acadia and graduate with a four-year Acadia degree. Others are part of an exchange program where individuals from Acadia study elsewhere and receive credit, as well as experience, for one year’s courses taken in a different institution. In this case, Acadia students graduate with Acadia degrees while the corresponding exchange student graduates from their own university. In all instances financial benefits accrue to Acadia through the payment of tuition fees that are doubled for international students, and in some instances, residency and boarding charges. With regards to the “2 plus 2” students, Acadia is able to graduate a student bearing its own degree; and with both “2 plus 2” and exchange students, Acadia is able to teach and evaluate directly the students’ abilities and progress. CINDICO, and the other three colleges affiliated to Acadia through ADC, is unique. In no other instances does Acadia award an Acadia degree to students who have been wholly trained and examined elsewhere without Acadia at some point being able to follow and assess directly the students’ progress and skills.157

156 Compare this narrative with the motion and discussion surrounding granting approval for AU to negotiate an agreement with Sunway College, Malaysia as found in AUS Mins., 1991-09-09, f.f. “Senate Minutes 1991-1992,” (see Sen. refer. #912-05), ECWA. 157 R. Jotcham, registrar at AU, interview by author, Wolfville, 2012-11-20.

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But according to Perkin, in January 1990 the only real concern that the Senate had pertaining to the affiliation of CINDICO was how to ensure the quality of the program at CINDICO.158 ꜛThe matters that occupied the Senate primarily related to impairment – could this institution be adequately monitored such that the quality of the degree can be maintained and the University’s reputation guarded from harm?159 The affiliation review was three years hence and its requirements consisted mainly of making “significant progress” in developing facilities, library resources, and security and not changing the current programs or adding lecturers without getting prior approval from ADC’s

Principal and Senate.160 The responsibility for oversight and review was placed explicitly, entirely, and exclusively upon ADC, its Principal, and the College Senate. It was an arrangement that the College had willingly tendered and to which it readily agreed.

Affiliation Granted and Accepted ꜛThe motion to grant the provisional affiliation of CINDICO with AU for a three- year period was passed unanimously.161 The business item in the Senate Minutes for

January 8, 1990 is actually entitled, “Validation of programmes at CINDICO,”162 and the Minutes simply state,

It was moved A. MacRae, seconded J. Merks, that the eight recommendations to Senate concerning the validation of programmes of study offered at CINDICO, the Christ International Divinity College, in Ilesha, Nigeria, be approved with the conditions stated. These conditions, related to the continuation of approval after 1993, are 3, 4, 5 and 6 on page 11 of the documents. It was agreed that ADC would present Senate in the

158 Perkin and Dockendorff, telephone interview, Wolfville, 2012-10-17. 159 Ibid. 160 MacRae to Abiara, 1990-01-09. 161 Ibid. 162 AUS Mins., 1990-01-08, 4, f.f. “Senate Minutes September 1989-October 1990,” ECWA.

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Spring of 1993 with a Report on the achievement of these goals by CINDICO. The motion carried.163

Affiliation, or more correctly, the validation of the programmes at CINDICO by the

Acadia Senate, was adopted conditional upon four of the eight recommendations in

MacRae’s report. The core of the relationship with the University, and the heart of its future as represented in the continuation clauses of the affiliation, resided in four stipulations whose central focus was on accountability to AU through ADC, the

University’s School of Theology:ꜛ(146)ꜛ(162)ꜛ(174)

3. That degree awards by Acadia University be conditional on the written recommendation of graduands by the Senate of CINDICO. Students already recommended for graduation at the end of the 1988/89 academic year should be included in the first graduating class. 4. That CINDICO be required to demonstrate significant progress in Library development during the next three years, to the satisfaction of an academic review by the Acadia Divinity College Principal or his appointee, with the concurrence specifically of the members of the CINDICO Senate who are also Faculty members of University Faculties in Nigeria 5. That evidence be available of significant developments in physical plant, and in physical security during the next triennium. 6. ꜛThat proposed alterations to the curriculum and appointments to Faculty of CINDICO during the next three years, be made with the approval of the Principal of Acadia Divinity College as the University’s Dean of Theology, and the endorsement of the Acadia Divinity College Senate.164 ꜛSeveral people commented on the thoroughness of the report and they commended MacRae on the excellent form of the presentation.165 There were no other expectations specifically noted at the time. The next day, January 9, 1990, MacRae communicated the good news to Abiara and Odelami. He sent them the full report that he had presented to the AUS, including the eight recommendations that were to govern the new relationship and the ten suggestions

163 AUS Mins., 1990-01-08, 4, f.f. “Senate Minutes September 1989-October 1990,” ECWA. 164 MacRae, “Report to AUS,” 11. 165 AUS Mins., 1990-01-08, 4, f.f. “Senate Minutes September 1989-October 1990,” ECWA.

110 offered by the ADC faculty to CINDICO.166 Abiara responded the day after he received the letter. He was ecstatic and wrote,

I would like to assure you that all the conditions attached to the affiliation exercise are acceptable to me personally. When the Board of Management meets soon, these conditions will be presented to them accordingly. … Also, the work on the development of the site of the College will be carried out to your satisfaction.167 CINDICO’s Board of Management met the following day, and thirty days after that the Secretary responded warmly,

I write on behalf of CINDICO Board of Management to accept with gratitude all the conditions of affiliating our College with the Acadia University …. // The CINDICO Board of Management at its meeting of 27th January, 1990 has considered, point by point, all the conditions attached to the affiliation. We have also noted the various recommendations to CINDICO made by the Divinity College Faculty. The recommendations will assist us in re-arranging the programmes and priorities of the College.168 Later in March, MacRae confirmed an invitation extended to Abiara and Odelami to visit Acadia in time for the May 7, 1990 Convocation. He advised them that they should hold open the day following the graduation ceremonies. He wanted to discuss the implementation of the affiliation between Acadia and CINDICO.169

The Larger Context It is difficult to overstate the fact that the affiliation of AU with CINDICO is exceptional for academic relations. It is highly unusual for a college to grant its degrees through another institution without in some measure being involved in the educational process, whether by sending teachers, monitoring courses, scrutinizing applicants,

166 MacRae to Abiara, 1990-01-09; and MacRae to Odelami, 1990-01-09. 167 Abiara to MacRae, 1990-01-26. 168 Folahan to MacRae, 1990-02-26. 169 MacRae to Abiara, 1990-03-20.

111 assessing staff, writing up contracts, creating academic files, standardizing records, or insisting that students spent part of their time at the granting institution. Without it ever being explicitly stated in the AUS, affiliation with Acadia was a gracious and generous response to the Nigerians’ plight; and the formalization of an official academic relationship between CINDICO and AU was, in effect, a unique benefit of enormous worth that not only came at no charge either to the students or CINDICO, but also carried very little expectation of anything else, including financial remuneration, in the future.170 In hindsight, it seems remarkable that the agreement was so readily established.

For even if one allows for charitable largess on the part of a Western institution towards an educational initiative in Africa, just considering Acadia alone, the feat of affiliating CINDICO to the University was considerable. The negotiations were conducted in the midst of challenging circumstances. First, financially, the period of the affiliation was a difficult time for institutions of higher learning in Nova Scotia. In the early 1990’s the government proposed a review and consolidation of the universities in the province as a means of rationalizing postsecondary education and reducing costs. For a decade funding was decreased annually relative to previous years’ budgets; and in real dollars terms as of 2013, operating grants have never fully recovered from the cuts that were made at that time.171 Perkin’s tenure as

170 ꜛAccording to MacRae, neither he nor anyone at ADC expected to receive advantage from the affiliation. He responded when asked, “No. I wouldn’t entertain any expectation. I said, ‘If we’re going to do this, it’s our mission.’” MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. That changed later only after the affiliation of UNIDICO and the establishment of the Acadia Consortium in 1994 and 1997, respectively. In order to help fund travels for Odelami from Nigeria to ADC for accountability meetings, it was arranged that over the four-year period of the degree, each Bachelor student would pay a $250USD administrative fee. MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. The fee was to be forwarded and held at ADC to be used by Odelami. C. Killacky, Assoc. Prof. of Theo. at ADC, interview by author, Wolfville, 2012-11-20. This was never enacted at ADC due to the financial constraints it placed on Nigerian students. Wooden and Dockendorff, informal conversation, Wolfville, 2013-03-01. 171 See Office of the Premier of Nova Scotia, Report on the University System in Nova Scotia, by Tim O’Neill, September 2010, s.v. >Reports and Publications, accessed 2012-12-07, http://premier.nova scotia.ca/; and Bob Parker and Jonathan Williams, Getting the Most From Our Universities: A New Approach to System Planning and Funding in Nova Scotia, reviewed by Kyle Power (Halifax: Students NS,

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President at Acadia (1981-1993) spanned a period that ranged from relative affluence to severe financial restraint. At the end of his term he acknowledged that the harsh economics had placed heavy burdens on university staff, leaving positions unfilled, some areas severely reduced by attrition, and the universities’ facilities generally in urgent need of renovation.172 For this reason alone, the 1990’s was not a particularly good time to introduce new initiatives that garnered no tangible reward to the institution. Second, while it is true that the affiliation of CÉTÉ to Acadia predated CINDICO’s affiliation and could serve as a convenient paradigm for the Nigerian request, the fact was that the relationship between CÉTÉ and Acadia had not been easy to achieve. Mitton made three presentations to the Acadia Senate before he was able to secure approval to have Acadia grant degrees jointly with CÉTÉ in Montreal – and even then the vote was close.173 If there was any lesson to be learned from this history for CINDICO, it might have been that the affiliation of a theological institution with AU was far from an assured success even when brokered by the Divinity College, preceded by a thorough investigation, and subjected to the detailed scrutiny of a critical review.

Third, four years prior to CINDICO being considered and granted affiliation with AU, in 1986 Atlantic Baptist College (ABC) had sought affiliation with Acadia. ABC wanted to develop four-year study programs that would lead to a Bachelor degree granted by Acadia.174 Both ABC and AU had Baptist roots, each was still associated with

UBCAP, and for ten years since 1976, ABC students had been able to transfer up to two

released 2012-01-15), s.vv. >Research and Policy >Position Papers >Getting the Most From Our Universities, accessed 2013-08-03, http://studentsns.ca/. (Note: originally, I consulted the Draft Position Paper, accessed 2012-12-07, http://studentunion.ca/studentsNS/StudentsNS%20-%20Draft%20position %20paper%20-%20Funding%20and%20Accountability%20-%20November%209,%202012.pdf). 172 Perkin, introduction to “Report of the President: 1992-93,” (ECWA, AU, Wolfville, 1993), xi. 173 Mitton, interview, Wolfville, 2012-07-31. 174 See AUS Mins., 1987-10-13, 11, f.f. “Senate Minutes 1987-1988,” ECWA.

113 years of credits to Acadia and have them applied toward a four-year Bachelor degree.175 But despite these pre-existing connections, the College was not able to achieve affiliation with the University and after a series of meetings that included discussions of funding, students transfers, appointment of staff, and general administrative arrangements,176 both parties declined the relationship. According to Jotcham, who worked in Acadia’s registrar’s office at the time, the affiliation did not proceed possibly because ABC was a private, not a publically funded, institution. “For the most part, public universities don’t go into partnership with private institutions.”177 But that makes the affiliation of

CINDICO and UNIDICO with AU all the more remarkable. Both of these Nigerian institutions are privately owned and privately funded colleges. As for ABC, it moved on. In 1983, three years before beginning negotiations with AU, the College had been granted the right by the New Brunswick government to offer baccalaureate degrees. In 1996, a decade after negotiations with AU had stalled, the College moved to a new campus and changed its name to Atlantic Baptist University (ABU). In 2010 ABU changed its name again to Crandall University.178

Finally, as noted above,179 CINDICO was affiliated with AU during a period of tetchy relations between the Divinity College and factions in the University. This smoldering bellicosity was not new;180 and it would resurface again in 1993 around the time when UNIDICO was seeking affiliation with Acadia.181 But, while the antipathy

175 A review of ABC transfer students, conducted at the time of College’s request for affiliation, revealed that their academic performance was as good as but not better than other Acadia students. Jotcham, interview, Wolfville, 2012-11-20. 176 See AUS Mins., 1987-10-13, 11, f.f. “Senate Minutes 1987-1988,” ECWA. 177 Jotcham, interview, Wolfville, 2012-11-20. 178 For Crandall University, see “History,” s.vv. >About >About Crandall >History, accessed 2013-08-05, http://www.crandallu.ca/. 179 See → on page 105. 180 Mitton, interview, Wolfville, 2012-07-31. 181 See → on page 166.

114 between secular and theological perspectives at the University continues at times to generate friction between Faculties, it needs to be underlined that the authorities of AU have always maintained their trust and confidence in the Divinity College and its leadership. For the past thirty-four years, the University has relied entirely on the specialized oversight of its School of Theology to monitor and evaluate the programs at its affiliated theological colleges in Montreal, Nigeria, and Hong Kong and to safeguard the University’s academic reputation in these national and international settings.

CINDICO’s First Acadia Graduation Notwithstanding all of these hurdles, on July 14, 1990, a little over six months after Acadia’s Senate had granted affiliation, MacRae was back in Nigeria as the official representative of the University182 to pass out nineteen AU diplomas to CINDICO’s new graduates.183 Included in that number were the seven graduands who had received degrees from CCC the previous year. During the Convocation ceremonies MacRae presented Abiara with a framed certificate affirming the affiliation between CINDICO and AU.184 He also awarded two full scholarships185 for studies at ADC. One scholarship was given to Adewale Kuyebi, a newly graduating CINDICO student186 who, apparently,

182 See MacRae to Perkin, 1990-05-22 and MacRae to Perkin, 1990-06-29. In the first communiqué MacRae thanks Perkin for agreeing to ask the Senate to empower MacRae to represent Acadia at the CINDICO convocation in July and to have the University pay the airfare. In the second, MacRae reminds Perkin of these two issues. 183 For a list of 1990 graduands see, “CINDICO 1st Convocation Ceremony for award of Degrees by Acadia University and 3rd Convocation Ceremony for the award of Certificates and Diplomas,” prog. booklet for ceremonies at Erinmo, Nigeria, 1990-07-14, 14-15. 184 See MacRae, “Presentation to CINDICO,” (remarks, read after Macrae’s “Address by the Principal,” delivered at CINDICO’s Convocation, Erinmo, Nigeria, 1990-07-14). The certificate affirmed: “Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada certifies that it has granted affiliate status to The Christ International Divinity College Erinmo-Ilesha, Nigeria, which entitles the College, in co-operation with Acadia Divinity College, to prepare students for the award of the Acadia degrees of Bachelor of Theology and Bachelor of Religious Education.” The certificate is signed by Perkin, Green, and MacRae and dated 1990-05-30. (Emphasis not added.) 185 See n50 → on page 130. 186 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19.

115 was a member of Odelami’s church.187 The other award went to Emmanuel Tukasi, a recent graduate from the United Methodist Missionary College (BTh, 1990).188 MacRae’s visit was a well-publicized event. For the entire week newspapers, radio, and television stations covered the story daily while church and government officials, representatives from the major Universities in Lagos, Oyo, and Ondo State, obas, and other local dignitaries joined over a 1,000 people at the Convocation. The Canadian High Commission in Nigeria was represented by the Second Secretary of Administration. He brought official greetings and presented the College with a three- volume copy of the Canadian Encyclopedia.189

187 ꜛ(131)ꜛ(132)See MacRae’s convocation address delivered at the first graduation of UNIDICO graduands to receive AU degrees where MacRae says, “One of your own fine young leaders, Kuyebi, earned his Masters of Divinity degree, with Honours, [from ADC] …” MacRae, “Message to Universal Gospel Divinity College,” 1994-12-10, 2, f.f. “Nigeria December 6-13, 1994,” ADCPO. After earning an MDiv (Hons., 1994) and an MRE (1994) at ADC, Kuyebi was given a full scholarship to the graduate school of Western Theological Seminary, in Holland, Michigan where he earned an MTh (1996) in Historical Theology. MacRae, “Report: The Faculty of Theology (Acadia Divinity College),” in “Acadia University Yearbook 1993-1994,” (ECWA, AU, Wolfville, 1994), 159. Kuyebi later went on to earn an MTh (1998) at Trinity International University (formerly, Trinity Evangelical Divinity College), Deerfield, IL, and a PhD (2008) in Religious Studies at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB. Since 2003-01, he has been the Chairman of CAC, Vineyard of Comfort (Agbala Itura) Ireland where he oversees pastors and evangelists in Dublin, Cork, Dundalk, Drogheda, Midleton, and Galway. He is responsible for over 1,000 members nationwide. Since 2003-08 he has been the National Pastor of the CAC in Ireland. See “Dr Adewale Kuyebi,” accessed 2012-12-07, http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/adewale-kuyebi/28/352/58a. 188 ꜛ(131)ꜛ(132)MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. At ADC Tukasi completed an MDiv. In 1993 he was the first international student to win the University Medal in Theology given for the best work over three years. In 1994 Tukasi earned an MRE and was named an International Scholar to the graduate school of Princeton Theological Seminary, NJ, on full scholarship. See MacRae, “Report: The Faculty of Theology,” in “Acadia Yearbook 1993-1994,” 159; and MacRae, “Message to Universal Gospel Divinity College,” 2. Tukasi graduated from Princeton in 1995 (MTh) and later received a PhD (2005) in NT and Early Judaism from King’s College U. of London, UK. Tukasi is currently the pastor of CAC Romford, London, and a visiting lecturer at Temple College London. In 2008 he published Determinism and Petitionary Prayer in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Ideological Reading of John and the Rule of the Community (1QS) (London: T&T Clark, 2008). See Andrew D. MacRae, “Emmanuel Tukasi,” ADC Today 2 (2006), 4; and also, http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/emmanuel-o-tukasi, http://www.linkedin. com/pub/emmanuel-tukasi/28/4a1/172, and http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/director/1426881/emmanu el-tukasi (all three websites accessed 2013-08-06). 189 A. MacRae, “Christ International Divinity College,” (memo/report, [1990-08?]). The Canadian office in Nigeria is a High Commission and not an Embassy. Canadian High Commissions are offices located in the capital cities of Commonwealth countries. They are headed by a High Commissioner. Embassies are offices located in the capital cities of non-Commonwealth countries and are headed by Ambassadors. See “Office Types, Locations and Services,” s.vv. >Canadian Offices Abroad >embassies, consulates, high commissions and trade offices, accessed 2012-12-06, http://www.canada.gc.ca/home.html.

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Summary The story of the affiliation of CINDICO holds a number of remarkable features. The first is the incredulity of the event itself. It is hard to imagine the faith and the boldness exhibited by the leaders of CINDICO – a struggling college founded by the charismatic prophet of a semi-independent indigenous ministry in a progressively more impoverished country in Africa – as they sent a delegation 11,420 km (7,095 mi.)190 to another continent to speak with AU – an established, 150-year-old, Western institution with an enviable international reputation – to request affiliation based on a chance remark, a critical need, and an admiring friendship. The warmth of the Canadian response is no less difficult to envision. If AU had summarily dismissed CINDICO, it would not have been a surprise. But ADC, AU, and the various representatives of these organizations welcomed Odelami and to their credit and as a testament to their academic integrity and unbiased equity, they considered the proposal and evaluated it based on its merits – without debating what the Nigerians could offer them in return. The second item of note is the objective approach to CINDICO’s evaluation.

Even though Odelami, Abiara, and MacRae all shared a sense of divine initiative in the affiliation process, and each wanted to see it established, MacRae was always clear, and Odelami and Abiara always understood, that the relationship had to be judged according to an exacting criteria so that it would stand on its own worth. For their part, the

Nigerians came prepared with documents and evidence that supported their request. After three years Odelami had established CINDICO on a thoroughly indigenized North American model. He had marshalled support from key academics in the local area. And he had insisted that the College be held to high standards and withstand the external scrutiny of Nigerian peers. MacRae’s review of CINDICO was conducted with honesty

190 This is the total distance for a one-way, air flight mileage trip from Lagos to Frankfurt to London to Toronto to Halifax, according to http://www.distance.com, accessed 2013-04-01.

117 and integrity. He submitted the college to a rigorous academic examination. He confirmed the college’s local support, assessed the potential for development, and based his findings on a sense of the true viability of the operation. Of the three visionaries, perhaps Abiara least understood the strict attention to academic detail. But to his credit, he put his money where his vision was, he sought the best advice in Nigeria, and he unstintingly accommodated every adaptation that AU and ADC required of him. Third, the trust that AU placed, and continues to place, in its School of Theology is remarkable. Despite any occasional personal dispute or misunderstanding, the regard with which the administration of AU holds ADC is evident in the manner in which MacRae’s 1990 report was received. Not only were his recommendations adopted unanimously, but his manner of presentation was commended as well. CINDICO’s efforts, especially in requiring a course in agriculture in a theological degree, were acknowledged. And the AU Senators endorsed, with an astonishing paucity of restrictions or expectations, the achievements of CINDICO’s Provost. The fact that many of the details of the affiliations, regarding scrutiny and compliance, were left for the School of

Theology to work out is a witness to the trust that AU has in ADC and its leadership. The final feature that is quite remarkable in the affiliation of CINDICO with AU concerns the vision of those at Acadia. It is no small feat that the academic establishment of AU in Canada was able to look beyond the dirt and the dust of Nigeria to view the affiliation in light of such grander principles as globalization, the responsibilities of educational missions, the provision of non-discriminatory access to education, and the unbiased delivery of scarce knowledge. The need was great and the request was large.

And in practically every conceivable way, the response was close to a miracle.191

191 See Imevbore’s comment → on page 82.

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Chapter Four: The Affiliation of UNIDICO

Introduction This chapter will examine the affiliation of UNIDICO to AU. Because the precedent had already been established with the association of CINDICO to Acadia, and because UNIDICO was almost identical in setup and standards to the newly affiliated school, Odelami expected that UNIDICO should have been endorsed by the Senate immediately after CINDICO’s affiliation. But while they were similar, the two colleges were markedly different in important respects and this legitimately delayed the process. It took two years before MacRae was finally able to recommend UNIDICO comfortably to AU, and by then the mood in Acadia’s Senate had become more cautious. CINDICO was approved for a second triennium starting in 1993, but a decision on UNIDICO was tabled until the whole notion of affiliating colleges could be reviewed. An ad hoc committee was struck comprised of representatives from all four Faculties at the University. They examined the issue from a variety of perspectives and almost a year later presented their findings to the Senate. Ultimately, they recommended affiliating UNIDICO with Acadia under conditions similar to those imposed on CINDICO. The process may have taken longer, and the investigation may have been broader than Odelami might have imagined, but the outcome was exactly as he had hoped. On March 14, 1994 UNIDICO became AU’s second Nigerian affiliated college. And on December 10, 1994 seven UNIDICO graduates were awarded degrees from a university that none of them had ever seen but all of them had trusted would recognize their four years of hard work.

In the following narrative, the story of the affiliation of UNIDICO is first set against the backdrop of MacRae’s efforts to develop CINDICO’s faculty, of Odelami’s deteriorating relations with Abiara, and the ever-intensifying and always imminent threat of government sanction against UNIDICO. These issues prepared the stage for MacRae’s

119 triennial review of CINDICO, his assessment of UNIDICO’s achievements, and the 1993 report that he brought to the Acadia Senate. The review process, MacRae’s recommendations, and the Senate’s response will be examined in detail. Following that, the work and the recommendations of the Senate’s ad hoc Committee will be considered. And then, finally, the affiliation of UNIDICO to Acadia will be described. The narrative will conclude with UNIDICO’s first Convocation to pass out Acadia degrees.

The Push to Affiliate UNIDICO

No sooner had the work of achieving CINDICO’s affiliation been accomplished in January 1990 than Odelami began advocating strenuously on behalf of UNIDICO.1 ꜛPreviously, while he was attempting to negotiate CINDICO’s affiliation with Acadia, Odelami had raised with MacRae the issue of affiliating his College. As a result of Odelami’s prodding in May 1989 when he and Abiara had attended the Convocation at Acadia, MacRae wrote a letter of invitation proposing that Odelami and three elders from his church visit Canada to engage in negotiations with the University.2 Later, in July

1989, before MacRae visited Nigeria in September to review CINDICO, Odelami wrote in a handwritten note added to the bottom of a typewritten letter printed on CINDICO letterhead, “My ministry is also asking for an affiliation of its Divinity College with Acadia. They are also writing a self-study for your consideration. They will also have you to pay a visit with them when you come. This College is interdenominational.”3 The following month Odelami hand-scripted a three-page letter to MacRae on UNIDICO letterhead. The epistle was pregnant with the sense that mission history was being made

1 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 2 MacRae to Odelami, 1989-05-10. The three were Ibukun Efuntayo, Samuel Orowumi, and Samuel O. Oshunbiy. [Note: according to a later invitation, Oshunbiy’s name is most likely spelled “Oshunbiyi.” See MacRae to S. O. Oshunbiyi, 1991-09-12]. 3 Odelami to MacRae, 1989-07-31.

120 in Africa as a result of MacRae’s efforts to bring Christian education to Nigeria. After discussing arrangements regarding CINDICO, Odelami repeated that his church also expected to have a day with MacRae during his trip to review CINDICO, so that they could put “all [their] little preparation” before him. He emphasized again that the new college was interdenominational and suggested that it had better access than CINDICO to library facilities at the University of Ile-Ifé.4 He made particular note that most of the forty-eight students attending the College were mature; they already had careers as pastors, business owners or teachers, and some had degrees from other universities. He described the four programs being offered at the school. One of them was a post graduate program for an MDiv degree, and remarkably, Odelami noted, “three of CINDICO (sic) teachers are MDiv students of this UNIDICO institution at Ifé. What they seriously need now is affiliation with Acadia.”5 Finally, after describing the facilities, Odelami stated that he had directed the Provost of UNIDICO to do a self-study for MacRae’s visit.6 During CINDICO’s review, MacRae met with UNIGAC and UNIDICO officials at OAU to receive the School’s self-study and to encourage them.7 ꜛLater that fall 1989,

MacRae, with the support of the ADC faculty, cited UNIDICO in the report of his trip presented to the College Senate.8 He suggested that CINDICO should be affiliated with

4 In this letter Odelami used the old name for OAU. The name had been changed to OAU from the University of Ile-Ifé two years earlier. 5 Odelami to MacRae, 1989-08-23, 3. 6 Ibid. 7 Olaoba-Efuntayo to MacRae, 1989-11-19. The ten-page self-study that was prepared by the Provost, A. O. Olaoba-Efuntayo, was very similar in format to the eleven-page study prepared by Odelami for CINDICO. Compare A. O. Olaoba-Efuntayo, “A Self-Study on the Universal Gospel Divinity College (UNIDICO) Ile-Ife Nigeria Presented to Acadia University, Canada for the Purpose of Affiliation by the Provost, Pastor, A. O. Olaoba-Efuntayo,” (Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, [1989-09?]), and Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on Christ International Divinity College Erinmo Nigeria Presented to Acadia Divinity College as a Basis for Requesting Affiliation with Acadia University by the Provost, Dr. M. O. Odelami,” [Erinmo- Ijesa, Nigeria, 1989-09?]. The UNIDICO self-study was accompanied by a letter of recommendation from Babs Mala. See MacRae to Perkin, 1989-12-15, encls. Mala to the President of AU, “Letter of Reference: Affiliation of Universal Gospel Divinity College with AU,” 1989-09-12. 8 For UNIDICO’s affiliation in 1989 see → on page 94, → on page 100, and → on page 101.

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AU and that UNIDICO should be considered for affiliation “following submission and examination of further information.”9 The recommendation concerning UNIDICO was eventually deleted before the final “Report to AUS” was written. But all the same, the two Nigerian colleges were either directly or indirectly referred to jointly five times10 in the report. What is more, when MacRae sent Perkin a copy of the final report, he included among the supporting documents a letter of recommendation from Babs Mala advocating the affiliation of UNIDICO.11 The day after CINDICO’s affiliation was granted, MacRae wrote to Odelami.12

He underscored that UNIDICO had been referenced in the “Report to AUS,” but he emphasized that the college was not recommended for affiliation because he feared that if he had tried to gain recognition for both colleges at the same time he would have placed both proposals in jeopardy. UNIDICO’s application for affiliation had come too late to be adequately examined and MacRae was loath to disturb the goodwill that had been cultivated in the course of the CINDICO negotiations. Indeed, UNIDICO’s application was late. While discussions with CINDICO had begun in October 1988, it was not until ten months afterward in July 1989 that Odelami first recorded his similar desire for UNIDICO.13 Furthermore, while a UNIGAC delegation had been invited to come to Canada in May 1989, none came; and the

9 See MacRae, “Report and Recommendations to Senate,” draft-typewritten doc. ed. in ink, [Oct. 1989?], 11. The proposal regarding UNIDICO is handwritten by MacRae and added at the bottom of the page in ink as item no. 9. 10 See A. MacRae, “Report and Recommendations to Acadia University Senate,” report presented to the AUS, Wolfville, 1990-01-08, 2 (twice), and 4 (three times). 11 MacRae to Perkin, 1989-12-15, encls Mala to the President of AU, “Letter of Reference: Affiliation of Universal Gospel Divinity College with AU,” 1989-09-12. 12 See MacRae to Odelami, 1990-01-09. 13 See Odelami to MacRae, 1989-07-31. This is the first written record. Of course, Odelami and MacRae had spoken of the possibility of affiliating UNIDICO with Acadia before this date in 1989-07. See → on page 120.

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College’s self-study was produced four months later, contemporaneously with CINDICO’s self-study, and then only coincident with a trip to Nigeria that was specifically authorized to investigate Abiara’s college. Perhaps most critically, though, it is important to realize that by September 1989 when MacRae visited Nigeria, CINDICO had been operating for three full academic years while UNIDICO had only just begun. Odelami, apparently, had organized a college in 1984 when he had returned from studies at ADC. But according to two of UNIDICO’s own self-studies, one written in 1989 and the other in 1993, the College was not founded until 1989, the year of MacRae’s visit.

The first cohort of students did not even enter the College until September 1989,14 just days before MacRae’s arrival on September 14th. According to MacRae, in response to Odelami’s insistence that UNIDICO should be affiliated with Acadia after CINDICO had been approved in 1990, he questioned him:

“Michael, how long has your program been going?” He said, “One year.” I said, “Come back in two more years.” “Oh! Yoi, yoi, yoi! You did it for CINDICO!” I said, “When you have a three year record to present, I will be able to take it with full confidence to the same Senate that approved CINDICO. I cannot [do that now, so] you will have to be patient for two years and tell your students, ‘This is likely to happen, if you maintain your standards!’ But we can’t do it for two years, legally. We can’t do it because we don’t have any grounds for doing it. We can’t see what they’re like in this school. All we’ve got is one year’s courses to judge it by. We must have more than that.” And so with some reluctance – we’re good friends, so it didn’t matter – he said, “OK! Ok, ok.” I said, “Just settle down, and wait for it, and it will happen.” And it did.15

14 There may be a bit of confusion as to when UNIDICO started. In 1989, Olaoba-Efuntayo wrote 1989; in 1993, Olayiwola wrote 1988. But in both of the UNIDICO self-studies it is clearly indicated that students did not come and classes did not begin at UNIDICO until 1989-09. Compare A. O. Olaoba- Efuntayo, “A Self-Study on UNIDICO,” (Ile-Ifé, [1989-09?]) and D. O. Olayiwola, “A Self-Study on the Universal Gospel Divinity College (UNIDICO) Ile-Ifé Nigeria Presented to Acadia University, Canada for the Purpose of Affiliation, by the Provost, Pastor, (Dr) D. O. Olayiwola,” (Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, [1993-01?]). 15 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19, emphases not added.

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Another Question In January 1990, in addition to assuring Odelami that not including UNIDICO for affiliation before the Acadia Senate was not a slight to the College or its backers, but merely an issue of timing and prudence, MacRae conveyed a query that he said originated with the ADC faculty. As they had considered the situation, they wondered whether establishing another evangelical, interdenominational college so close to CINDICO was really necessary. After all, UNIDICO, located in Ile-Ifé at the time, was only 30 km (18.6 mi.) away from Abiara’s college in Erinmo Ilesha.16 The question was whether the witness of the two colleges could be strengthened and their resources better utilized if they amalgamated, or at the very least, agreed to have CINDICO award Acadia degrees to qualified graduates of UNIDICO. The two colleges already shared some staff and there were others who sat on Boards at both institutions.17 Odelami wrote a vigorous letter to MacRae in response on UNIGAC letterhead arguing several points.18 In part his reply was viscerally personal. “I really find it difficult to explain this [issue of UNIDICO’s affiliation] to the members of my congregation who have long believed that the opportunity CINDICO now has should be theirs.”19 But he did make some important points as he emphasized that the region in which CINDICO and UNIDICO were located had a population of two million people, far larger than that of Nova Scotia; that enrolment at ten Bible colleges could not handle the demand for theological training; and that Christian witness in the area needed to be strengthened in the face of daily opposition from Islam and ATR. He dreamed a bit as he suggested that UNIDICO intended to expand more aggressively than CINDICO into other areas of

16 According to Google Maps, accessed 2012-12-11, https://maps.google.ca/. 17 MacRae to Odelami, 1990-01-09. 18 See Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27. 19 See ibid., 1.

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Nigeria and into correspondence courses. But in his most practical plea he advised that the School needed an outside sponsor to give it legitimacy in the eyes of the government. That being said, in the same letter Odelami also suggested that he would like to come to Canada for doctoral studiesꜛ associated with the University of Ibadan, in 1990 – 1991.20 Apparently MacRae had written Odelami a letter of recommendation, and according to Odelami, the University of Ibadan had given him advanced standing based on his previous work at Acadia. He claimed that he had been admitted to do a PhD in Biblical studies with an Old Testament major.21 He still needed to do some preparatory work to enable him to transfer from the MPhil program and register in the PhD program,22 but once that was accomplished successfully he would be eligible to enter the thesis phase of the program23 and earn a PhD. Previously, as part of a discussion about implementing staff exchange and staff development programs between ADC and CINDICO, Odelami had advised MacRae that Dr. Allison Trites, ADC’s Professor of New Testament and Greek, had expressed an interest in spending his sabbatical in 1990 – 1991 in Nigeria.24 Now Odelami requested that MacRae either invite him to ADC to teach starting in September 1990 so that he could work in the Acadia library, or allow him to do a DMin degree on a full scholarship.25

Continuing Pressure MacRae had postponed the affiliation of UNIDICO with Acadia for two years. But that did not mean that the pressure to affiliate UNIDICO abated either for Odelami or

20 Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27, 2. 21 Ibid. 22 See MacRae to Abogunrin, 1991-11-06, 1. 23 See MacRae to Olukunle, 1992-02-13. 24 Odelami to MacRae, 1989-07-31. 25 Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27, 2-3.

125 for MacRae. For Odelami the pressure came first from the student body. Twice before 1993 he mentions in correspondence that the students were concerned for their status at the end of the school program.26 Later in July 1993, when Odelami is informed that the Acadia Senate had deferred UNIDICO’s request for affiliation for four months, he reported that the students were “demoralized.”27 The treasurer of UNIGAC,28 the Provost of UNIDICO,29 and the Elders of the denomination30 all wrote to MacRae urging affiliation. And the note of desire, and manipulation, is plain during a 1993 fund raising campaign when Odelami suggests that in order to make the campaign a success he needed a letter confirming the affiliation of UNIDICO to AU, or even ADC, before the launch of the ₦50 million Campaign on July 3, 1993.31 Together these letters and their authors spared MacRae little pressure.

26 See Odelami to MacRae, 1991-01-21, 4; and, where Odelami says six months later, “Our students are worried about their fate and are eagerly expecting your action as their last hope.” Odelami to MacRae, 1991-06-11. 27 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten on UNIDCO letterhead, 1993-07-28, 2. 28 In 1991–92 Odelami spent a sabbatical year at ADC teaching a course on Missions and doing research. See → on page 140. In a letter delivered by Odelami when he arrived at ADC, the treasurer wrote, “We use the advantage of this medium to remind you of our Church School (UNIDICO) Universal Divinity College affilliation (sic) with Acadia University. We whole heartedly rely on your surport (sic) to make UNIDICO affilliation (sic) with Acadia University a Reality during your tenure of office.” See E. T. Elegbede to MacRae, 1991-08-30. 29 In a letter thanking MacRae for a donation of books from ADC to UNIDICO, the Acting Provost of UNIDICO wrote in 1991-12, “The second issue has to do with the question of affiliation of the Universal Gospel Divinity College to Acadia Divinity College. … Please Sir, in view of the pressures from the Federal Government and constant requests from students, could you please come to our rescue. I am saying that you will have, as per your kindness, to expedite necessary actions on this issue of affiliation. // We are looking forward to your Divinity College for very favourable response to this urgent request.” D. O. Olayiwola to MacRae, 1991-12-14. 30 In a note of appreciation thanking MacRae’s for ensuring that Dr. Perkin met with UNIGAC leaders during his 1991 visit to Nigeria to confer degrees at CINDICO (see → on page 144), the Secretary for the UNIGAC Elders wrote, “We hope and pray you shall continue to strive on in your trying to assist our Church and our Divinity College.” J. T. Olumide to MacRae, 1991-12-16. 31 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter, 1993-06-23, 2. The campaign was later cancelled. See Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter on UNIDCO letterhead, 1993-07-28, 2.

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In addition to the pressure that Odelami felt from the students, he also laboured under the scorn he felt from his denomination and local officials and from the disappointment of his own sense of personal diminution. In 1991 he wrote, “Friends of mine from the government circle are now looking at me disdainfully that I helped Abiara to affiliate his college while my own college is being proscribed.”32 But as bad as these things were, the greatest pressure both for Odelami and for MacRae came from the Nigerian government. The threat of closure was constant. With his January 1991 letter, Odelami sent MacRae a copy of a summons issued by the

Association of Approved Continuing Education Centres showing that UNIDICO had been identified as an illegal college operating in Oyo State.33 In it Odelami had been called to a meeting in Ile-Ifé to give account for UNIDICO, and if it was determined that he was operating an illegal school in Nigeria, by Government edict, he was subject to seven years imprisonment or a ₦10,000 fine. To make matters worse, students who attended illegal schools were also to be “arrested and charged along side with their proprietors.”34 The letter was a year old, so apparently Odelami had been able to dissuade the officials from taking action, but presumably, the pressure since then would have been mounting. After arguing again that UNIDICO was more strategically located and reached more people for the Lord than CINDICO in Erinmo Ilesha, Odelami offered MacRae this solution: “Meanwhile [until Acadia affiliation is granted,] we will need a letter from you that you recognize UNIDICO for Acadia affiliation. This will reduce the worries of students until the affiliation is through.”35

32 Odelami to MacRae, 1991-01-21, 4. 33 See Odelami to MacRae, 1991-01-21, encl., Association of Approved Continuing Education Centres to Odelami, 1990-02-28. 34 See ibid. 35 Odelami to MacRae, 1991-01-21, 4.

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Clearly, MacRae was favourably inclined to UNIDICO. He considered Odelami a personal friend. But more than that, MacRae also believed that UNIDICO was a legitimate academic institution on its own merit and he was concerned for the pressure that the College was under from the Nigerian government. In October 1991, just before Perkin went to Nigeria in November to confer the second awarding of Acadia degrees at CINDICO’s Convocation, MacRae told Perkin,

Michael’s [Odelami’s] aspirations for UNIDICO, which I mentioned on the phone earlier today, are perfectly legitimate. The two colleges have equivalent standards, and UNIDICO is under severe Muslim Government pressure, which could lead, at any time, to enforced closure. The leadership of UNIDICO has urged me many times, in person and by letter, to plead their case with Acadia, and I have had to ask them to trust me for the right time and moment to raise the matter for consideration. I believe there is now some urgency in the matter, and I believe they will be “graduating” students in 1992, for whom, I am sure, they would dearly like to have Acadia recognition.36 The pressure would greatly increase later, in November 1992, just two months prior to CINDICO’s triennial review and UNIDICO’s academic review held in January 1993.37

Invitations to UNIDICO Supporters As part of his efforts to begin a dialogue between AU and UNIDICO concerning affiliation, MacRae wrote letters to UNIDICO supporters inviting them to Canada. In May 1990, a year after his first invitation to UNIGAC leaders, MacRae again invited Odelami and four elders from his church to come to Acadia to begin negotiations with the University.38 The following year in September,39 MacRae invited five more UNIGAC

36 See MacRae to Perkin, memo, 1991-10-23, 3. On Perkin’s visit to Nigeria, see → on page 144. 37 See → on page 155. 38 MacRae to Odelami, 1990-05-09. Written one day short of a year after his first invitation to Odelami’s elders, the letter is a carbon copy of MacRae’s 1989-05 letter, except for the mention of Imevbore and the new invitation extended to Elder E. Elegbede. The other three elders– I. Efuntayo, S. Orowumi, and S. O. Oshunbiy[i?] – had all been invited to Canada previously, in 1989-05.

128 delegates to come to Acadia’s Fall Convocation in October and to stay for the Hayward Lectures afterwards. MacRae’s hope was that they might learn more of the Divinity College and the University in the interest of strengthening ties between them and Acadia.40 Two months later in November 1991,41 MacRae again invited UNIDICO patrons to come to Canada, this time for a two-week period42 in order to discuss UNIDICO’s affiliation with AU.43 The next year, in February, MacRae invited Elegbede to visit Acadia for Convocation on May 11, 1992.44 Two years later, in February 1994, MacRae wrote a fifth series of letters to five of UNIDICO’s Grand Patrons.45 These invitations were extended shortly before UNIDICO was affiliated with AU in March 1994 and MacRae hoped that the Grand Patrons would attend Acadia’s May 1994 Convocation, sponsor Odelami’s visit, and discuss supporting UNIDICO graduates for further studies at ADC. Unfortunately, none of these invitations was accepted, but

39 At the time, Odelami had just arrived at ADC to begin a sabbatical year during which he was to teach a Missions course in the Fall 1991 semester and to conduct research in Acadia’s library for a PhD thesis he was to present at the University of Ibadan. See → on page 143. 40 See MacRae to I. Efuntayo, 1991-09-12; MacRae to S. O. Oshunbiyi, 1991-09-12; MacRae to A. Okenbunmi, 1991-09-12; and MacRae to Mr. and Mrs. M. A. Ogunkanmi, 1991-09-12. Of the five representatives, I. Efuntayo and S. O. Oshunbiyi had been invited before. It would seem that MacRae had gotten these names from Elegbede who had told MacRae in August that, “the representatives of the Church members will like to pay you and others a short visit which will be communicated to you in due course for letter of invitation.” See E. T. Elegbede to MacRae, 1991-08-30. 41 In November Odelami had interrupted his teaching at ADC and returned to Nigeria to attend CINDICO’s Convocation with Perkin who had earlier agreed to confer the Acadia degrees at the College in 1991. See → on page 144. 42 See MacRae to the Canadian High Commission in Lagos, fax message, 1991-11-07. 43 Of the four invited patrons, I. Efuntayo and A. Okenbunmi had been invited previously. See MacRae to I. Efuntayo, 1991-11-06; MacRae to A. Okenbunmi, 1991-11-06; MacRae to O. Olaosebikan, 1991-11-06; and MacRae to Majirola Odelami, 1991-11-06. The patrons were invited to accompany Odelami when he returned to ADC after the Convocation at CINDICO. 44 MacRae to Elegbede, 1992-02-14. 45 ꜛNot counting Elegbede’s invitation, this was the fifth set of invitations issued by MacRae for UNIGAC members to visit Acadia. See MacRae to Mrs. O. A. Ajala-Agbo, 1994-02-17; MacRae to Dr. S. O. Balogun, 1994-02-17; MacRae to Mr. J. A. Ogunleye, 1994-02-17; MacRae to Chief F. Akinrinade, 1994-02-17; and MacRae to Chief (Engineer) I. Omisore, 1994-02-17. MacRae had invited none of these Grand Patrons to Canada before. See also below → on page 177.

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MacRae did not give up. Even after UNIDICO’s affiliation was accomplished, he continued to invite UNIDICO supporters to visit the University. On two occasions between the affiliation in March 1994 and UNIDICO’s first Convocation to award Acadia degrees in December 1994, MacRae wrote letters to Odelami and others inviting them to attend Acadia’s Convocations in May46 and October.47 Despite this effort, none of Odelami’s people was ever able to come to Canada.48

Faculty Development at CINDICO

In addition to supporting Odelami’s efforts to affiliate UNIDICO, in the two-year period before CINDICO’s triennial review and UNIDICO’s assessment for affiliation, MacRae also focused on developing CINDICO. His initial concern was with the teaching staff at the College. In May 1990, when Imevbore attended Acadia’s Convocation, he and MacRae discussed two ideas for strengthening the faculty: training new lecturers and enriching the existing staff.49 The first initiative entailed offering full scholarships50 to Nigerian students of particular promise with the expectation that they would eventually return to CINDICO to teach. The second idea involved taking existing lecturers who were already teaching at the College and giving them the opportunity to develop their skills. Both of these approaches could easily be done at ADC, with the added benefit of strengthening the relationship between AU and CINDICO.

46 See MacRae to Mrs. O. A. Ajala-Agbo, 1994-03-28 and MacRae to Mr. J. A. Ogunleye, 1994- 03-28; and MacRae to Odelami, 1994-03-30. Ajala-Agbo and Ogunleye were Grand Patrons who had been invited to Acadia in 1994-02 by MacRae. 47 See MacRae to Odelami, 1994-09-28; MacRae to J. D. Daramola, 1994-09-28; and MacRae to Chief Fasogbon, 1994-09-30. This was the first invitation to Acadia for both Daramola and Fasogbon. 48 Sometimes the Grand Patrons were too busy. See Odelami to MacRae, 1994-05-16. At other times the scheduling was too tight to allow making arrangements. See Odelami to MacRae, 1994-11-15. 49 See MacRae to Perkin, 1990-05-22, 1. 50 ꜛThe full scholarships which ADC awarded to the Nigerian students during this time included tuition, books, room and board, and a modest living expense. MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2013-01-16.

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Nigerian Student Scholarships ꜛShortly after Imevbore returned to Nigeria, MacRae raised these issues with Perkin.51 Then, prior to going to the first CINDICO Convocation to pass out Acadia degrees in July 1990, MacRae went to the ADC Board of Trustees and secured funding for two full scholarships for Nigerian graduates. 52 True to his word,53 MacRae assisted CINDICO graduands, as much as possible, as long as funds were available. He raised support from ADC and various Canadian donors54 such that in the first two years, in 1990 and in 1991, four students, two each both years, received full financial support.55 But a variety of things worked against his efforts. First, there was a downturn in the Canadian economy and uncommitted money became difficult to locate.56 Secondly, the College itself was running a deficit. According to MacRae, in 1992 ADC’s shortfall was $150,000 and the international students fund alone was overspent by $20,000.57 ꜛAnd third, the CINDICO graduates did not honour their bonds to return home. Instead they went for further studies in other institutions and then, rather than returning to CINDICO to teach,

51 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2013-01-16. 52 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. See above n187 → on page 116 and n188 → on page 116. 53 Abiara noted MacRae’s dependability and integrity in making and keeping promises. When acknowledging two ADC scholarships given by MacRae to L. Lasisi and S. Okunola in 1991, Abiara says, “Thank you for what you did … I appreciate the fact that you always stand by your words. You are really a man of God.” See Abiara to MacRae, 1991-11-12, 1. 54 See MacRae, “Convocation Address at CINDICO Graduation, January 1993,” 1, delivered at Erinmo, 1993-01-16, ADCPO. 55 Four were awarded full scholarships to ADC: A. Kuyebi and E. Tukasi in 1990 and L. Lasisi and S. Okunola in 1991. See MacRae, “Convocation Address at CINDICO Graduation, January 1993,” 1-2. Lasisi and Okunola entered classes at ADC in 1991-09 and 1992-01 respectively. See S. Okunola to MacRae, 1991-10-10; and MacRae to Abiara, 1991-09-23. 56 MacRae to Abiara, 1992-02-20, 2. See also MacRae’s explanation of why it was impossible for the College to support Naomi, when she wanted to study at ADC starting in 1992. MacRae to Odelami, 1992-02-13. See, too, MacRae’s remarks during CINDICO’s 1993 Convocation, in MacRae, “Convocation Address at CINDICO Graduation, January 1993,” 1; and MacRae to Oloyede, 1993-02-13. 57 MacRae to Odelami, 1992-02-13, 2. Apparently, some of the Nigerian students were attempting to maintain old cars and Odelami also received or borrowed College funds to travel back and forth to Nigeria. Ibid., 3. See → on page 148 and → on page 152.

131 some stayed in North America to follow their own sense of God’s leading58 while others were placed by Abiara in Agbala Itura churches in high profile areas.59 Canadian sponsors became disillusioned with the Nigerian effort and refused to provide additional funds for what they had originally seen as a worthy cause to help train Christians in a struggling country.60 Within two years support in Canada for Nigerian students dried up.

Uncertain Expectations As bad as it may appear, initially at least, it seems that there was no clear prior planning for the four students who had received full scholarships from ADC not to return to Nigeria. No one begrudged them the opportunity to train outside of the country. Indeed, they were excited. As Mala noted in 1991, “We are optimistic that Messrs Lasisi and Okunola will soon be in Acadia for their postgraduate studies.”61 MacRae was pleased to have them. They all performed well.62 And up until the end of their first degrees, it appears as if everyone just assumed that the CINDICO graduates being trained in Canada would return to work at home. When he attended the CINDICO Convocation on January 16, 1993, MacRae did not betray in any sense the idea that these students would do anything other than what they had promised to do and return to Nigeria. After

58 Such was the case with L. Lasisi, a Muslim convert who graduated from CINDICO in 1989 with a BTh from CCC, replaced in 1990 with a BTh from Acadia. Lasisi went on to become the founding pastor (1999) of Springs of Hope Christian Ministries, Long Beach, California. See MacRae, “Report: The Faculty of Theology (ADC),” in “AU Yearbook 1993–1994,” (ECWA, AU, Wolfville, 1994), 159; and “Brief History of the Church,” s.v. “About Us,” accessed 2012-12-07, http://www.springsofhopeminis tries.com/#!__about-us. 59 A. Kuyebi is currently in 2013 at CAC, Vineyard of Comfort (Agbala Itura) Ireland. See n187 → on page 116. E. Tukasi is currently the pastor of CAC Romford, London. See n188 → on page 116. 60 T. Urquhart, interview, Wolfville, 2013-02-26. Urquhart began work at the College in 1992. 61 Mala to MacRae, 1991-06-25, 2. Additionally, Mala noted that, “One teacher, Mr. Atetedaye will be joining the University of Ibadan for the Masters Programme this coming session while another, Mr. Gbeje is being encouraged to put in for the M.Phil/PH.D also at Ibadan.” 62 See MacRae’s comments to the ahC-EA in MacRae, “Affiliation of CINDICO and UNIDICO,” n.d., 3-page doc., unnumb. 3, item 5, f.f. “AU Senate: Ad Hoc Committee on Affiliation,” ADCPO. See, too, MacRae’s remarks in MacRae, “Message to Universal Gospel Divinity College,” 1994-12-10, 2-3, f.f. “Nigeria December 6-13, 1994,” ADCPO.

132 giving an update on Kuyebi, Lasisi, and Okunola, the three CINDICO graduates at ADC, MacRae remarked, “I hope that some of these people will be able to take their studies further, after completing their Master’s degrees, and I am sure they will return to offer outstanding leadership among you.”63 After the Convocation, MacRae wrote from Canada to one of CINDICO’s supporters, Elder Oloyede, seeking assistance for scholarship funding for the Nigerian students. He said, “All [of the Nigerian students] are doing well, and all are committed to returning to Nigeria.”64 But in July 1993 Odelami provided the Nigerian perspective. It was a little harsh.

Odelami was critical of their need for training beyond the MDiv degree at ADC and he reported that the opinion of CINDICO’s Governing Council was that upon graduation from Acadia, the four graduates should be encouraged to return to serve in Nigeria.65 Oddly then, even as late as December 10, 1994 MacRae appeared still to believe that the Nigerians being trained outside of the Republic were being readied for service within their own country. At the UNIDICO Convocation he spoke of the achievements of Kuyebi, Tukasi, and Lasisi and of their plans to study at Princeton, Hartford, and Western

Theological Seminaries. And then he concluded, “All three are doing well in their advanced studies, and I look forward to their return to their beloved Nigeria, thoroughly equipped for leadership in this great land.”66 And yet, surely by then there must have been some serious doubts as to whether the students would, in fact, be coming home. Mere weeks before UNIDICO’s Convocation Odelami had expressed regret to MacRae saying that it appeared as if Kuyebi would not be returning to Nigeria.67 Earlier, when Tukasi, Kuyebi and Lasisi

63 MacRae, “Convocation Address at CINDICO Graduation, January 1993,” 2. 64 See MacRae to Oloyede, 1993-02-13, 1. 65 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten on UNIDCO letterhead, 1993-07-28, 2. 66 MacRae, “Message to Universal Gospel Divinity College,” 3. 67 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten, 1994-11-15, 2.

133 graduated together in 1994,68 Abiara wrote that their achievement had brought “glory to Nigeria in particular and to Africa as a whole.”69 He continued, “Surely, upon their arrival, they will play a unique role in the spiritual and theological development of Christianity in the whole continent.”70 But three months later, in September 1994, when Abiara thanked MacRae again for helping Lasisi and Okunola, while still expressing great hopes for Africa, this time he added, “Wherever they have the opportunity all over the world, to put to use all they have learned at Acadia, lives will be blessed and our Lord will be glorified.”71 This was two months before MacRae’s remarks in December.

The Deployment of Personnel But, in a way, the plans and the placement of graduates from CINDICO, including those who received full scholarships from ADC, was a moot issue for MacRae, and perhaps, even for the students themselves. As the most significant sponsor of CINDICO and the Founder of the Agbala Itura network of churches, Abiara appears to have been granted heartfelt allegiance by those that he helped train for Christian ministry. And once given this loyalty he deployed the pastors trained at CINDICO in Agbala Itura churches, regardless of their location, for the most effective enlargement of that ministry. Viewed in this light, using Kuyebi, Lasisi, and Tukasi within the global network of Agbala Itura churches seems to be less about options and more about efficiency and what is expedient. ꜛThe genesis of the Chancellor’s decision to position these highly skilled men in places other than Nigeria might first be seen in June 1993, shortly after the triennial review of CINDICO’s affiliation in January 1993, before the affiliation was renewed in

68 See, “Spring Convocation, AU,” 1994-05-08, Convocation Bulletin, ECWA. 69 Abiara to MacRae, 1994-05-26. 70 Ibid. 71 Abiara to MacRae, 1994-09-07.

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September 1993, and while they were still studying at ADC. Abiara had gone to London and something occurred there that troubled him greatly. He wrote to MacRae,

I was in London recently …. What happened was that I had met a big problem in the London Branch of our Church. The problem worried my mind considerably. I am only just recovering from the effects of that heart- break, now that the problem had been solved …. I have not succeeded in obtaining the necessary Visas for my people here who can travel to London and New York to man our branches in those two places … Concerning the [plans?] of Evangelists Lawrence Lasisi and Sunday Okunola, to go to New York and London respectively, the problem of non- availability of English in the Church’s branches is the cause. However, members of our church there have agreed to sponsor the two of them. This means, in effect, that the church will be responsible for the air-tickets and feeding allowances.72

Searching for Additional Funds Starting shortly before 1993, MacRae faced another challenge that amplified the requirement for scholarship funds. The first two recipients of full scholarships, Kuyebi and Tukasi, wanted to stay at ADC for an additional year after their MDiv so that they could complete an MA in Theology.73 Funds had been allocated for them for three years, the length of time required to complete an MDiv degree at ADC, and ordinarily this additional financial burden would have been impossible to accept. Others were waiting for resources to be freed so that they could begin their studies; one had been hoping for funding for two years.74 But MacRae was determined to see that these students returned well-equipped to teach in Nigeria.75

72 Abiara to MacRae, fax, 1993-06-23. 73 MacRae to Oloyede, 1993-02-13, 1. They would graduate in 1994. 74 Ibid. 75 MacRae wrote to Oloyede, “All [of the Nigerian students] are doing well, and all are committed to returning to Nigeria. … The benefit of [a second degree] to evangelical churches, like the Christ Apostolic Churches, would be immense.” MacRae was “keen to encourage” the students to stay for the extra year. See MacRae to Oloyede, 1993-02-13, 1.

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In response to the need, MacRae attempted to expand his fund-raising efforts beyond the Divinity College and Canada. He first approached Abiara. Trying to cajole him, MacRae suggested that if Abiara was to award an annual Dr. S. K. Abiara Scholarship to a CINDICO graduate wanting to study at Acadia, not only would the prize benefit CINDICO, but it would also reflect well on him and be favourably viewed by Acadia as a meaningful contribution by Nigerians to their academic partnership.76 In response Abiara pointed out that even though he would like to help, he already had an enormous financial commitment to the College. According to him, student fees covered only 15% of the staff salaries and he supplied the shortfall. In addition, Abiara said that he was overburdened by the College’s capital projects.77 Abiara also noted that, in addition to these financial commitments, the worsening economic conditions in the country made the situation in Nigeria all the more severe. At one point the naira had been valued higher than the US dollar. But just shortly before the college was affiliated in 1990, it had been drastically devalued. Now, in 1992, according to Abiara, the official exchange rate had dropped to ₦20 for $1USD, airfares had gone up

400%, and the economic stress affected even the formerly well-off.78 Times were tough, indeed. In 1992 Odelami was studying at ADC. He had been granted a sabbatical leave for the academic year 1991 – 1992.79 And just before he left Canada to return home, Mala wrote him a note. In his letter, Mala said, “The economic crunch is biting harder. So while planning for your return, provision yourself very well.”80

76 MacRae to Abiara, 1992-02-20, 3. 77 Abiara to MacRae, 1992-05-05, 2. 78 Ibid. 79 See → on page 140. 80 Mala to Odelami, 1992-08-17.

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Having been declined, MacRae expanded his search for scholarship money beyond Abiara. MacRae’s fear was that if he did not secure the necessary funding soon, he would have to send the CINDICO students home after their MDiv without the advantage of a second graduate degree.81 So, in 1993 when he attended CINDICO’s Convocation in January, MacRae made a point of talking with supporters of the college to explain his dilemma. In a letter written from Canada to Elder Oloyede in February, MacRae rehearsed the same suggestions that he had made to Abiara earlier about establishing a scholarship fund. He invited Oloyede to AU to experience the setting and to observe the College’s ministry to Canadian and international students.82 Unfortunately, despite MacRae’s best efforts, no Nigerian Scholarship Fund was ever established and no CINDICO graduate has been awarded a full scholarship to study at ADC since 1993. It is difficult to tell what influence Abiara’s expectation of AU has had on the development of CINDICO, but it would appear that early on in the relationship, Abiara had hoped that Acadia would feel responsible for the College once it was affiliated with the University. He wrote plainly, a mere two days after the first Convocation at which

Acadia degrees were conferred in Nigeria and where MacRae had awarded one of the CINDICO graduands a full scholarship for Masters level studies at ADC,

We would also wish to thank you for the scholarship …. Now, CINDICO is your baby. You will, no doubt, be willing to nurture it. I want to seize this opportunity to solicit for whatever assistance Acadia University can render to ensure rapid growth and development of CINDICO.83 Abiara, in return, pledged to maintain Acadia’s standards and to “keep the flag flying.”84

81 MacRae to Oloyede, 1993-02-13, 2. 82 Ibid. 83 Abiara to MacRae, 1990-07-16. 84 Ibid.

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Developing CINDICO’s Existing Staff The second initiative that MacRae discussed with Imevbore and raised with Perkin in May 1990 concerned the development of existing staff at CINDICO.85 As previously noted, Odelami first mentioned in March 1990 that he would like to teach or study at ADC.86 MacRae proposed to Perkin that he was open to this as an initial effort. He suggested that Odelami would love to come to ADC as a Visiting Scholar and that starting that fall, September 1990, Odelami could do research and contribute to the Divinity College’s understanding of Nigerian culture and religions. MacRae sought

Perkin’s advice on the stratagem, but more practically, he explored with Perkin the possibility of housing Odelami at Acadia if Odelami was able to come.87 This seemed to dovetail well with Odelami’s plans.

Fuzzy Focus Odelami was the provost of CINDCO, but as early as March 1990 it appears that his focus had begun to waver. For some reason, in a letter of appreciation responding to

MacRae’s notice that CINDICO had been affiliated with Acadia, he urged MacRae “to make Dr. Abiara realize fully well” 88 that CINDICO’s accreditation was largely due to the fact that he, Odelami, was a graduate of AU, and to impress upon Abiara that he, Odelami, was expected to uphold the academic standard of the College. He then made an unusual, and largely undoable, request: “I also appeal that you keep me personally informed about Acadia’s future dealing with CINDICO [w]hether I am there or not.” 89

85 See MacRae to Perkin, 1990-05-22, 1. 86 Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27. See → on page 125. 87 MacRae to Perkin, 1990-05-22, 2. 88 Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27, 1. 89 Ibid.

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Odelami may have had one or more of at least four things in view. First, Odelami cherished a sense of personal development. He wanted to finish his doctoral studies and it was in this March 1990 letter that Odelami informed MacRae that he had been accepted to do a PhD program at the University of Ibadan.90 Second, and behind this, perhaps, Odelami hinted to MacRae that he wanted to serve Acadia in a larger role in Africa. After he finished his PhD thesis and defended it successfully Odelami felt that he would then “be able to supervise all future programmes in Nigeria in which Acadia U can be involved.”91 A number of schools, hardly any of them credible, had already contacted

MacRae and he had referred them to Odelami to explain the affiliation process. None of them ever pursued the issue after discovering Acadia’s expectations.92 But still, Odelami saw a wider opportunity for himself as he envisioned other institutions affiliating with his alma mater. Third, it is possible that Odelami’s sense of commitment and fondness never wandered far from his own denomination and the fortunes of his own college, UNIDICO. In 1993 for instance, while still serving as the Provost of CINDICO, Odelami was listed as one of the full time teaching staff at UNIDICO.93 And fourth, it appears as if Odelami may have felt that God was calling him to a global mission. Elegbede, the treasurer for UNIGAC, wrote MacRae in August 1991 seeking advice concerning the proposed affiliation of UNIDICO with Acadia. He said,

We shall also like to be informed should any step needed to be taken or should any protocol needed to be observed to make the affiliation a Big Success which we believe is one of the factor which can make our Church and College stand firm before our president start his world evangelism as God Directed.94

90 Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27, 3. 91 Ibid. 92 MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2009-08-17. 93 See D. O. Olayiwola, “A Self-Study on UNIDICO,” (Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, [1993-01?]), 1. 94 E. T. Elegbede to MacRae, 1991-08-30.

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So it was that in March 1990, with CINDICO only newly-affiliated with Acadia, and after having served as its Provost for just two years, Odelami appealed to MacRae to help him do further study at Acadia.95

Odelami’s Study Leave ꜛ(126)ꜛ(136)After mentioning to Perkin the notion of asking Odelami to be a Visiting Scholar for a year starting in September 1990,96 MacRae next wrote Abiara, in September, suggesting that Odelami should come to ADC as a Scholar in Residence for a full calendar year starting January 1, 1991.97 Clearly, he had altered his original idea. The proposal now was that Odelami might work on his PhD thesis first, and then later, from September 1991 through December 1991, he would teach a course in missions while Dr. Miriam Ross, ADC’s Professor of Missions, was on sabbatical leave.98 MacRae suggested to Abiara that Odelami’s study leave would be a good start on CINDICO’s faculty development and that having Odelami teach at the College would enhance his College’s reputation. MacRae also told Abiara that ADC would cover Odelami’s living expenses while he was in Canada. But he suggested that if Abiara felt like strengthening the ties between himself and Acadia, Abiara might like to consider contributing to the cost of Odelami’s airfare and living. Regardless, MacRae expressed the hope that the Chancellor would ensure that Odelami’s family was cared for while Odelami was away.99 The letter that MacRae received in response was rather shrewdly put. Abiara replied,

About the invitation from you to Dr. Odelami … I have no objection whatsoever. I agree with you that his visit will be a tremendous assistance

95 See Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27, 3. 96 MacRae to Perkin, 1990-05-22, 1. 97 MacRae to Abiara, 1990-09-28. 98 MacRae and Odelami had discussed this arrangement while MacRae was in Nigeria at CINDICO’s Convocation in 1990-07. See MacRae to Odelami, official invitation letter, 1990-12-18. 99 MacRae to Abiara, 1990-09-28.

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to CINDICO when he finally returns to us. Therefore, I wholeheartedly support any assistance you will like to render to Dr. Odelami on this issue.100 Later, MacRae was able to tell Odelami that Abiara had been very warm in his support of the proposed sabbatical leave, but he noted that as far as expenses were concerned, “in his reply he makes no reference to costs.”101

Mounting Mistrust Abiara’s further response to Odelami’s study leave appears not intended to ingratiate him to Odelami. In fact, Abiara seems to have been particularly ungenerous in his approach. It is possible that he might have been aware of Odelami’s involvement with UNIDICO and this may have caused him to be suspicious of Odelami’s ultimate intentions. So, when Odelami’s absence from the College was discussed at the Board of Management meeting in January 1991, although Abiara did not say no, he did make Odelami’s leaving difficult.102 Apparently the Chancellor agreed to allow Odelami to go to Acadia, but only if Odelami could find someone to take his place as Provost. Abiara also advised Odelami and the Board that while Odelami was on sabbatical, he would pay

Odelami half of his salary only, and he insisted that Odelami sign a bond pledging to return to Nigeria. For their part, the Board requested that Odelami not go anywhere until after the college year ended. They reasoned that an interim Provost might be employed by then. Effectively, this last expectation postponed the study leave at least until sometime after June 1991. Odelami had hoped to leave as soon as possible for Acadia.103

100 Abiara to MacRae, 1990-12-06. 101 MacRae to Odelami, personal letter, 1990-12-18. 102 This section is based on a 5-page handwritten letter from Odelami to MacRae written shortly after CINDICO’s Bd. of Management meeting in 1991-01. See Odelami to MacRae, 1991-01-21. Odelami wrote the epistle in his own hand “because of the secrecy involved.” See ibid., 5. 103 Ibid., 3.

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According to Odelami, Imevbore pled his case before the Board, arguing that Odelami should be allowed to leave and be paid full salary while away. Mala protested the idea of Odelami signing a bond. He thought that it was an excessive and unnecessary requirement considering all that Odelami had done for the College. Ultimately, Odelami did not sign the pledge,104 but it appears that Abiara prevailed with regards to Odelami’s salary. A year and half later, after Odelami had been at ADC eleven months,105 Odelami alleged that he had only been paid half of his salary all the time he was in Canada.106 Odelami was incensed at the Chancellor’s attitude. His disappointment was palpable, and his reaction, while understandable and quite natural, bordered on being uncharitable.107 MacRae interceded, but obviously with limited effect. Even though he received assurances in a telephone conversation in March 1991 that Abiara supported Odelami’s study leave at Acadia, MacRae still felt it necessary to write Abiara urging his cooperation and advising him that it was important, for the reputation of CINDICO, that he assist Odelami generously by paying his salary and underwriting his travel and costs. MacRae also contended that because of Odelami’s standing and character, Odelami should not be required to sign a bond committing him to return to Nigeria.108 Abiara pledged to “do everything possible within my ability to assist Dr. Odelami please.”109

104 See Folahan to Odelami, 1992-05-04, 1. 105 Actually, shortly after the midpoint of his study leave, Odelami returned to Nigeria on 1992- 02-21. See R. Higgins to MacRae, memo, 1992-02-12; and Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992- 02-14, 4. Unfortunately, Odelami was unable to return to ADC for three months. So, by the first week of August 1992, of the eleven months Odelami was on study leave, he was only in Canada for eight months. Regardless, according to Odelami, he was paid half salary during the entire time. See →on page 152. 106 Odelami to Secretary of CINDICO’s Governing Council, [Folahan], 1992-08-05. 107 See Odelami to MacRae, 1991-01-21, 2-3. 108 MacRae to Abiara, 1991-03-11. 109 Abiara to MacRae, 1991-04-18.

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Babs Mala, who himself a year earlier had asked MacRae for help to obtain a visa to study in Canada during 1990–1991,110 took Odelami’s place at CINDICO. In his first letter to ADC as interim Acting Provost,111 Mala informed MacRae that the Board of Management had met on June 10, 1991 and appointed him as CINDICO’s Acting Provost for Odelami’s six months study leave. Furthermore, he noted that the Board had decided that Odelami should return to CINDICO in mid-November to greet Perkin at the College’s Convocation, at the time, planned for December 7, 1991.112 The decision was startling. If Odelami taught the missions course at ADC as intended, the time did not allow any interval for research, and furthermore, his return to Nigeria interrupted the ADC teaching semester. But what was just as startling was the realization that Odelami was not even in Nigeria! He had gone to Nairobi, Kenya to take a two-month study program on Theological Education by Extension, sponsored by the Organization of African Instituted Churches. And, apparently, according to Mala, Odelami had not yet received his travel visa to Canada.113 Even if Odelami left the day after the Board Meeting, two months from June 10th did leave much room for error. MacRae replied swiftly, outlining the problem, expressing his disappointment that Odelami was not already in Canada, and informing Mala that he expected Odelami to be at ADC before classes began in September.114 Odelami finally arrived, but it was not until shortly before August 30, 1991,115 just a matter of days before he was to teach.116ꜛ

110 Mala to MacRae, 1990-07-16, encl. Mala’s “C. V.” Mala had wanted to spend part of his sabbatical, commencing 1991-01-01, at Hartford Theological Seminary teaching. From there he wanted to go to McGill University to write up several research projects. 111 Mala to MacRae, 1991-06-25. 112 Abiara to MacRae, 1991-06-11. The date was later shifted to 1991-11-09. See Apesin to Perkin, 1991-09-19. 113 Mala to MacRae, 1991-06-25, 2. 114 See Lydia Prange [MacRae’s Secretary] to Mala, 1991-07-08. 115 Odelami wrote a letter of appreciation on ADC letterhead on this date. See Odelami to MacRae, 1991-08-30.

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Perkin in Nigeria ꜛ(126)ꜛ(128)ꜛ(129)In the middle of the fall semester, as required by CINDICO’s Board, Odelami returned to Nigeria to attend to the College’s Convocation on November 9, 1991.117 The previous May 1990 Perkin had agreed to award Acadia degrees at CINDICO,118 and apparently the Board of Management felt that Odelami needed to be there when Perkin conferred the degrees. In October, as Perkin was preparing to leave, MacRae requested,

If you get an opportunity to commend to the General Council, rather than simply to Abiara on his own, the importance of supporting the Provost of the School on a financial basis similar to that of the Head of the Religious Studies Department of the University, in the interests of the College’s prestige and reputation, you may bring an appropriate group pressure to bear on Abiara, who, it seems to me, keeps Michael [Odelami] on a veritable shoestring.119 Perkin’s visit was a well-publicized event. He was met at the airport by a bevy of reporters, and despite the lateness of the hour and the stifling heat and humidity, they were full of questions.120 The four-day agenda121 was packed with activity. In addition to

116 It proved very difficult for Odelami to get a visa and a work permit to Canada. MacRae and others at ADC sent several letters to the Canadian High Commission in Nigeria and the Canada Immigration Center in Kentville, NS. See MacRae to the Canadian Ambassador (sic) Lagos, 1991-05-07; Higgins, ADC Business Officer, to Young, Canada Immigration Center, 1991-05-29; and MacRae to the Canadian Ambassador (sic) Lagos, 1991-06-26. Also see Odelami’s letter of invitation, MacRae to Odelami, 1990-12-18; Odelami’s report of his visit to the Canadian High Commission in Odelami to MacRae, 1991-06-11; Abiara’s protest that, “The non-availability of [Odelami’s] Visa is to blame for the delay in his journey to Canada” in Abiara to MacRae, 1991-06-11; Mala’s report that Odelami had not yet received his Visa to Canada in Mala to MacRae, 1991-06-25, 2; and ADC’s response in Lydia Prange [MacRae’s Secretary] to Mala, 1991-07-08. 117 The date was shifted from 1991-12-07. See Apesin to Perkin, 1991-09-19. 118 Perkin to Abiara, 1990-08-28, 1. 119 See MacRae to Perkin, memo, 1991-10-23, 2-3. 120 Perkin, Office of the President and Vice Chancellor, “File Memorandum – Visit to the United Kingdom and Nigeria,” 1991-11-18, 1; Perkin and Dockendorff, phone interview, Wolfville, 2012-10-17. 121 Perkin landed in Lagos late on Friday, 1991-11-08 and flew out of Lagos late on Monday, 1991-11-11. Regarding his agenda, see Apesin to Perkin, 1991-10-14.

144 delivering the keynote address and passing out eleven AU degrees122 at CINDICO’s Convocation, Perkin laid the cornerstone for CINDICO’s new ₦2.5 million123 library facilities, had lunch with the oba at Ile-Ifé, met with representatives from UNIDICO and UNIGAC, attended the Ifé Baptist Church, preached at Agbala Itura, met with members of CINDICO’s Governing Council and CINDICO’s Grand Patrons Committee, toured the University in Ibadan, and on his last evening, attended a reception hosted by the Canadian High Commissioner, Nicholas Hamilton, in Lagos.124ꜛIn his report of the trip, sent out to the Vice Presidents, Deans of Faculty, Directors of Schools and Divisions,

Heads of Departments, and the Senior Management Group at Acadia, Perkin commented on the general state of economic decay in Nigeria, as seen everywhere, including at the universities, and the evident academic enthusiasm and determination by students and officials alike to make the most of their limited resources. He admonished, “While we can undoubtedly help developing countries by participating in major research projects, there is a great deal that we can do on an individual basis by supporting the efforts of our academic colleagues.”125

Gauging CINDICO’s Progress and Support Before Odelami left Nigeria on November 23, 1991126 to return to Acadia, he met with officials at the University of Ibadan to arrange the transfer of his studies from the

122 For a list of the graduands, see Odelami to the ADC Director of Admissions [R. Baxter], 1991- 06-10, with enclosure, “1991 Degree Graduands.” 123 According to Apesin to Perkin, 1991-09-19. 124 Perkin, “Visit to the United Kingdom and Nigeria,” report, 1991-11-18. See also, Abiara to MacRae, 1991-11-12. 125 Perkin, “Visit to the United Kingdom and Nigeria,” report, 1991-11-18, 3. Twenty-one years after the event, one of Perkin’s most vivid recollections was that of preaching to 12,000 people at Agbala Itura and having his remarks more vigorously translated than his delivery warranted, and witnessing the remarkably fervent response of the people amassed to hear his message. Perkin and Dockendorff, telephone interview, Wolfville, 2012-10-17; see Perkin, “Visit to the United Kingdom and Nigeria,” 1991-11-18, 1. 126 See MacRae to A. Okenbunmi, 1991-11-06; and MacRae to the Canadian High Commission in Lagos, fax message, 1991-11-07.

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University’s MPhil program to the PhD stream and to register for the new academic year, 1991-1992.127 Prior to his departure Odelami must also have delivered a letter from MacRae to Abiara.128 According to correspondence written by Abiara, obviously in response to a series of questions and requests, it seems that MacRae raised a number of topics. Abiara assured MacRae that he had gone through his letter thoroughly,129 and if Abiara addressed every item put to him by MacRae, seven points can be identified. They dealt with money owed to ADC for out-of-pocket expenses;130 Perkin’s visit to CINDICO and, especially, the meeting that MacRae had specifically requested that Perkin have with representatives of UNIDICO and UNIGAC;131 a letter of recommendation from Abiara supporting UNIDICO’s proposed affiliation to AU; MacRae’s approach to other colleges in Nigeria that were requesting affiliation with Acadia; the formal recognition of CINDICO by the Nigerian Federal Government as an institution of higher learning; CINDICO’s Staff Development Program; and CINDICO’s plans for a library.132 It appears that MacRae was trying to gauge CINDICO’s progress toward fulfilling some of the stipulations of the affiliation133 and Abiara was particularly pleased to report

127 MacRae wrote officials at the University of Ibadan commending Odelami and urging them to speed his return to ADC by expediting the transfer. See MacRae to Professor Abogunrin, 1991-11-06. Apparently, while progress toward that was made, it was not fully accomplished during the visit. See MacRae to Olukunle, 1992-02-13, where MacRae urged that Olukunle, the Head of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Ibadan, help Odelami complete any remaining requirements so that he might be able to proceed to the writing of his PhD thesis. 128 This letter, referred to in a responding letter by Abiara, is not in the ADC files. According to Abiara’s letter, MacRae’s letter was dated 1991-11-06. See Abiara to MacRae, 1991-11-12. 129 See ibid., 1. 130 Abiara acknowledged that he owed $200 for Lasisi. See ibid. Possibly, this was the $100 registration fee each for L. Lasisi and S. Okunola that Odelami had promised to bring to ADC himself when he came to teach in the fall 1991. He had asked the Divinity College to cover the $200 until his arrival. See Odelami to MacRae, 1991-06-11. 131 Previously, MacRae had mentioned to Perkin that Odelami wanted Perkin to visit a UNIGAC church. MacRae suggested that Perkin might be better benefitted by seeing the operations at UNIDICO, at the time located in Ile-Ifé. See MacRae to Perkin, memo, 1991-10-23. 132 See Abiara to MacRae, 1991-11-12. 133 See → on page 110.

146 that Perkin had laid the foundation stone for CINDICO’s library during his visit.134 But MacRae was also attempting to advance CINDICO’s staff development and UNIDICO’s affiliation. Cooperation on the first issue and support for the second would have been particularly pleasing to MacRae. But Abiara’s replies on both of these concerns were mixed. His comments are especially interesting and informative in light of later circumstances. Regarding staff development, Abiara wrote,

About the Staff Development Program, it is my intention to have Acadia trained staff to man CINDICO in future in order to maintain a good academic standard. We need your assistance in this regard, particularly on our own students.135 That must have sounded encouraging. At the November 1991 graduation, MacRae had awarded two more full scholarships to study at ADC. One was given to Lawrence Lasisi and the other went to Sunday Okunola.136 Abiara’s reply shows an unmistakable preference to see his own Church’s students favoured. And as noted previously, despite Abiara’s affirmation, neither one of these graduands returned to CINDICO to teach.137 Abiara’s position on UNIDICO is less immediately satisfying, but at least it appears to be more consistent with what seems to have been his attitude toward Odelami at the time. Abiara wrote,

About the letter of recommendation on UNIDICO, I hereby declare that Dr. Odelami is a humble man whom God had used for CINDICO. However, the decision on UNIDICO’s affiliation to Acadia University is yours and what to do about it is left to you to decide. What is important to me is the good reputation of Acadia University which must be maintained.138

134 Abiara to MacRae, 1991-11-12, 2. 135 Ibid. 136 Lasisi arrived at ADC in time to begin the 1991–92 school year in September. See MacRae to Odelami, 1991-09-23. Okunola was delayed because his visa to Canada was issued late because of missing paperwork. He began his studies in 1992-01. See S. O. Adetayo to MacRae, 1991-10-10. 137 See → on page 131. 138 Abiara to MacRae, 1991-11-12, 1.

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The insinuation was hardly subtle and Abiara’s reserve toward both Odelami and UNIDICO was clear. Who Odelami was, and how and what he had done for CINDICO, while not being wholly irrelevant, was certainly not the point. MacRae, no doubt, would have liked Abiara to have been more positive. But even though Abiara’s comments were underwhelming as an endorsement of UNIDICO, at least he did not speak openly against the College’s affiliation. As the time drew closer to UNIDICO’s evaluation, MacRae would press Abiara to cooperate more fully with UNIDICO.139

A Second Trip Home ꜛUnfortunately, the friction that appears to have existed between Odelami and Abiara seems not to have abated in the balance of Odelami’s sabbatical year and it looks as if MacRae got caught in the fray. Despite the fact that money was tight, costs were mounting, and time was running out, Odelami informed the Principal that he had to return to Nigeria for an interview with his doctoral advisor and other officials at the University of Ibadan. Apparently, Odelami had to defend his research and convert his studies to the

PhD program before the end of February.140 He also made it known that his plan was to return to Acadia with his wife, Naomi, and to stay in Canada until the end of the year.141 Naomi had applied for admission to the MRE program and Odelami had further requested that she be considered as a mature student for entry to the MDiv degree.142 Odelami expected Naomi to receive a full or partial scholarship143 and he said, in

139 See → on page 156 and n184 → on page 156. 140 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-11, 1-2. 141 Higgins to MacRae, memo, 1992-02-12. Both Higgins and MacRae made it very clear to Odelami that there was no funding available for him as a Visiting Scholar after the end of August when Ross returned from her sabbatical. See ibid., 2; and MacRae to Odelami, 1992-02-13, 1. 142 Baxter to Mrs. M. O. [Naomi] Odelami, 1992-02-11. 143 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-11, 2. MacRae, Baxter, and Higgins all made it clear to Odelami that it was imprudent to have Naomi come to Acadia with him when he returned to Canada since she could not be recommended for admission until her official transcripts were received and full funding was in place. They also stressed that there were no funds available for bursary support for her

148 addition, that he had already spoken with local Pentecostal churches who, apparently, had agreed to support Naomi with the cost of her housing and food throughout the length of their stay.144 As a first step, however, Odelami needed money for airfare and he asked for the funds from the College,145 presuming that Abiara would of necessity reimburse the travel.146 Odelami informed MacRae that he had written Abiara to tell him that the trip was necessary. It would allow him to read the long papers (theses) of the graduating students and ensure that their style and format conformed to Acadia standards. Odelami also suggested to MacRae that while he was in Nigeria he would help write CINDICO’s self-study in preparation for the triennial review coming up in the 1992–1993 academic year.147 Odelami offered very specific and detailed advice on how best to address Abiara to achieve the desired result and MacRae followed his counsel closely.148 MacRae reluctantly released the money that Odelami needed for travel, but he required it, and other funds that were owed by Abiara to the College, to be repaid immediately upon Odelami’s return, before the College’s fiscal year-end on March 31, 1992.149 When Odelami left Nova Scotia on February 21, 1992,150 MacRae sent a letter

in the foreseeable future. See Baxter to Mrs. M. O. [Naomi] Odelami, 1992-02-11; Higgins to MacRae, memo, 1992-02-12, 1; MacRae to Odelami, 1992-02-13, 1; and MacRae to Odelami, note affixed to Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-14. MacRae offered that one solution to the conundrum of Naomi’s expenses would be for Odelami to receive written pledges from the Pentecostal churches willing to support her, guaranteeing that the full amount of Naomi’s needs would be paid directly to the College. See MacRae to Odelami, 1992-02-13, 1. Odelami was not able to secure the needed written support. See Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-14, 1-2. 144 Ibid., 1. Also see Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-11, 2. 145 Higgins to MacRae, memo, 1992-02-12, 1. 146 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-11, 4; and Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-14, 1. 147 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-14, 2-3. 148 Compare Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-14, with the letter that MacRae wrote to Abiara in MacRae to Abiara, 1992-02-20. 149 MacRae to Odelami, 1992-02-13, 1. 150 See R. Higgins to MacRae, memo, 1992-02-12; and Odelami to MacRae, handwritten memo, 1992-02-14, 4.

149 with him addressed to Abiara detailing the expenditures.151 Unfortunately, contrary to expectation, Abiara balked at the reimbursement. He did not think that it was necessary for Odelami to have returned to Nigeria and he refused to refund Odelami’s airfare.152 It was, it appears, a new low in Odelami’s relations with Abiara and CINDICO, the cause of which was not all that difficult to determine. According to Abiara, Odelami had returned to Nigeria without authorization.153 He rejected the idea that the trip was needed, as Odelami claimed, so that Odelami could review the papers of the graduating students and help prepare CINDICO’s self-study in preparation for Acadia’s triennial review. The fact was that Mala, as the Acting Provost, was administering the College in Odelami’s absence, and as far as Abiara was concerned, any questions regarding the format of the students’ theses could have been readily addressed through the mail. As for the self-study, Mala had already begun preparing that.154 Abiara’s annoyance was evident as he explained all of this to MacRae.155 For him, Odelami’s trip to Nigeria was hardly an official visit given that he had returned “without the courtesy of writing to the College.”156 And what seemed particularly galling to Abiara

151 MacRae to Abiara, 1992-02-20, encl. invoice. The total owing was $5,259 USD. The costs included two short flights for Lasisi and Okunola. When coming to Canada Nigerian students would fly to Toronto and Montreal; ADC would then have to cover the cost of bringing them to Halifax. Odelami had a similar junket to and from Toronto which needed to be reimbursed, in addition to two full flights to Nigeria, one in 1991 when he had attended CINDICO’s Convocation and the other, this one, in 1992 when he went home to meet with officials at the University of Ibadan. The College also paid for a later flight to Nigeria on 1992-08-23 for Odelami. See “Universal Gospel Apostolic Church of Nigeria,” pamphlet by M. O. Odelami, [1992-05?]. Abiara acknowledges the debt in Abiara to MacRae, 1993-06-23, 1. In 1993-09 he sent MacRae a $2,000USD cheque via Lasisi who was returning to ADC from NY. See MacRae to Abiara, 1993-10-04. 152 Abiara to MacRae, 1992-05-05, 1. 153 Ibid. 154 Ibid. 155 Abiara wrote, “I, honestly, could not hide my disappointment about [Odelami’s] failure to treat the letter with utmost urgency …;” “The Council, at its last meeting, frowned at Dr. Odelami’s visit to Nigeria, this time …;” and “We, no doubt, acknowledge the fact that God used Dr. Odelami as a link in the affiliation process with Acadia but that is not sufficient reason for him to take us for a ride.” Ibid. 156 Ibid.

150 was that Odelami had been in Nigeria since February 21st – with an urgent letter from MacRae requiring attention before the end of March – and for seven weeks he had not given it either to Abiara or to Folahan, the Secretary of the Governing Council. According to Abiara, he had been available for three days after Odelami’s arrival from Canada before going to Europe for an evangelistic crusade. Then, after he had returned to Nigeria at the end of the tour, another three weeks passed before Odelami delivered the letter.157 Abiara wrote MacRae saying that CINDICO’s Governing Council had chastised Odelami, that Odelami had “apologised for his error,” and that the Council had informed

Odelami that he alone was responsible to repay ADC his airfare.158 What made matters worse was that Odelami was still not able to return to ADC for another three weeks after the meeting.159 In an official letter CINDICO’s Governing Council reopened a number of old issues. According to the Council, Odelami had gone to ADC in August 1991 without being required to sign a bond guaranteeing his return to CINDICO. But now, ten months after the fact, the Council asked Odelami to accept his study leave in writing. By doing so, Odelami would be acknowledging that CINDICO’s

Governing Council had granted him the leave and he was asked to pledge that he would work at CINDICO two years for every one year that he had been away.160

157 Abiara returned to Nigeria on 1992-03-23. The letter was not delivered until 1992-04-13. Abiara to MacRae, 1992-05-05, 1. 158 Ibid. 159 This is a close approximation and it assumes that when Abiara and the Secretary for the Governing Council, Folahan, wrote MacRae and Odelami, respectively, on 1992-05-04, that the Governing Council meeting had taken place the day before. Ten days after these two letters, MacRae wrote a letter to Odelami in Nigeria to be used by Odelami with immigration authorities in Nigeria to confirm his support by ADC when he returned to Canada. On May 27th Odelami wrote a note to MacRae, on an ADC notepad, asking MacRae to write a letter addressed to him, to confirm again that he had support while at Acadia. Odelami took the letter to the Immigration office in Kentville, NS. See Abiara to MacRae, 1992-05-04; Folahan to Odelami, 1992-05-04; MacRae to Odelami, 1992-05-14; Odelami to MacRae, handwritten note on ADC notepad, 1992-05-27; MacRae to Odelami, 1992-05-27; and Higgins to E. Young, Immigration officer in Kentville, NS, fax cover page, 1992-05-28. 160 Folahan to Odelami, “Approval of Study Leave,” 1992-05-04.

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It took Odelami three months to respond to the Council’s letter.161 He had returned to Acadia on May 27, 1992162 without Naomi, and from Canada he wrote the Governing Council of CINDICO. He told them that as far as he was concerned, he worked for the Lord only and therefore, he was not able to sign a commitment to work at the College for a set period of time. Happily, however, Odelami reported that after much prayer, he had concluded that he was not yet released from service to God at CINDICO and that he would be returning to it and to them. He promised that when he got back he would tell them the details of that revelation. Odelami further acknowledged that the

Governing Council had indeed granted him the sabbatical year. ꜛHe was grateful for it, but he reminded them that for all of the time that he was in Canada, in contravention to the claim in their missive, his family had received only half of his salary.163 It was an unfortunate end to an otherwise very fruitful year of teaching, spiritual challenge, personal growth, and professional development.164ꜛ(198) On August 23, 1992165 Odelami left ADC and returned to Nigeria to take up his work as the provost of CINDICO. ADC paid his return airfare.166ꜛ(131)

Strategic Preparation With the college year concluded and Odelami about to return to Nigeria, MacRae turned his attention to the triennial review of CINDICO, and most urgently, the assessment of UNDICO for affiliation. He sent Perkin an information brief that rehearsed

161 Odelami to Folahan, “Approval of Study Leave,” letter written on ADC letterhead, 1992-08-05. 162 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten note on ADC notepad, 1992-05-27. 163 Odelami to Sec. of CINDICO’s Gov. Council, “[re:] Approval of Study Leave,” 1992-08-05. 164 See Odelami’s letter of appreciation to the Principal, Faculty, and Staff of ADC. Odelami to MacRae, 1992-06-28. 165 Odelami to MacRae, letter of appreciation, 1992-06-28. 166 See “UNIGAC,” pamphlet by Odelami, [1992-05?].

152 the history of the affiliation of CINDICO167 and he advised the University President that if the situation in Nigeria continued to worsen, it was almost certain that schools like UNIDICO would be shut down.168 Given that CINDICO had to be reviewed for re- affiliation in the coming year, and that UNIDICO wanted to establish a relationship with Acadia, MacRae proposed that CINDICO could be examined and UNIDICO assessed at the same time. He noted that the common link between the two Colleges was Odelami: he was the Provost of one and the Founder of the other and under his leadership both Colleges had similar programs, the same requirements for faculty and students, and had established a strong working and oversight relationship with universities in the area. MacRae stressed that the Senate had been informed of UNIDICO’s intentions to affiliate with Acadia in 1989.169 At the time both CINDICO and UNIDICO had written self- studies and since then both he and Perkin had separately visited the Colleges in Nigeria. MacRae argued, too, that while UNIDICO and CINDICO were alike in many ways, they served two different religious communities and that as separate institutions they had a wider and more effective ministry because of their combined reach. As a final point,

MacRae claimed that adding UNIDICO to the review and providing oversight to it later, if UNIDICO was affiliated, would be a relatively easy thing to do. Meanwhile, MacRae contacted CINDICO and reminded Abiara and the Governing Council that their affiliation was largely due to Odelami’s involvement and his careful cultivation of contacts especially at the Universities of Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo. He commended Odelami to them and asked the Council to encourage him as he resumed his duties in Nigeria.170 For Odelami, MacRae sent a letter to the Elders of his

167 See MacRae, “Universal Gospel Divinity College (UNIDICO),” encl. in MacRae to Perkin, 1992-08-17. 168 See ibid. 169 See → on page 121. 170 MacRae to Abiara and the Governing Council, 1992-08-20.

153 church. He assured them that the affiliation of UNIDICO was a matter of great concern to him and that he had talked to the President of Acadia about their needs. He remarked that “the University President is very supportive of my effort to achieve [UNIDICO’s affiliation,]”171 and said that he intended shortly to contact Ogilvie, the University’s Academic Vice President, for advice on when the best time would be to make a formal presentation to Acadia’s Senate.172 A couple of days later, MacRae wrote Ogilvie. He sent him the information brief that he had sent to Perkin, noted that Abiara offered no objection to UNIDICO’s affiliation, and suggested that Ogilvie might like to contact

Perkin to discuss the observations that Perkin had made during his visit in 1991. MacRae also noted that CINDICO’s Convocation was tentatively scheduled for December 12, 1992. He suggested that it might be an opportune time to assess UNIDICO.173 According to MacRae, Ogilvie advised that CINDICO should first be evaluated for affiliation and then afterward, if it was recommended and the Senate agreed to continue CINDICO’s affiliation, a report and recommendation for UNIDICO should follow.174 Abiara was anxious to hold CINDICO’s Convocation in November or

December. MacRae was anxious to do the assessment. But he was also concerned about the graduation if it was held in December, the only month he was available. The Nigerian Presidential elections were slated for December 5th,175 and he wondered if it was wise to be in Nigeria that near to the national voting.176 Abiara pushed to hold the Convocation on December 12, 1992,177 but eventually it was shifted to early the following year on

171 MacRae to Olumide, 1992-08-20. 172 See ibid. 173 MacRae to Ogilvie, 1992-08-25. 174 MacRae to Perkin, 1992-09-17. 175 Abiara to MacRae, 1992-08-17. 176 MacRae to Perkin, 1992-09-17. As it happened, the Presidential elections were postponed until 1993-06-12. See → on page 180. 177 Abiara to MacRae, 1992-10-05.

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January 16, 1993.178 MacRae received the list of 1991–1992 CINDICO graduates from Odelami179 and forwarded the thirteen names to David Green, the registrar for AU. MacRae submitted the list on behalf of the Senate of ADC and certified to Green that the graduands had all satisfied the requirements of the degree programs and that they were eligible to graduate at the next Convocation of CINDICO.180 Before the end of 1992 the pressure on MacRae to affiliate UNIDICO was increased well beyond the fear of the College being proscribed by the Nigerian government. Odelami wrote urgently to MacRae describing the denominational and personal difficulties that had occupied him since returning from sabbatical. He reported,

ꜛIn main, my Church in Nigeria is almost ravaged by my involvement with CINDICO especially when UNIDICO is not yet affiliated as a result of which students from UNIDICO have been withdrawing to join CINDICO. My church members are surprised that it is by the affiliation of CINDICO with my University that CINDICO now enjoys a higher and better status which is enough a publicity to draw students from far and near study at (sic) CINDICO. I have however assured them that you will bring very good news on the affiliation of UNIDICO when you next visit. After visits to many of the branches of my Church to explain the situation, I will address the meeting of the Supreme Council of Elders, at the convention ’92, on the intention of those who are threatenning (sic) to break away. I pray that the affiliation is possible sooner than expected to save the ugly situation in my Church now. … We hope you will bring along the affiliation letter for UNIDICO and the B. Th. and B. R. E. diplomas for the 13 CINDICO students graduating on the 16th January 1993.181 There was little that MacRae could do or say. But, what he could do, he did do. Just before leaving for Nigeria, for the record, he wrote a very strong letter to Odelami

178 See MacRae to Abiara, 1992-11-19; and Abiara to MacRae, fax letter, 1992-12-07. 179 Odelami to MacRae, “List of Graduating [CINDICO] Students for 1991/1992,” 1992-11-30, with list enclosed. 180 MacRae to Green, 1992-12-09. Of the thirteen graduands, seven had met the requirements for the BTh and six were to be awarded the BRE degree. 181 Odelami to MacRae, 1992-11-30, 1. Underlined emphasis not added.

155 affirming his keen personal interest in UNIDICO and his intention to do everything reasonable to ensure that UNIDICO was favourably considered for affiliation with AU. He assured Odelami and his leadership that his visit was meant to encourage them and that he was confident that, if things went as hoped, the present graduating class at UNIDICO would be able to receive Acadia degrees for their work.182

1993 CINDICO Review and UNIDICO Assessment MacRae arrived in Lagos on January 13, 1993. He had one week to conduct a review of CINDICO and to evaluate UNIDICO’s readiness for affiliation. The itinerary was tight. It divided the time between the two colleges and included two speaking engagements at Agbala Itura and another at Odelami’s church.183 ꜛPrior to the trip MacRae was clear and insistent: one college was not to take precedence over the other; equal time needed to be allotted to each institution so that he could accomplish his mission; and AU would be more impressed with cooperation between the two colleges than with any sense of rivalry.184 The undertaking would include site visits to both

Colleges, meetings with the leadership of both institutions, conversations with informed representatives of local universities and key CAC leaders, and CINDICO’s Convocation. MacRae noted that he especially wanted to talk at length with Imevbore and the two Provosts, Mala for CINDICO and Olayiwola for UNIDICO.185 Prior to the graduation MacRae received the self-study prepared by Mala and Odelami on CINDICO.186 The report highlighted some important aspects of the College’s

182 MacRae to Odelami, 1993-01-12. 183 “Itinerary for Dr. Andrew MacRae,” [apparently, typed in Nigeria, 1993-01?]. 184 ꜛMacRae reiterated the emphasis on cooperation between CINDICO and UNIDICO during his address at CINDICO’s Convocation. See MacRae, “Convocation Address at CINDICO Graduation, January 1993,” 1. 185 See MacRae to Abiara and Odelami, “Visit to Nigeria,” n.d., fax memo. 186 See Mala and Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on Christ International Divinity College, Erimo- Ijesa, Osun State, Nigeria Presented to Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University, Wolfville, Canada”

156 growth and development in the three years of the affiliation and it seems that the College had made some impressive strides forward. According to Mala and Odelami,

Today, the college has to its credit well established Departments of Theology and Religious Education, 110 students [up from 100], an improved curriculum, 9 staff strength of a full-time faculty, 13 part-time faculty, and 7 non-academic staff compared to 6 full-time faculty, 4 part- time faculty and 4 non-academic staff in 1988.187 What is interesting is that while Mala and Odelami indicated that there were thirteen part- time faculty at CINDICO in 1993, they listed only eleven in the self-study. But of the eleven, five had earned doctorates from universities in places such as Germany, the United States, Ibadan, and Ifé. Of the nine full-time faculty members, three, including Odelami were doctoral candidates. The college’s boards, supposedly, were composed of some very astute local academics. Imevbore continued as the Chairman of the Governing Council and the fifteen-person Senate included “two members of the Chancellor’s Advisory Council who are reckoned with in academic circles and nine others in universities and Colleges of Education. University dons are drawn from various universities around CINDICO.”188 The paragraph on CINDICO’s Institutional Purpose contains some interesting information concerning the history and availability of theological education in Nigeria189 and Mala and Odelami emphasized that CINDICO’s entry requirements were equal to the entry requirements in local universities. They also highlighted the College’s progress in library development and resource availability, student housing, community life, and the integration of farming on campus.190 As part of

(report submitted for triennium affiliation review, [Erinmo-Ijesa, Nigeria, 1993-01?]). This nine-page study is similar in format to the original CINDICO self-study generated in 1989. 187 Mala and Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, 1993-01?]), 1. 188 Ibid., 2. 189 Ibid., 3. 190 See ibid., 3, 8.

157 their concluding argument for extending affiliation for another three years, Mala and Odelami contended that,

CINDICO has physically and academically become better because of [affiliation with Acadia University.] … We have for over six years now assembled a group of sound, dedicated, disciplined and hard-working academicians. They are young lecturers who are fully prepared to face the rigour of affiliation extension. … Over the years we have built a very strong Curriculum … that can tackle the demands of the society and the church, in Africa. … CINDICO is just becoming known as a force to be reckoned with … AU cannot, therefore, afford to let CINDICO down at her infancy stage. Rather Acadia should allow her to retain her affiliate status and assist her to develop theological education and theological students in Africa.191 MacRae spoke at length with Abiara, Mala, Odelami, and members of CINDICO’s Governing Council and Senate. He visited with Grand Patrons and interviewed people at nearby universities. CINDICO’s self-study report, MacRae’s inspection, and the various discussions apparently convinced MacRae of CINDICO’s viability. At the college’s convocation MacRae ended his remarks by saying,

Let me close with these final comments. The arrangement we have brought into being whereby Nigerian and other African students may earn degrees of Acadia University, in Canada, while receiving all their training in Nigeria, is, I think, unique.

For two days I have been conducting a careful review of CINDICO’s life and standards, and I am happy to inform you that I have decided both to commend you for your responsible stewardship of the arrangements made between us, and also to recommend to the Senate of ADC and AU that the affiliation of CINDICO with AU be continued into the future.192 Abiara’s address at the Convocation also contained a number of development- and affiliation-related themes that, no doubt, had been part of the discussions with

MacRae during the previous couple of days. Following the self-study, Abiara highlighted

191 Mala and Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, 1993-01?]), 8-9. 192 See MacRae, “Convocation Address at CINDICO Graduation, January 1993,” handwritten notes added to bottom of 3.

158 the College’s progress in erecting classroom and administrative space, acquiring new books, and having the new library almost ready to commission. He also announced that the Governing Council, as part of a students’ relief package, would be reducing College tuition fees and, possibly as a result of MacRae’s intervention, that the Council would also be issuing an outcome on staff salaries that he expected would “make people smile” when they heard it within a few weeks. Abiara expressed, too, his hope that the College would be able to continue to grant scholarships to worthy students and that the practice of assisting students would become a regular part of the College. Ultimately, he said, it was his prayer that CINDICO would one day be a tuition-free institution. In his conclusion Abiara solicited support for the current building projects, for vehicles for student and staff transport, and for a perimeter fence to improve security.193 At UNIDICO, MacRae received the self-study prepared by the College’s Provost, D. O. Olayiwola.194 It followed closely the self-study prepared in 1989 by UNIDICO’s first Provost, A. O. Olaoba-Efuntayo, which in turn had followed closely CINDICO’s self-study prepared in 1989 by Odelami.195 Olayiwola included a brief history of the college, a list of UNIDICO’s staff and their qualifications, a description of UNIDICO’s organization, a statement of institutional purpose, a list of UNIDICO’s programs and entry requirements, the College’s grading system, and the requirements for graduation. He also listed the courses for UNIDICO’s BTh and BRE degree programs, indicating the credit hours required to complete each degree. This was followed by a description of the College’s methods of study and a brief outline of twenty-four courses taught in the

193 See Abiara, “Address by Pastor (Dr.) S. K. Abiara, Chancellor CINDICO on the Occasion of CINDICO’s 3rd Convocation held at Erinmo on Saturday, 16th January, 1993,” speech delivered on 1993-01-16, ECWA/ADCPO. 194 This doc. is available in its entirety as Appendix H. 195 Compare, D. O. Olayiwola, “A Self-Study on UNIDICO,” (Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, [1993-01?]); A. O. Olaoba-Efuntayo, “A Self-Study Report on UNIDICO,” (Ile-Ifé, [1989-09?]); and Odelami, “A Self-Study Report on CINDICO,” ([Erinmo-Ijesa, 1989-09?]).

159 departments of the College. The Provost concluded the brief by discussing UNIDICO’s physical property,196 library holdings, and restating the need for affiliation.

Fast Tracking the Process Shortly after returning home, MacRae received the usual letters of appreciation, thanking him for the success of the visit197 and expressing profound gratitude for his “untiring and selfless efforts to improve the lots of our people in Africa, Nigeria in particular.”198 But, evaluating the Colleges was the relatively easy part. Achieving their affiliation was far from assured and there were a number of things yet to be done before a motion could be brought to the Acadia Senate. As it turned out, the negotiations were, as described by MacRae, “very complicated,” “extremely strenuous,” “very sensitive,”199 and “long and rather drawn out.”200 First, MacRae wrote a report on his findings in Nigeria. Then he had it reviewed by the ADC faculty.201 And finally, he sent a copy of the revised document to Ogilvie, the Academic Vice President, telling him that he was eager to have his thoughts on the material.202 Perkin was retiring in three months, on 1993-06-30,203 and Ogilvie, as the President-elect, would become the thirteenth President of Acadia on 1993-07-01. MacRae

196 UNIDICO was located in Ile-Ifé in 1993. 197 Odelami to MacRae, “[CINDICO] Letter of Appreciation,” 1993-02-18. 198 Ibid. 199 All three phrases are found in MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20. 200 MacRae to Abiara and Odelami, 1993-10-04, 1. 201 MacRae described this process to Ogilvie, Green, Odelami, and Abiara. See MacRae to Ogilvie, 1993-04-05; MacRae to Green, 1993-05-03; MacRae to Odelami, 1993-07-07; MacRae to Abiara and Odelami, 1993-10-04. 202 MacRae to Ogilvie, 1993-04-05. 203 Perkin wrote to inform Abiara of his retirement and to express his appreciation for Abiara’s kindness during his trip to Nigeria in 1993. He assured Abiara that he would make sure that his successor was “fully aware of the affiliation we enjoy with CINDICO.” Perkin to Abiara, 1992-08-24.

160 hoped to incorporate Ogilvie’s suggestions into the final report before taking it to the College Senate as a final step before taking it to the University Senate.204 The timeline was tight. It was almost the end of the 1992–1993 academic year. Abiara and Odelami had been waiting since January to learn the results of the assessment reviews; and they were supposed to attend the Convocation at Acadia on May 10, 1993.205 MacRae knew that they would be anxious to know what progress had been made.206 He also knew that if the report was not dealt with soon, the issue of affiliation for both of the Nigerian colleges might languish until the coming fall.

On May 3rd the Senate of ADC met in the morning.207 They reviewed MacRae’s report and recommendations, approved them, and recommended their acceptance to the Senate of the University. That afternoon MacRae had the report sent to Green, the University’s registrar, to be added, late, to the agenda of the Acadia Senate’s meeting to be held on May 5, 1993. MacRae acknowledged to Green, “I am anxious to have the matter considered as soon as possible, and will gladly make additional copies available at your request.”208 A couple of days later, MacRae distributed copies of the report to the

Senators during the Senate meeting.209 He spoke on his findings and recommendations and proposed that the Senate adopt the report. Instead it was moved that the discussion be deferred until September so that the Senate could consider and debate the issues in the fall. MacRae moved, and the motion was carried, to have the report considered at the

204 See MacRae to Ogilvie, 1993-04-05. 205 See Odelami to MacRae, “Invitation to Convocation at Acadia,” 1993-03-10; and MacRae to Abiara, 1993-03-24. 206 See MacRae to Ogilvie, 1993-04-05. MacRae told Ogilvie that, “If it seems at all feasible, I would like to be able to bring this to the University Senate at the first opportunity.” He then mentioned the possibility of Abiara and Odelami visiting Acadia in May and said that he knew that they would be anxious about the results of the review and keen to discover the response. 207 This paragraph is based, in part, on MacRae to Green, 1993-05-03. 208 Ibid. 209 AUS Mins., 1993-05-05, 5, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA.

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Senate’s June meeting. He then moved that if there was not a quorum at the June meeting, the Senate Executive Committee would be authorized to deal with the report. That motion was closely defeated by a show of hands, fourteen to thirteen, and the main motion was carried.210 MacRae’s attempt to have the affiliation dealt with before, or at the very least, over the summer, was frustrated. If the June Senate meeting had a poor turnout, a decision on the status of the Nigerian colleges would be postponed until September – nine months after the review and certainly not in time to bring any comfort to administrators in Nigeria, incoming students, or those who were looking to graduate with Acadia degrees in the next academic year.

MacRae's Report and Recommendations from Nigerian Visit211 MacRae's “Report from Nigerian Visit” was divided into three sections. The first part described MacRae’s findings in Nigeria after he had reviewed CINDICO’s academic life and progress. His comments addressed each of the four stipulations set out by the University in the original affiliation agreement for continuation: the written recommendation of graduands by CINDICO’s Senate to AU through the Senate of ADC, library development, progress in developing the physical plant and physical security of the College, and having curriculum changes endorsed by ADC.212 In all of these areas MacRae discovered full compliance. MacRae also noted that in the first three years of the affiliation, modest advances in library holdings had been achieved, a State approved BRE program had been developed, and changes had been effected in the organizational structure of CINDICO. MacRae contended that,

210 AUS Mins., 1993-05-05, 5, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 211 This doc. is available in its entirety as Appendix I. 212 The continuation clauses governing approval after 1993 were items 3-6 on 11 of the 1990 report. See MacRae, “Report to AUS,” 11; and also → on page 110. Compare MacRae, “Report and Recommendations from Nigerian Visit,” report presented to the AUS, Wolfville, 1993-05-05.

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The case for continuing affiliation is clear, subject to: a) Continuing development of the site; b) Enlargement of library resources; c) Maintenance of standards in faculty appointments, student admissions, curriculum; d) Continuation of academic liaison with State Universities.213 The second section of MacRae’s report dealt with UNIDICO and MacRae’s assessment of that College. His argument rested on a couple of key contentions. First, that UNIDICO, in 1993, was at exactly the same point in its development and offerings that CINDICO had been in 1990 when the Acadia Senate had agreed to recognize it. And second, that since UNIDICO had been established by Odelami, the Provost of CINDICO, all of its standards for student admissions, faculty appointment, government, curriculum, and academic evaluation were equivalent to CINDICO’s. As proof of its academic integrity MacRae listed a number of important and qualified State and University personnel who were making a critical contribution to UNIDICO either by sitting on its Governing Council, Senate, and Advisory Council, or by overseeing the College’s programs, grading, and academic standards. He underlined that UNIDICO’s BRE program had the highest possible recognition by the State Department of Education, that the College had access to the library facilities of leading universities in the area, that CINDICO and UNIDICO had pledged to work cooperatively if they were both recognized by AU, and that UNIDICO’s new location situated it advantageously beside a proposed new major highway. MacRae’s conclusion concerning UNIDICO was that “This College merits equal recognition, on the same terms as CINDICO, including a review in three years’ time.”214

The final section of the report offered seven recommendations to the Acadia Senate. ADC’s faculty and Senate had already ratified these proposals.215 The opening

213 MacRae, “Report from Nigerian Visit,” 3. 214 MacRae, “Report from Nigerian Visit,” 3-4. 215 See MacRae to Green, 1993-05-03.

163 two suggestions dealt with the continuance of CINDICO’s affiliation and the recognition of UNIDICO. The third recommendation formed the “crucial part”216 of the document as far as MacRae was concerned. In it he outlined the creation of an Acadia Consortium and described its purpose and membership and suggested its most likely head, Odelami. The final four recommendations addressed relations between the two Colleges and their responsibilities to Acadia. In that section MacRae offered that CINDICO and UNIDICO should permit common membership on their Boards, that they should be required to submit annual reports to the Principal of ADC, that they should provide approved transcripts of graduating degree students to Acadia, and that they ought to coordinate their Convocations for mutual convenience and for the purposes of joint advertising.217 The seven recommendations of the report were, specifically:

1. That the affiliate relationship of CINDICO to Acadia University be continued, for a further period of three years, to be reviewed in 1995/96. 2. That the Universal Gospel Divinity College be granted parallel affiliation, which will also be subject to review the same time as CINDICO, in three years’ time. 3. ꜛThat CINDICO and UNIDICO be required, while maintaining their distinctive institutional bases, to form an Acadia-related Consortium, with the following agreements: a.) ꜛTo monitor the continuing academic quality of the Colleges; b.) To maintain common, University-level standards of Faculty appointment; c.) To use the same criteria for student admission degree programmes and grading standards; d.) To ensure access to one another’s resources for faculty and students; e.) To arrange regular meetings to share plans of development of faculty, programmes and curriculum. Acadia Consortium. The Consortium should include, in its membership, the following:

216 MacRae to Ogilvie, 1993-04-05. 217 MacRae, “Report from Nigerian Visit,” 5-6.

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President of the Acadia Consortium, with supervisory responsibility for the academic leadership, development and programmes of both Colleges, in relation to their respective Provosts. Ideally, Dr. M. O. Odelaim (sic), under whose leadership present standards were developed, would be an appropriate appointment. The Provosts of both Colleges. The Chairpersons of the Governing Councils of both Colleges. Two Representatives of neighbouring Universities, selected for their knowledge of the Colleges. The Chancellors/Founders of the Colleges as ex officio members, without vote. 4. Both Colleges should permit common membership by individuals on the General Councils of both Institutions. Both Colleges must: 5. ꜛ(223)Maintain contact with Acadia University, by each submitting an annual report to the Principal and Dean of the Acadia Faculty of Theology of Acadia Divinity College. [This would include: enrolment, policy changes; curriculum development; general assessment of progress]. 6. ꜛ(189)Send copies of approved transcripts of degree students who have completed their work, with a motion of recommendation that these students be admitted to the appropriate Acadia degree. 7. Plan Convocation ceremonies mutually, and no more than a week apart, to enable Acadia representation, where appropriate, and to cooperate in publicity and mutual encouragement of, these Convocation events.218

A Different Presentation Unfortunately, MacRae’s report in 1993 failed to garner the same enthusiasm as his original report to the Senate in 1990 when CINDICO had first been affiliated.219 The difference in reception might be explained by the fact that the two presentations were dissimilar both in approach and content. First, since the 1993 report was not distributed beforehand to the Senators, they did not have an opportunity to peruse the proposals prior to the meeting. Second, unlike the 1990 report, no supporting materials were submitted with MacRae’s assessment. There were no letters from African academics and no

218 MacRae, “Report from Nigerian Visit,” 5-6. 219 See → on page 110.

165 suggestions from the ADC faculty for Senators to read.220 Third, in MacRae’s six-page report in 1993, he proposed that the affiliation of CINDICO should be continued and that UNIDICO should be affiliated with AU on the same basis as CINDICO, but nowhere did MacRae list UNIDICO’s curriculum, or anything specific to UNIDICO’s operations. The College’s self-study described the college’s background, institutional purpose, grading system, standards of admission, graduation requirements, course descriptions, facilities, library, and rationale for affiliation, but none of these things were noted, apart from saying that they were similar to CINDICO’s.221 Fourth, nowhere was the argument to affiliate the colleges with Acadia based on larger concerns such as globalization, the value of nondenominational access to theological education, and the importance of aiding indigenous educational endeavours. Finally, whereas before, in 1990, MacRae had provided a three-page preamble to the discussion in which he outlined these arguments and rehearsed the history of AU, no preface was attached to the presentation. Perhaps, even if the background document that MacRae had provided to Perkin and Ogilvie222 had been modified for the presentation to the Senate, the outcome might have been different.

Strained Relations between ADC and Acadia ꜛ(67)ꜛ(105)ꜛ(114)However, it is just as possible that regardless of how MacRae presented his report and no matter what it contained, he still would have met stiff opposition in Acadia’s Senate. When CINDICO was affiliated in 1990, relations between AU and ADC were not good,223 but by May 1993 they were considerably worse. In January 1992 the Senate had considered a report that restricted ADC’s membership on

220 See → on page 104. 221 See D. O. Olayiwola, “A Self-Study on UNIDICO,” (Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, [1993-01?]). 222 See MacRae to Perkin, 1992-08-17, encl. “Universal Gospel Divinity College (UNIDICO);” MacRae to Ogilvie, 1992-08-25. 223 See → on page 105.

166 the Acadia Senate to the College’s Principal and since it made no allowance for any of the ADC faculty,224 MacRae objected strongly. A five member ad hoc committee was struck three months later to examine the issue.225 When it was populated in May 1992, Mitton, ADC’s former Principal, agreed to represent ADC on it.226 Exactly one year later, at the same May 1993 meeting227 in which MacRae presented his affiliation report concerning CINDICO and UNIDICO, the ad hoc Committee re University/Divinity College Relations (ahC-U/DCR) not only brought forward recommendations to hold the status quo on the Senate, it also proposed reducing ADC’s membership on other

University committees.228 MacRae acknowledged the conclusion and remarked that he “regretted the hostilities experienced throughout the process.”229 Shortly afterward, MacRae’s report was put off until later in the year. It could not have been a very good day. But, things were going to get worse. As part of its preparation for the upcoming discussion, the Senate asked MacRae to supply background information on the affiliations.230 Starting with his original “Report to AUS,” MacRae had several documents retyped and placed on reserve in AU’s

President’s office. He included a two-page overview arguing the premises upon which the May 1993 recommendations were based, labeled the supporting papers “A” through “H”, and identified their importance.231 Included in the package were:

224 See AUS Mins., 1992-01-13, n.p., f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 225 See AUS Mins., 1992-04-13, n.p., f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 226 See AUS Mins., 1992-05-06, n.p., f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 227 See AUS Mins., 1993-05-05, 5, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 228 ꜛThe full 3-page report of the ahC-U/DCR can be found immediately following AUS Mins., 1993-05-05. See “Report of the ad hoc Committee to Investigate the Relations between the Acadia Divinity College and the Senate of Acadia University,” sbb. “Senate Minutes 1992–93,” ECWA. 229 AUS Mins., 1993-05-05, 2, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 230 D. Feener, Rec. Sec. for the AUS, to MacRae, 1993-05-02; D. Looker to MacRae, 1993-06-30. 231 MacRae, “Background Information on Recommendations on CINDICO and UNIDICO,” sbb. “AU Senate Minutes for 1993–1994,” ECWA.

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A. The 1990 Proposal to Affiliate CINDICO B. CINDICO’s Self-Study C. CINDICO’s list of available courses D. UNIDICO’s Self-Study E. UNIDICO’s Degree programs F. UNIDICO’s list of available courses G. A list of the personnel involved in the Colleges H. A list of CINDICO’s graduates since 1990232

Help Needed from Nigeria MacRae wrote Odelami in Nigeria and attempted to impress upon him the tenuousness and urgency of the situation.233 He disclosed that, “There are strong secular influences on the Senate of the University, in the presence of persons who place no value on the Christian heritage of the University, and who have been seeking to place limits on the influence of the Divinity College within the University.”234 MacRae feared that this group might ask to have the recommendations in his report reviewed by Senate committees, and so he urged Odelami to send him documentation from authorities in local Nigerian Universities endorsing UNIDICO and its programs.235 Since MacRae also expected Acadia’s Senate to focus on the credentials of the Nigerian lecturers and the quality of UNIDICO’s programs, he was very specific. He needed letters from authorities in Arts, Science, and Education to affirm that they had examined the courses in these disciplines and found the courses, and the lecturers who taught them, meeting the standards required in their national Universities.236 MacRae urged Odelami to make sure

232 MacRae, “Background Information.” Photocopies of these docs. are available in the companion vol. of source docs, “CINDICO and UNIDICO: Affiliation Letters and Documents, 1989-2006,” ECWA/ ADCPO, or the CD affixed to the back cover of this thesis. 233 See MacRae to Odelami, 1993-07-07. See also MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20. 234 MacRae to Odelami, 1993-07-07, 1. MacRae reiterated this in MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09- 20; and in MacRae to Abiara and Odelami, 1993-10-4. 235 See MacRae to Odelami, 1993-07-07. 236 MacRae requested this same material, and more, in MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20; and also in MacRae to Kuyebi, [in error] 1993-[1994]-01-03. There is very little doubt that this last letter, written so early in January and under such urgent need, is misdated and ought to be dated in 1994.

168 that any correspondence addressed to the University be deplete of overtly Christian expressions, saying, “[Those who are strongly secular in perspective] will look for direct academic approval and recommendation and nothing more, and I will not be able to use letters of support which [go] beyond that.”237 Unfortunately, in his reply to MacRae’s letter, Odelami did not respond to any of MacRae’s concerns. Instead of pledging his assistance, Odelami concentrated on other issues. First, he commiserated with MacRae that finances were so tight at the Divinity College that no new scholarships could be offered to Nigerian students in the foreseeable future. He counseled that, indeed, no CINDICO graduates should be considered for financial aid “for a long time,” and that even the monies being used to help those already at ADC to get a second degree “should have been used for a new student from Nigeria (UNIDICO).”238 Second, Odelami informed MacRae that CINDICO had advertised the positions of Provost and lecturers at the College. The minimum requirement was a Master’s degree and no one in Nigeria had applied.239 ꜛEver since returning from Canada in 1992, Odelami had become increasingly restless at CINDICO. He wanted to leave the

College so that he could pay closer attention to his other ministries and church. In an apparent reference to the Nigerian students who were taking their second degree rather than returning immediately to Nigeria to help, Odelami observed, “We need them badly now in our colleges and ministries.”240 Third, Odelami mentioned that Folahan, the secretary of CINDICO’s Governing Council, had suggested to him that he, Odelami, should remain as an advisor to the new Provost for CINDICO. Odelami proposed to MacRae that this might be a suitable time to suggest that he, Odelami, become the

237 MacRae to Odelami, 1993-07-07, 1. 238 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter on UNIDICO letterhead, 1993-07-28, 2. 239 Ibid. 240 Ibid.

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President of an Acadia Consortium. Even though Abiara was not particularly pleased with Odelami’s decision to resign as CINDICO’s Provost,241 CINDICO’s Governing Council did agree in December 1993, to make Odelami an Academic consultant to CINDICO, to pay him a monthly stipend of ₦2,000 (approximately $60 according to Odelami), and to appoint an acting Provost for the College in his stead.242 Finally, Odelami advised MacRae that since UNIDICO’s affiliation letter had not yet been received, the students at UNIDICO were demoralized, the Governing Council and Presidential Advisory Council were less enthusiastic, and the ₦25 million Endowment

Campaign had been cancelled.243

Another ad hoc Committee244 When the Acadia Senate convened in September 1993, the report and recommendations from MacRae’s trip to Nigeria in January 1993 were placed before it.245 The material generated considerable discussion. As MacRae had expected, the credentials of the Nigerian faculty, the review of the program, issues surrounding affiliation, and in particular, the non-theological courses in Science, Education, and Arts246 were all questioned. And again as MacRae had divined, it was moved that the Committee to Review Academic Program Review Procedures (CRAPRP) establish guidelines for the affiliation of UNIDICO and for CINDICO’s review in three years’

241 Imevbore, Wooden, Odelami, and Dockendorff, conversation, Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, 2012-06-01. 242 Odelami to MacRae, personal letter, 1993-01-07, 2. 243 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter on UNIDICO letterhead, 1993-07-28, 2. 244 This section is based on AUS Mins., 1993-09-13, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 245 See ibid. 246 See MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20. See also MacRae to Abiara and Odelami, 1993-10-04, where MacRae tells Abiara that UNIDICO’s Arts, Science, and Education courses were being reviewed, making explicit what he had already made clear to Odelami, that in the 1996 affiliation review of CINDICO, these same courses would likely be reviewed for CINDICO as well. See MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20, 2.

170 time. All of the report’s proposals, except for the first one concerning the renewal of CINDICO’s affiliation, were to be tabled until CRAPRP could complete its work. After further discussion, it was agreed that rather than treating the report as a whole, each of the recommendations would be considered individually and the motion was withdrawn. The report was then considered proposal by proposal. Of the thirty-two Senators present, four of them, in various combinations, moved and seconded a series of motions that tabled recommendations three, four, and seven; corrected the wording of item number five; and replaced recommendation two with the motion that had previously been withdrawn, that is, to have CRAPRP draw up guidelines for UNIDICO’s affiliation. Recommendation one, proposing the continuance of CINDICO’s affiliation, was accepted; and ꜛproposal six was moot since CINDICO had already agreed to send ADC copies of transcripts for graduating degree students. After MacRae’s report had been thoroughly scrutinized by the Senate, it was moved and passed that instead of using CRAPRP to review the Nigerian affiliations, an ad hoc Committee of three faculty members should be created. The motion was amended instructing the ad hoc Committee to produce its report for the December 1993 Senate meeting; and an additional amendment directed that the ad hoc Committee should either include a member of the Faculty of Theology or liaise with the Faculty of Theology in its work. The motion and the amendments were carried.

“Abolish the ‘Faculty of Theology’” As an aside, it’s interesting to note that two of the four Senators who vetted MacRae’s report in September 1993 had already been involved in a critical evaluation of the Divinity College.247 Despite the fact that both were known for their vituperative

247 See AUS Mins., 1992-05-06, 3, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA.

171 attitude towards the College,248 they had represented the Faculty of Art and the Faculty of Science and had served as the co-Chairs of the ahC-U/DCR.249 Two years after the ahC-U/DCR’s May 1993 report had been adopted, it was noticed that the proposals had not been properly constituted.250 It was then that the extent of the animosity towards ADC was more publically disclosed. In December 1995, when the Senate asked the Board of Governors to amend the University documents to reflect the restrictions placed on the College,251 the Board asked the Senate to consider, instead, increasing the representation of the Faculty of Theology on the Senate to two voting members.252 With the issue thus converted into whether or not to expand the College’s voting representation, the councils of the three other Faculties at the University became involved.253 The matter was finally settled by a show of hands and even though the proposal to increase ADC’s voting membership to two received majority assent (seventeen for, thirteen against, one abstention), the motion was defeated because it failed to garner the two-thirds required support.254 Interestingly, as part of the process and in response to the Senate’s polling, the Science Faculty Council sent a letter to the Senate in April 1996. After reporting a vote against increasing ADC’s voting membership in the Senate, it said:

I [A. Bogan, Secretary, FPAS Council] was further instructed by Council to bring to Senate’s attention a motion passed by Council on February 9,

248 Mitton, interview, Wolfville, 2012-07-31; and, MacRae, interview, Wolfville, 2013-01-16. 249 See “Report of the ahC-U/DCR,” 1-3. 250 The issue was raised during the Oct. 1995 Sen. mtg. See AUS Mins., 1995-10-10, 3-4, f.f. “Senate Minutes 1995,” ECWA. 251 See the Motion attached to AUS Mins., 1995-12-18, f.f. “Senate Minutes 1995,” ECWA. 252 See J. R. Ellis (Chair, AU Bd. of Govs.) to A. C. L. Adamson (Chair, AU Sen.), 1996-02-06, f.f. “Senate Minutes January–August 1996,” ECWA. 253 See AUS Mins., 1996-04-08, 5, f.f. “Senate Minutes January–August 1996,” ECWA. 254 The issue was settled during the Dec. 1996 Sen. Mtg. See AUS Mins., 1996-12-09, 2-3, sbb. “AU Minutes of Senate September 1996 to May 1997,” ECWA.

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1993: “That whereas the Divinity College has its own Senate and Board, and whereas the “Faculty of Theology” offers no courses at Acadia University, be it resolved that: All necessary steps be taken to abolish the “Faculty of Theology” at Acadia University.”255 A month before, in March 1996, one of the former co-chairs of the ahC-U/DCR also wrote the Senate. She advised against reopening AU-ADC issues, saying,

My fear is that the proposal … may stir up issues that might be best laid to rest. … If the type of sentiment expressed to our committee still resides in the minds of those at Acadia (and I see little reason to expect that these sentiments have changed dramatically in the last two years), then [this] move … could well backfire. Certainly it is likley (sic) to do little is (sic) to improve relations between the two bodies.256 In May 1993, it was the two co-Chairs of the ahC-U/DCR who moved and seconded that MacRae’s report be deferred until the September 1993 Senate meeting.257 And it was also they who, during that September meeting, in tandem with two others, tabled, corrected, or replaced the various recommendations of MacRae’s “Report on Nigerian Visit.”

The ad hoc Committee on External Affiliation (ahC-EA) The members of the Senate’s newly established ahC-EA were ratified at the

October 1993 meeting of the Senate.258 All four Faculties of the University were represented by Drs. Graham Daborn (Chair of the ahC-EA and representative of the Faculty of Pure and Applied Science), Thomas Regan (Faculty of Arts), Jack Wendt (Faculty of Management and Education), and Timothy Ashley (Faculty of Theology).259ꜛ Two months later, during the December 1993 Senate meeting, the Committee clarified its

255 A. Bogan (Sec., FPAS Council) to D. Feener (Sec. to Senate), 1996-04-25, in AUS Mins., 1996-05-01, “Appendix B,” f.f. “Senate Minutes January–August 1996,” ECWA. “FPAS” stands for “Faculty of Pure and Applied Science.” 256 E. Diane Looker to A. Adamson (Chair of Senate), memo, 1996-03-09, “Appendix A,” f.f. “Senate Minutes January–August 1996,” ECWA. 257 AUS Mins., 1993-05-05, 5, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 258 See AUS Mins., 1993-10-12, 4, f.f. “Senate Minutes June 1993–February 1994,” ECWA. 259 MacRae to Odelami, 1994-03-17.

173 mandate and was explicitly directed by the Senate not to address the broader issues of affiliation but to confine their attention to the specific affiliations of UNIDICO and CINDICO.260 It seems that for this committee MacRae modified the cover letter that he had included with the material reserved in the President’s office for the AU Senators. He expanded the memo, adding the original eight recommendations that had come from ADC’s Senate in 1990; and which, subsequently, had been approved by the Senate of AU to form the core of the affiliation agreement with CINDICO.261 He also reformatted the letter and added a note underscoring the fact that the three CINDICO graduates who were studying at ADC at the time were all excelling in their work.262 MacRae and Ashley corrected minor errors in UNIDICO’s curriculum before submitting it to the Committee for review.263 As for the ahC-EA, the committee obtained further information on the Nigerian educational system and collected material from the Department of Foreign Affairs Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), and from faculty members at the University of Ilorin and OAU.264

260 See AUS Mins., 1993-12-13, 2, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 261 See → on page 110. 262 See MacRae, “Affiliation of CINDICO and UNIDICO,” 3-page doc., [1993-06?], item 5, unnumb. 3, f.f. “AU Senate: Ad Hoc Committee on Affiliation,” ADCPO. From item 6 in this doc., it would appear that it was written a month after the 1993-05 motion to affiliate CINDICO and UNIDICO, thus, [1993-06?]; it reproduced the overview that MacRae had reserved for the Senators. However, the “Background Information” doc. bound in the 1993-1994 AUS Mins. does not contain the phrase “adopted by the Senate a month ago …” Instead it has, “adopted by the Senate at its meeting in May 1993 …” Neither doc. is dated, and while the difference in wording is intriguing, it is not material to the intent. 263 MacRae to Kuyebi, [in error] 1993-[1994]-01-03. 264 As reported to the Senate by the ahC-EA. See AUS Mins., 1994-01-10, 2, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. This is also recorded in the ahC-EA report to Senate. See “Report of the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on External Affiliation, 3 March 1994,” f.f. “Senate Board Notes April 1992–March 1994,” ECWA. It would seem that the ahC-EA material obtained from faculty members at the Universities of Ilorin and Obafemi Awolowo is that which was supplied by Odelami on 1994-01-25. See → on page 178.

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By January 1994 MacRae was quite anxious to provide the ahC-EA with new material to bolster support for UNIDICO’s affiliation. He really wanted Odelami to supply endorsements from local universities in Nigeria. He had requested documents six months previously, in the first week of July 1993.265 He had also, apparently, spoken to Odelami266 and written to him.267 Finally, after failing to receive either a response or the needed letters, MacRae appealed to Kuyebi for help.268 MacRae graphically described the urgency269 and asked Kuyebi to intercede and persuade Odelami to produce the needed materials. MacRae insisted that Odelami fax, within two weeks, at least three letters – one from the State Commissioner for Education confirming that UNIDICO’s BRE qualified graduates to teach in the Nigerian school system; another from Oyelade, in the Department of Education at OAU, commending the BRE and the quality of courses offered by the College; and a third letter from Mala at the University of Ibadan endorsing the non-religious courses of the degree programs at UNIDICO as being acceptable for undergraduate level studies in Nigerian universities. MacRae urged to Kuyebi that the ahC-EA had been very patient and understanding up until that point. But as MacRae emphasised, if nothing was forthcoming within two weeks, he was “afraid that someone [would] begin to interpret a lack of response negatively.”270

265 See MacRae to Odelami, 1993-07-07. 266 MacRae to Kuyebi, [in error] 1993-[1994]-01-03. 267 See MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20, 3, where MacRae writes, “My task, at this time, has been extremely strenuous, Michael, and I continue to be involved in very sensitive negotiations. … Please let me have the requested information as soon as possible.” See also, MacRae to Abiara and Odelami, 1993-10-04, 2. 268 At the time, Kuyebi was still studying at ADC. He would graduate from ADC in 1994-05 with two degrees, an MDiv and an MRE. 269 Five times MacRae stressed the seriousness of the situation to Kuyebi, using phrases such as “matter of extreme urgency,” “very urgent,” “absolutely vital,” and “critical” to communicate his concern. See MacRae to Kuyebi, [in error] 1993-[1994]-01-03. 270 Ibid.

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Everything on Hold Meanwhile, at CINDICO things continued to move forward. In early September 1993 Abiara informed MacRae that he would like to hold CINDICO’s next graduation in early December 1993.271 MacRae was not so sure that this was a good idea. He felt that it was best that CINDICO’s Convocation not take place until after the issue of UNIDICO’s affiliation and the status of its courses were settled.272 In addition to the obvious cost savings and the convenience of scheduling, he reasoned that the show of solidarity between the two colleges would bode well for Christian witness in Nigeria. If

UNIDICO’s affiliation was approved, then the graduation ceremonies for both colleges could be held near the same date.273 Abiara’s only response to the postponement was to write, in a very warm letter, full of his appreciation,

My Beloved Dr. MacRae … I am proposing the 1st or 2nd Saturday of December [i.e.,] 4th December or 11th December, 1993, as CINDICO’s graduation day for the current academic session. … [C]hoose the most convenient Saturday as per your programme. It is now politically safe to travel to and fro (sic) Nigeria, and you have no cause whatever to be anxious about coming. Please phone through immediately to confirm the date of your choice.274 There is no record that MacRae ever got back to Abiara with a date. In addition to postponing CINDICO’s Convocation, MacRae also advised Odelami that a visit that Odelami wanted to make to Canada needed to be delayed for financial reasons.275 Odelami had decided not to continue as CINDICO’s Provost276 and, apparently as a result, Abiara was unwilling to cover the cost of the trip for him to go

271 Abiara to MacRae, written from Brooklyn, NY, 1993-09-01. 272 MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20. See also MacRae to Abiara and Odelami, 1993-10-04. 273 MacRae to Abiara and Odelami, 1993-10-04. 274 Abiara to MacRae, fax letter, 1993-10-13. 275 MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20, 2-3. 276 See → on page 169.

176 overseas. While Odelami, as the academic leader of both of the Colleges, was welcome at ADC, and even though the visit would benefit UNIDICO and CINDICO, ꜛMacRae advised that, perhaps, it might be best for Odelami to seek financial support for the trip from the Grand Patrons of UNIDICO instead of relying on Abiara.277 This marked the beginning of money problems for Odelami in his developing role as liaison between CINDICO and UNIDICO and Acadia. Odelami really did not have the financial base needed to make the costly trips required to review the colleges and to maintain relations with Acadia. The dilemma would not be adequately addressed until 2008 when Odelami had the two Governing Councils levy an annual fee on students to cover his travel expenses to meetings in Canada as the President of the Acadia Consortium.278 ꜛIn the interim for 1994, Odelami supplied MacRae with names of Grand Patrons279 and MacRae wrote each of them inviting them to come to Canada, with Odelami, for Acadia’s Convocation on May 8-9, 1994.280 He specifically asked them to consider covering Odelami’s airfare and indicated that if they were able to make the trip, he would like to talk to them about underwriting the study expenses for UNIDICO graduands who might want to do graduate work at ADC. Unfortunately, none of the Grand Patrons that MacRae contacted was able to visit Acadia and none of them provided the funds to send Odelami.

Troubled Times When Odelami was finally able to respond to MacRae’s request for information and academic support from the Universities around UNIDICO, the packet of documents

277 MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20, 3. 278 Even this did not work. The fees were never collected. See n170 → on page 112. 279 Odelami to MacRae, personal letter, 1994-01-07, attachment, “Address of Grand Patrons;” and as noted in MacRae to Odelami, 1994-02-15. 280 See MacRae to Mrs. O. A. Ajala-Agbo, 1994-02-17; MacRae to Dr. S. O. Balogun, 1994-02- 17; MacRae to Mr. J. A. Ogunleye, 1994-02-17; MacRae to Chief F. Akinrinade, 1994-02-17; and Chief (Engineer) I. Omisore, 1994-02-17. None of these people had been invited to Canada before by MacRae. On previous invitations to Canada, see n45 → on page 129.

177 that he collected was impressive. He managed to obtain three letters of recommendation,281 two from professors at OAU and the other from the University of Ilorin, endorsing the College and its programs. The letters communicate well an intimate acquaintance with the curriculum and an on-going knowledge of the lecturers at the College. They all sound very credible and include sufficient detail and comment that it seems obvious that the writers were personally and academically involved in the development of UNIDICO’s programs. In some instances, the writers were continuing to provide oversight to UNIDICO’s courses and students and they attested to UNIDICO’s curriculum and affirmed that UNIDICO’s requirements and standards were similar to the standards at the Universities of which they were a part. ꜛThe documents included:

1. A reference letter and recommendation for UNIDICO Arts Courses from Professor Olu Obafemi dated 26th November, 1993. 2. Letter of reference from Dr. Adeyemo for UNIDICO Agricultural Science Courses dated 29th December, 1993. 3. Recommendation letter from Dr. John Aderinto for UNIDICO Education Courses dated 30th December, 1993. 4. Affiliation request letter from Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Oyelade dated 30th December, 1993. 5. UNIDICO Courses Description Sheets for Arts, Science and Education Courses.282 In his cover-letter, Odelami highlighted that the recommendations were from Universities that had helped design UNIDICO’s degrees and that some of the professors were still involved in the College, either teaching or moderating courses.283 Obafemi was

Head of the Department of Modern European Languages, Professor of English in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ilorin;284 Adeyemo was the Head of the Department

281 The “Affiliation Request” letter from Rev. Dr. E. Oyelade of the Department of Religious Studies at OAU could easily be viewed as a letter of recommendation. 282 This list is taken from the one provided by Olayiwola in Olayiwola to MacRae, 1994-01-07. 283 Odelami to MacRae, official letter, 1994-01-07. 284 Official stamp imprinted over Obafemi’s name in Obafemi to MacRae, 1993-11-26, 2.

178 of Agricultural Economics in the Faculty of Agriculture at OAU;285 Aderinto was with the Department of Continuing Education in the Faculty of Education at OAU;286 and Oyelade was with the Department of Religious Studies in the Faculty of Arts at OAU.287 What was perhaps, even more impressive than the materials, though, was the circumstances under which they had been gathered. Olayiwola and Odelami both apologized for not sending the letters earlier. And their correspondence contains enough detail for them to be a revelation concerning the difficulties under which they and all Nigerians had been living for the past year and a half since June 1992. Olayiwola wrote,

You are probably aware of the socio-political crises Nigeria was undergoing since the annulment of June 12, 1993 election result. Things had been rough here but we thank our God for He has taken absolute control. What also vitiated our efforts was the fact that some of our Universities have just re-opened for academic business. As a result few of our chosen academics who are quite familiar with UNIDICO programmes could not (sic) be reached.288 Odelami provided more details when he confided to MacRae,

I know you have been eagerly expecting from us. As I explained officially, the political, social and economic instability in the country and which got to the peak since the beginning of last year [1993,] hindered our response to your letter. We hope things will take normal shape with the presence of some disciplined civilians in the present ministry (sic) regime.289 Officially Odelami explained that,

Unfortunately, the Nigerian Universities were on one strike or the other by the time your letter came. Some are just settling down for normal academic works. For instance, the students of the University of Ibadan recently had some fracas with the neighbouring Ibadan Polytechnic to the extent that some students from the two institutions died. Thus, we were not

285 Official stamp imprinted over Adeyemo’s name in Adeyemo to MacRae, 1993-12-29. 286 Stamp imprinted over Aderinto’s name in Aderinto to MacRae, 1993-12-30. 287 According to the OAU letterhead in Oyelade to MacRae, 1993-12-30. 288 Olayiwola to MacRae, 1994-01-07. Olayiwola likely meant that “few could be reached.” 289 Odelami to MacRae, personal letter, 1994-01-07. “Ministry” should be “military.”

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able to get materials needed from the Universities that are involved in the academic programmes of UNIDICO.290 Times were difficult, indeed.291 ꜛThe Presidential elections which had caused the postponement of CINDICO’s graduation in December 1992 had themselves been postponed, until June 12, 1993. Despite the election being considered the freest, fairest, and most peaceful in Nigerian history up until then, the results were annulled. Near anarchy followed until finally, on November 17, 1993, General Sani Abacha, a Muslim from Kano seized control of the nation. Abacha ruled Nigeria as the Republic’s seventh military dictator292 until his death on June 8, 1998. ꜛUnder Abacha, Nigeria became an international political pariah. Excesses of every sort marked his tenure, but perhaps the single event that caused the greatest global political reaction and reprisal against the Abacha regime during the 1990’s was the hanging of political activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in the Niger Delta on November 10, 1995.293 Saro-Wiwa and seven others294 had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang for the murder of four conservative local chiefs. Many at the time believed that the charges were specious and that the trial was rigged. Most, including Saro-Wiwa, believed that Abacha would not actually hang such a prominent Nigerian figure. Pro-democracy groups outside Nigeria had drawn the attention of the international community to the case and the world was watching. When the executions took place, therefore, sanctions were swift and harsh on the Nigerian government and people. The Commonwealth of Nations, of which

290 Odelami to MacRae, official letter, 1994-01-07. 291 See T. Falola and M. M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 226-34. 292 See n240 → on page 322. 293 See Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 231-33. 294 Saro-Wiwa and those arrested with him, all leaders of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), were known as the Ogoni Nine. The Ogoni is a group of about 500,000 people living in the Niger Delta whose traditional fishing grounds and environment had been devastated by oil pollution. Of the Ogoni Nine, all but one were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 232.

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Canada is a part, retaliated by suspending Nigeria’s membership. ꜛRelations between Canada and Nigeria soured and for years afterward, as long as Abacha was in power, MacRae, who had been accustomed to officiating at the graduation exercises of CINDICO and UNIDICO, had difficulty obtaining a visa to visit Nigeria. ahC-EA Deliberations Once the letters of support for UNIDICO were received from Odelami at ADC on January 25, 1994, the work of the External Affiliation review progressed quickly and well.295 In less than two months the ahC-EA presented its report to the March 1994 Senate Meeting. After having clarified its mandate in October 1993 and set its focus on the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO with Acadia,296 the Committee considered a couple of key issues. The first was the basis of evaluation. The question was whether the Colleges in Nigeria were to be assessed from the perspective of North American or Nigerian standards.297 Apparently, Ashley, representing the School of Theology, wanted to hold the Colleges to the standards existing at Acadia.298 But the Committee contended that to do so would make it all but impossible to affiliate the Colleges and, what was more, it would be unfair. In 1993 Acadia was reviewing its policies regarding native Canadian populations in an effort to open access and increase enrolment of black and aboriginal peoples at the University. In a file note the ahC-EA reasoned that there were,

ꜛTwo approaches: 1. To determine whether UNIDICO (CINDICO, too) offers a North American degree in Africa, meeting the SAME standards as Acadia does for faculty, course descriptions, requirements, etc.

295 MacRae to Odelami, 1994-02-15. 296 See AUS Mins., 1993-12-13, 2, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA; and → on page 173. 297 See, “Two Approaches,” typewritten ahC-EA mtg. note, [Oct. 1993?], f.f. “AU Senate: Ad Hoc Committee on Affiliation,” ADCPO. 298 Wooden and Dockendorff, informal conversation, New Minas, NS, 2012-10-15.

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2. To determine whether UNIDICO etc. offers a bachelor’s programme that is at the level of African universities and colleges and relevant to that context not ours. If our purpose is # 1 we should stop now, because no university in Africa will qualify. If the Senate’s adopted policy on Blacks and Miqmaq be applied here, it would be inappropriate of us to ask an African university/college to meet our standards. We cannot claim cultural sensitivity to our own black/aboriginal constituencies and deny it at further remove from us (sic). The question, then, if # 2 is adopted in some form, [is] how do we do it? What documentation will we accept? From whom? How do we get it?299 With that decided in favour of indigenous standards, one of the major obstacles to the

Nigerian affiliations had been cleared.

The ahC-EA next considered300 the standards of admission for students and the qualifications of faculty at Nigerian universities and it assessed the students and the lecturers at UNIDICO in light of those criteria. They reviewed the curriculum and examined the descriptions of the Arts, Science, and Education courses at UNIDICO; and they considered the recommendations contained in MacRae’s May 1993 report. Finally, after more than a year since MacRae’s visit to Nigeria to review UNIDICO and

CINDICO in January 1993, and after almost a year since MacRae’s presentation of his findings to the Senate in May 1993, the Senate ahC-EA presented its conclusions to the Senate of Acadia on March 14, 1994.301

299 See, “Two Approaches.” ahC-EA mtg. note. 300 This understanding of the activities of the ahC-EA is based on the committee’s progress reports given during AUS meetings, minutes from ahC-EA meetings, and the nature of the material that the ahC-EA examined in its investigation. See f.f “AU Senate: Ad Hoc Committee on Affiliation,” ADCPO; AUS Mins., 1993-12-13, 2, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA; AUS Mins., 1994- 02-14, 2, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA; and the “Report of the ahC-EA.” 301 See AUS Mins., 1994-03-14, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA.

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Report of the ahC-EA302 Using MacRae’s original report to the Senate as its template, the ahC-EA made the following series of recommendations:

1. That the Universal Gospel Divinity College at Ile-Ife, Nigeria, be accorded affiliate status with Acadia University similar to that of Christ International Divinity College, and that such status shall be reviewed during the academic year 1996/1997. 2. ꜛThat any substantial changes to the B.Th. and B.R.E. degree programmes must be ratified by the Senate of the Acadia Divinity College and the Senate of Acadia University prior to such changes being implemented. 3. ꜛThat the chief academic officer of UNIDICO be required to submit an annual report on academic matters to the Acadia Senate through the Senate of the Acadia Divinity College. 4. ꜛThat upon receipt of recommendations from the Administration of UNIDICO, supported by transcripts, students who have satisfactorily completed the requirements for the B.Th. or B.R.E. degrees** at UNIDICO shall be admitted to the appropriate Acadia degree. **Both CINDICO and UNIDICO have established B.Th. and B.R.E. degree programmes. The Acadia Divinity College, however, only offers a B.Th. degree, although it recognizes the B.R.E. degree from CINDICO and UNIDICO as an appropriate and acceptable basis for entry to the M.R.E. degree at Acadia. It appears, therefore, that when Drs. Perkin and MacRae officiated at the first two Convocations at CINDICO, and conferred degrees in the name of Acadia University, they may have inadvertently awarded an Acadia degree that technically does not exist. The Senate ratified these actions. In order to clarify the situation, the Committee makes the following recommendation: 5. That the question of the Bachelor of Religious Education degree be referred to the Senate of the Acadia Divinity College, with an invitation to recommend establishment of a B.R.E. degree to be offered solely at African institutions formally affiliated with Acadia University. 6. That Acadia University personnel who visit UNIDICO shall be required to submit a report to the Senate of Acadia University through the Senate of the Acadia Divinity College. This report shall include, but need not be limited to, comments on matters of curriculum, staffing, facilities and procedures at UNIDICO. Observations upon trends in the Nigerian education system should also be reported.303

302 This doc. is available in its entirety as Appendix J. 303 See “Report of the ahC-EA,” 2-3. Underlining NOT added.

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…………………..………… 304 …………………..………… … ꜛIt is the feeling of the Committee that at this juncture the Senate of Acadia University should deal with each institution independently, and thereby maintain direct control over its relationships with UNIDICO and CINDICO. For this reason, we do not recommend that the Acadia Senate require formation of such a consortium, but suggest that Acadia Divinity College may wish to make such a recommendation to the two institutions concerned in order to facilitate and encourage their cooperation. 7. That Recommendation 4 (934-03-THE) be raised from the table and approved. (Recommendation 4: “Both Colleges should permit common membership by individuals on the General Councils of both Institutions.”) 8. That Recommendation 7 (934-03-THE) be raised from the table and forwarded as advice to the Governing Councils of CINDICO and UNIDICO. (Recommendation 7: “Plan Convocation ceremonies mutually, and no more than a week apart, to enable Acadia representation, where appropriate, and to co-operate in publicity and mutual encouragement of, these Convocation events.”)305 The ahC-EA report was surprisingly well received, with perhaps the most striking feature being that there was almost no debate on any part of the presentation. According to MacRae, “not a single question or objection was raised.”306 Daborn, the Chair of the ahC-EA, moved the adoption of the report and the Senate became a Committee of the Whole for discussion purposes.307 From there the Senate Minutes record the remarkably unremarkable proceedings.

G. Daborn presented the report and provided a brief description of the role and the actions taken by the Committee as explained in the report. There was no general discussion of the report. G. Daborn then presented each of

304 In this section of the ahC-EA report, between recommendations six and seven, the ahC-EA discussed recommendation three in MacRae’s original 1993-05 report, “Report from Nigerian Visit” – the motion to establish an Acadia Consortium. The Committee debated whether or not the Consortium was necessary and whether or not it would cause more difficulties than it helped. The quotation here records only the ahC-EA recommendation to ADC regarding the Consortium and omits some of the deliberation contained in the actual report. See “Report of the ahC-EA,” 3-4. 305 See “Report of the ahC-EA,” 4. Underlined emphasis NOT added. 306 MacRae to Odelami, 1994-03-17. 307 See AUS Mins., 1994-03-14, 3, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA.

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the report’s eight recommendations. No discussion followed. ... The Senate [left] Committee of the Whole. The main motion to approve the report was carried.308 After the vote, MacRae expressed his appreciation for the fairness that the Committee showed in completing its work and took the opportunity to say that the idea of an “Acadia Consortium” had originally only been intended to assist the University.309 In the end, after all of the delay and the concern occasioned by an official review by the Senate of Acadia – purportedly populated by unfriendly, secular forces – UNIDICO was unanimously approved on March 14, 1994 for affiliation with AU for three years.310

The result was incredibly affirming. It would seem that UNIDICO’s affiliation had been much more rigorously examined than CINDICO’s and that UNIDICO had successfully passed an even more thoroughly critical scrutiny of her offerings, faculty, and organization than her sister institution. Halfway through the process, MacRae had counseled that the fact that UNIDICO’s application was being given such serious consideration by the Senate of Acadia, and had not been rejected outright, was a good sign and a significant point for encouragement.311 Now that the College had been extensively examined within its own context and endorsed by an institution of Acadia’s accomplishment and reputation, the achievement by UNIDICO, MacRae, and others involved in the affiliation negotiations was all the more noteworthy and truly remarkable.

The Affiliation of UNIDICO Accepted MacRae immediately sent Odelami a note letting him know the good news.312 He included the stipulations of the affiliation as contained in the ahC-EA report and

308 See AUS Mins., 1994-03-14, 3, f.f. “Senate Minutes November 1990–April 1994,” ECWA. 309 Ibid. 310 MacRae to Odelami, 1994-03-17. 311 MacRae to Odelami, 1993-09-20, 3. 312 MacRae to Odelami, 1994-03-17.

185 indicated that, although the University did not require an Acadia Consortium, ADC had been given the opportunity to establish one if the College felt it would be helpful. MacRae pointed out that the Consortium, overseen by Odelami, would not affect the individual affiliations of the Colleges in Nigeria. Unfortunately, MacRae’s congratulatory letter to Odelami never arrived.313 And a copy of the letter sent to replace the original letter took months to be delivered. The situation in Nigeria had only worsened since November 1993 when Abacha had seized power. As he tightened his grip on the nation, the country rose in revolt.314 The Nigerian

Workers’ Union had gone on a general strike in support of other strike action in the country and MacRae’s correspondence languished in the post office “for a long time.”315 The tale of the chaos in Nigeria has to be read in Odelami’s own words to appreciate the extent of the national disruption. He reported that frequently for the three months of July through September, every road in Nigeria was empty except for police officers “parading the streets, shooting and looting the houses of innocent people.”316 Despite the pall that hung over the country, Odelami’s acceptance of the affiliation was heartwarming. It was official, deeply personal, and warmly covenantal:

We therefore pledge to continue to uphold, at UNIDICO, the academic excellence with which Acadia has been known for many years. We assure you that this College will carefully observe the conditions of the affiliation. Undoubtedly, we will maintain regular contact with you. As an alumnus of Acadia Divinity College, I personally promise that we will seek to uphold the name of Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University by the quality of the work, and the graduates the College produces.317

313 Odelami to MacRae, 1994-05-16. 314 See Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 230ff. 315 Odelami to MacRae, personal “Letter of Appreciation,” 1994-09-25, 1. 316 Ibid. 317 Ibid.

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In a personal letter written at the same time, Odelami indicated that the first graduation of Acadia degree holders from UNIDICO would be on December 3, 1994 and that the CINDICO Convocation would take place one week later on December 10, 1994.318 MacRae responded by insisting that the Convocations take place on only one weekend and that for him, December 10, 1994 was the best date available.319 Eventually CINDICO’s Convocation convened on December 10th at 10 a.m. and UNIDICO’s Convocation was held later in the day at 3 p.m.320 Given that AU had no allotment available for a trip to Nigeria in its budget, Abiara paid for MacRae’s visit.321

Trouble, Travel, and Transcripts The political situation and general unrest in Nigeria made things difficult for everyone coming and going to the Republic. Mostly, anyone who could leave did.322 The “brain drain” that had started under previous regimes only escalated under Abacha and by 2000, it is estimated that between 25% and 50% of all Nigerians with a university education lived outside the country.323 Odelami admitted that if ever there was a time

318 Odelami to MacRae, personal “Letter of Appreciation,” 1994-09-25, 2-3. 319 ꜛSee the handwritten notes at the bottom of the page on Odelami to MacRae, “Letter of Invitation,” unsigned, 1994-09-25. Note: there are two of these letters dated on 1994-09-25 from Odelami containing similar material. The letter referred to here is stamped, “Received on September 26, 1994.” It appears to be a faxed letter, is unsigned by Odelami, and has handwritten notes at the bottom of the page. The other letter is stamped, “Received on October 6, 1994.” It appears to be a regular letter. It contains additional typewritten information, has no handwritten material, and is signed by Odelami. 320 See Folahan to MacRae, “6th Graduation Ceremony – Dr. Andrew MacRae’s Itinerary,” 1994-10-24. 321 See MacRae to Abiara, 1994-10-20. Lasisi sent a cheque, on behalf of Abiara, to MacRae. See the handwritten note at the bottom of MacRae to Abiara, 1994-10-20. The fax to which this letter was sent, and presumably the place where Lasisi was at the time, is NY City area code “718.” 322 Odelami to MacRae, personal “Letter of Appreciation,” 1994-09-25, 1. 323 D. Kapur and J. McHale, The Global Migration of Talent: What does it Mean for Developing Countries? Table 2: “Estimates of the Brain Drain from Africa: Emigration Rates for Tertiary Education, 2000,” (Washington: Center for Global Development, 2005), 3.

187 when he might leave Nigeria to live somewhere else, this was the time.324 Only his commitment to his people and to his academic and ministerial work kept him there. Olayiwola, the Provost of UNIDICO, did seek employment outside of the country.325 He applied for a position at ADC as a Missions professor. His curriculum vitae are impressive.326 Among other things, it contains a list of twenty-six books and articles that Olayiwola had written, sixteen of which had already been published with the remainder accepted for publication. Odelami recommended Olayiwola highly to MacRae.327 But what is interesting is that in his application Olayiwola claimed to have been teaching consistently in the Department of Religious Studies at OAU for fourteen years.328 While it is not unusual in Nigeria for lecturers to teach outside of their own Universities,329 what does seems a little strange is that nowhere in his curriculum vitae does Olayiwola note that he had been the Provost of UNIDICO. It is likely a good thing that Odelami was determined to stay in Nigeria for travelling outside the country was all but impossible. MacRae invited Odelami to attend the May 1994 Convocation at Acadia,330 but Odelami was unable to make it. His visa expired before he could book tickets.331 Later in the fall, Odelami planned to attend the 1994 Hayward lectures at ADC; he intended to deliver the transcripts of graduating students to MacRae while there.332 But again Odelami was unable to leave Nigeria. This

324 Odelami to MacRae, personal “Letter of Appreciation,” 1994-09-25, 1. 325 See Olayiwola to MacRae, 1994-06-16, encl. Olayiwola’s “C. V.” 326 Ibid. 327 Odelami to MacRae, 1994-11-15, 2. 328 Olayiwola to MacRae, 1994-06-16, 1. 329 According to conversations with various academics during my 2012 visit to Nigeria. 330 MacRae to Odelami, 1994-03-30. 331 Odelami to MacRae, 1994-05-16. 332 Odelami to MacRae, personal “Letter of Appreciation,” 1994-09-25, 3. See also Odelami to MacRae, “Letter of Invitation,” signed, 1994-09-25. Regarding this letter see n319 → on page 187.

188 time the Canadian High Commission in Lagos denied his visa.333 After this second attempt, since MacRae was supposed to come to Nigeria for the Colleges’ Convocations in December, Odelami decided to postpone the trip.334 If getting out of the country was difficult for Odelami, getting into Nigeria was no less of a challenge for MacRae.335 But for MacRae, money and visas paled in comparison to his “much bigger problem”336 of getting transcripts. ꜛAccording to the affiliation agreements between CINDICO and UNIDICO and Acadia, the names, courses, and grades337 of graduating students had to be forwarded to ADC for review before degrees could be ratified in the Acadia Senate and diplomas produced.338 Partly due to the mail but largely due to Odelami, while the lists of graduands were sent to the Divinity College, the transcripts were not. Odelami was no longer the Provost of CINDICO,339 but as MacRae’s contact in Nigeria and as the designated head of the budding Acadia Consortium, he was still responsible to provide them. Since Odelami had not been able to attend the Hayward lectures in October 1994, they did not arrive with him. But neither were they forwarded later. MacRae faxed Odelami an urgent letter asking for the documents in the second week of November 1994. However, in a letter written just a

333 MacRae to P. Marshall, First Sec. of the Cdn. High Com., Lagos, 1994-10-12. 334 Odelami to MacRae, 1994-11-15, 1. 335 Since the University did not pay his way, MacRae had to ask Abiara for airfare. See MacRae to Abiara, 1994-10-20. Then he had to get the cheque. See MacRae to Abiara, 1994-11-04. 336 MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-09, 1. 337 These are the three items that MacRae tells Odelami are the basics to be included in a student’s transcript. It is interesting to note how late in the affiliations that this description of the data required for academic reporting is given – 1994-11, almost five years after CINDICO was associated with AU. See ibid. 338 In MacRae’s 1993 report to the AUS after his trip to Nigeria, this was written in as recommendation six. See → on page 165. By 1993-09, the time of the AUS discussion regarding the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO, CINDICO had already acceded to the requirement. See → on page 171. In the ahC-EA 1994 Report, item four specifically required UNIDICO to supply transcripts for those students recommended by UNIDICO’s Administration for graduation. See → on page 183. 339 Odelami to MacRae, 1994-11-15, 1.

189 week afterward, Odelami did not even mention the missing material.340 Apparently, Odelami did not receive MacRae’s correspondence for two weeks,341 but all the same, it was not as if this was the first time MacRae had asked for the records and by mid- November there were only twenty-five days left before the Convocations. As if the transcripts were not enough, there was yet another glitch in the process. One of the lists of graduands was missing. In January 1994 Odelami had sent the names of the 1992/1993 graduating students for CINDICO and UNIDICO as part of the package of letters supporting UNIDICO’s affiliation. In total, there were twenty students: thirteen from CINDICO and seven from UNIDICO.342 In October 1994, Folahan sent MacRae CINDICO’s 1993/1994 list of graduands.343 But when MacRae went to prepare the diplomas, he could not find Odelami’s 1992/1993 list of UNIDICO graduates in his file. He appealed to Odelami to fax him a copy of the 1992/1993 class immediately.344 For months MacRae had done his best to get the supporting paperwork for all of the graduands, but he found it extremely difficult to make contact within Nigeria.345

340 Compare Odelami to MacRae, 1994-11-15 and MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-09. In his letter, Odelami lists six discussion points: clarifying that Odelami, in his role as Pres. of the Consortium, was a signatory on the grad. certificates for CINDICO (“ditto for UNIDICO”); recommending two UNIDICO graduands for ADC scholarships (one of which was Odelami’s daughter); recommending Olayiwola to MacRae for a teaching position at ADC; wanting to exchange some Canadian money for US dollars; greetings to the ADC community; and requesting a certificate of affiliation for UNIDICO. 341 MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-23. 342 There were four BTh and nine BRE graduands from CINDICO; and three BTh and four BRE graduands from UNIDICO. See Odelami to MacRae, “List of Graduating Students for 1992/1993,” on CINDICO letterhead, 1994-01-07, encl. “List of CINDICO Graduating Students for 1992/1993 Session;” and Odelami to MacRae, “List of Graduating Students for 1992/1993,” on UNIDICO letterhead, 1994-01- 07, encl. “List of UNIDICO Graduating Students for 1992/1993 Session.” 343 See Folahan to MacRae, “6th Graduation Ceremony,” 1994-10-10, encl. “1993/1994 Session List of Graduands.” Folahan included the names of fourteen BTh and nine BRE 1993/94 graduands at CINDICO. He also included with his letter the first list that Odelami had sent of the four BTh and nine BRE graduands for the 1992/93 session at CINDICO. 344 MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-23. 345 See MacRae’s comment to Abiara regarding this in MacRae to Abiara, 1994-10-20. MacRae had difficulty sending faxes to the Cdn. High Commission in Lagos. See the handwritten note on the cover page to a 4-page fax, ADC to the Cdn. High Commission, 1994-03-30. It was no easier sending faxes to Odelami. See the typewritten note on the cover page to a 6-page fax, ADC to Elder Oloyede, 1994-05-30.

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Eventually, a number of people got involved in the task. Lasisi was asked, and he promised, to speak to Odelami about the transcripts.346 MacRae spoke with Odelami and wrote him by fax.347 MacRae even contacted Abiara.348 Folahan responded saying that he hoped that MacRae had received the records.349 Thankfully, everything came together. On the day that MacRae wrote Abiara, and Folahan wrote MacRae, Odelami called MacRae.350 He had compiled the data, and apparently, he had sent it on its way. Unfortunately, sending the transcripts and receiving the transcripts was not the same thing. As the time for the Convocations drew closer, the matter became critical for

MacRae. Degrees granted at AU had to be authorized by the Senate and while the University registrar, David Green, was sympathetic to the circumstances, he was adamant: no transcripts, no diplomas.351 By November 14th the transcripts still had not arrived in Canada and so, as a precautionary measure, MacRae took the unusual step of asking the Acadia Senate to grant him permission to go to Nigeria, with printed diplomas in hand, and there to review the transcripts of the graduands of CINDICO and UNIDICO.352 Remarkably, the Senate acquiesced. MacRae was authorized by the

University Senate to proceed as required.353 If the transcripts of the graduands for the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 academic years did not arrive in time, MacRae could review them upon his arrival in Nigeria and those students whom he felt had fulfilled the degree

346 See the handwritten note at the bottom of MacRae to Abiara, 1994-10-20. 347 MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-09. 348 MacRae to Abiara, 1994-11-22. 349 Folahan to MacRae, faxed letter, 1994-11-22. 350 MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-23. 351 MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-09. 352 See MacRae to T. Regan, AUS Chair., 1994-11-14 in sbb. “AU Minutes of Senate September 1994 to May 1995,” ECWA. 353 See AUS Mins., 1996-11-14, 5, sbb. “AU Minutes of Senate September 1994 to May 1995,” ECWA. See MacRae’s explanation of events in MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-23; and in MacRae to Folahan, faxed letter, 1994-11-24.

191 requirements and deserved to be awarded degrees would receive their diplomas and those whom he questioned would not. MacRae made it clear to Abiara, however – he had to see the transcripts before any Graduation could take place.354 Fortunately for Odelami, MacRae, and the trip to Nigeria, the package containing the transcripts and other supporting material arrived at ADC on November 24, 1994.355

The First UNIDICO Acadia-Affiliated Graduation The first UNIDICO-Acadia-affiliated graduation took place in December 1994. It represented the culmination of four years of hard work and waiting for all of the students, the teachers, and Odelami. At the Convocation MacRae addressed the congregation and spoke of the faith, labour, and perseverance of all those who had pursued the vision of UNIDICO. He emphasized the great privilege of the affiliation of UNIDICO with AU, praised the vision of the Founder and Chancellor, Odelami, and encouraged the students. That day he passed out, in the name of AU, four BTh degrees and three BRE degrees to UNIDICO graduands.356 It is a good thing that MacRae did not find the original list in his file. If he had, and if he had compared it to the replacement that Odelami sent him in November, MacRae would have noticed that he was awarding one more BTh, and one less BRE, than the earlier list had indicated. Patrick Oluwatosin Edema was no longer graduating with a BRE. In the new accounting he was now a BTh graduand.357

354 See MacRae to Abiara, 1994-11-22. 355 MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-24; MacRae to Folahan, faxed letter, 1994-11-24. 356 See “Universal Gospel Divinity College (UNIDICO) 1st Graduation Ceremony for award of Degrees by Acadia University, Canada and 2nd Convocation Ceremony for the award of Certificates and Diplomas,” prog. booklet for ceremonies at Ile-lfé, Nigeria, 1994-12-10, 11. 357 Compare Odelami to MacRae, “List of Graduating Students for 1992/1993,” on UNIDICO letterhead, 1994-01-07, encl. “List of UNIDICO Graduating Students for 1992/1993 Session,” with “Universal Gospel Divinity College, Ile-Ifé Names of Graduands – 1992/1993 Academic Session,” official list of graduands, stamp-sealed, signed by UNIDICO’s registrar, 1994-10-13.

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It was, perhaps, an unseen sign of things to come for the confusion was not unique to UNIDICO. When CINDICO’s transcripts were sent to MacRae by Odelami in November 1994, the name of one more graduand, Adebayo Adegbenga Adetiba, was submitted for graduation in the 1993/1994 session. Now there were thirty-six graduands for CINDICO’s Convocation. The new lists for 1992/1993 and for 1993/1994 confirmed that number. But Odelami’s cover letter cited thirty-five358 and in his address on Convocation day, CINDICO’s Acting Provost, Evangelist J. B. Gbeje, said that “Today [CINDICO] is graduating and sending out thirty-four degree graduates and thirty-two

Diploma and Certificate graduates.”359 When MacRae sent Green the reviewed transcripts, seeking a diploma in A. A. Adetiba’s name, he told Green that he suspected that it was just an oversight. But MacRae also assured Green that he would carefully check for and review Adetiba’s transcript before he awarded him a certificate.360

Summary Comments There are four things that are particularly important to note in this narrative. The first is the fact that the affiliations of the Colleges continued fundamentally unchanged from 1990. The ahC-EA clarified that the affiliation of UNIDICO, and by extension the affiliation of CINDICO, too, was based on contextualized African criteria. And that judgment was, no doubt, proper. But, as correct as it was theoretically on a philosophical level, it also contained some significant functional drawbacks. In hindsight, the review of CINDICO, the assessment of UNIDICO, and especially the Senate’s evaluation of the affiliations in Nigeria presented the University with an opportunity to consider more

358 Odelami to MacRae, 1994-11-16. 359 See J. B. Gbeje, “An Address Delivered by the Ag. Provost (Evang. J. B. Gbeje) during 4th Graduation and 6th Convocation of Christ International Divinity College (CINDICO), Erinmo-Ijesa held on 10th December, 1994,” 2. 360 MacRae to Green, 1994-12-02.

193 emphatically the relationship between Acadia and the two Nigerian institutions and to establish some fairly specific performance criteria. There are a variety of reasons why this opening was lost. Prime among them is that many of the difficulties inherent in the relationship would arise largely over time and in the future, especially as the collegial interest in Nigeria waned. But that it was lost needs to be noted as a point of instruction. Second, the narrative has shown that the relationship between Odelami and Abiara changed over time, beginning shortly after the affiliation of CINDICO in 1990. The liaison could have been more beneficial than was experienced, but it appears as if the agendas of both individuals were markedly different and mitigated again a truly cooperative alliance. Abiara and Odelami had different denominational and ministry concerns, and eventually, when UNIDICO achieved affiliation, Odelami distanced himself from direct involvement with CINDICO. The important point to note is that Odelami’s withdrawal affected both the effective administration of CINDICO and the efficient joint management of the two colleges. Despite MacRae’s insistence that ADC considered Odelami to be the academic advisor of both Acadia-affiliated colleges in

Nigeria, and regardless of his determined efforts to engender cooperation, increasingly the two colleges functioned separately and Odelami’s influence at CINDICO diminished. As a third point, this chapter has pointed up that increasingly, ADC had difficulty obtaining information from Nigeria, even when it was clearly to the advantage of the

Nigerians to provide it. Some of the challenges of retrieving critical data from CINDICO and UNIDICO may be attributed to the political, economic, and social conditions that exist in the Republic at any given time. But cumulatively, the persistent plea by ADC for information points to what may legitimately be seen as a larger, more basic problem that underlies working with the two Nigerian colleges: the inability of administrators at CINDICO and UNIDICO to provide, in a timely manner, information that is adequately detailed, sufficiently organized, and convincingly reliable to meet AU standards. Since the beginning, perhaps, this issue has become the single most important concern that 194 characterizes the relationship between Acadia and Nigeria today. The critical result is that it fails to engender confidence and to inspire a sense of camaraderie. And finally, this narrative has highlighted the persistent lack of development of the colleges’ teaching staff, either because neither school has a credible staff development program or because there is little incentive for those who sign bonds to return to Nigeria to be accountable to their word. The result, both now and in the past, is that underpaid teachers at CINDICO and UNIDICO are taking second and third jobs in order to earn an adequate living, they are distracted from their teaching, and they are readily open to taking better positions elsewhere, should they arise. Perhaps more than any other thing, the failure of “the Four” who received full scholarships to study at ADC to return to Nigeria – and their subsequent deployment to serve in churches in the United States and Europe – has meant that the strategic development of the College was aborted and a generation of opportunity has been lost. Even if these highly trained graduates had supported CINDICO from the Nigerian Diaspora as alumni, things at the College might have progressed differently and better despite them not returning home. But in the intervening years, funds have not been directed to CINDICO in sufficient amounts to continue the energetic development that characterized the early 1990’s. And without an engaged and generous patron inside or outside of Nigeria, the growth and development of the institution has been stymied for years. A disabling combination of low fees at the

College, powerless administrators, and crippling economics in Nigeria seems to have thwarted significant movement forward. In the next chapter the nineteen years following UNIDICO’s affiliation with AU will be examined. The presentation will be briefer, moving through three successive Principals at ADC. But the narrative is important in order to see the impact that a lack of attention from ADC and a lack of communication from Nigeria have had on the affiliations. The results of this mutual neglect continue to be felt even today in 2013.

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Chapter Five: Post Affiliation Addendum and Assessment

Introduction After the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO were achieved in 1990 and 1994 respectively, the challenging work began. The relationships had been established after a great effort on everyone’s part and the task now was to ensure that they functioned properly, bringing satisfaction to each of the parties involved. Unfortunately, a series of circumstances unfolded – some of which were well beyond the control of any of the participants – that made it difficult to manage the arrangements in the following decades. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a sketch of the events which took place between the periods when the colleges in Nigeria were affiliated with Acadia in the early 1990s, up to 2007 when Dr. Lee McDonald, MacRae’s successor left ADC. The narrative will go a bit beyond 2007 to include 2008 and 2012, the two years when I accompanied Dr. R. Glenn Wooden, the liaison officer representing AU and ADC to CINDICO and

UNIDICO, to Nigeria. The description of these years is not intended to be complete. It is supplemental to the history of the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO. But as will be seen, some very important things did take place up to 2008 especially that need to be noted in order to evaluate properly the Nigerian affiliations and to provide recommendations regarding the future of the relationships. The narrative in this chapter has been shaped by the observations that I made during my two visits to CINDICO and UNIDICO with Wooden. In 2008 I actually went to collect material in preparation for another project that was subsequently abandoned in favour of this review. At that time I attended the Convocations of both of the Colleges and noted a number of things that were investigated more deliberately four years later in 2012 when I spent a month in Nigeria. On that second trip I again attended the Colleges’ convocations, sat in on various other meetings, and conducted twenty-four hours of

196 interviews with students and graduates of CINDICO and UNIDICO. I administered a questionnaire to the graduates as part of the interview process, and spoke with Drs. Imevbore and Odelami and several of the staff from both of the Colleges. The material collected during the students’ interviews will not be considered here mainly because it was too consistently supportive of the lecturers and the administration of the colleges and too uncritical of the teaching, housing, and library facilities. Former students were not randomly selected and their high commendations for the colleges seem, in my opinion, to be inconsistent with the evidence readily observed at the College sites. The discussions have informed my assessment of the value and nature of the affiliations, however. The following material is divided into two sections. The first section deals with the three periods of leadership at ADC under Drs. MacRae, Lee M. McDonald and Harry G. Gardner. The narrative will show that the four years after UNIDICO’s affiliation leading up to MacRae’s retirement was a chaotic period in Nigerian history and the social and political upheaval in the country necessarily impacted the Colleges’ ability to stay in contact with Acadia. Communications were difficult, visits were practically impossible, and Convocations were planned, cancelled, and held years too late. Under McDonald (1999-2007) the relationship with CINDICO and UNIDICO all but disappeared. McDonald paid little attention to the colleges and Odelami, who never was great at ensuring timely reporting, feeling the loss of his mentor, MacRae, and buffeted by horrific personal circumstances, did not meet even the most basic requirements of the reporting relationship. Finally, the Colleges’ affiliations with Acadia were suspended in 2006 and the Nigerian response to that sanction will be examined. During the interim presidency under Dr. Robert S. Wilson, Wooden was appointed as the liaison between the colleges and Acadia, a position which he has held since that time during Gardner’s presidency (2008 – present [2013]) at ADC. The relatively brief mention of this latter period appends the two convocations of 2008 and 2012. The second section of the chapter engages the question of whether the 2006 suspension was fair or not. And it is 197 within this context that an assessment of the affiliations will be undertaken. The principal reasons for failure in the relationship will be considered as a preamble to the recommendations that will be presented in the next and concluding chapter of this thesis.

From 1994 to MacRae’s Retirement in 1998 Visits – As mentioned previously, during the 1990s, the international community imposed punitive sanctions against Abacha’s military regime in Nigeria.1 As a result, Canadian-Nigerian relations deteriorated and it became increasingly problematic to visit

Nigeria. According to MacRae, the Canadian staff in Lagos appeared quite suspicious of Nigerians who wanted to travel abroad and Nigerian immigration officials were increasingly hostile to Canadians as they entered the country.2 For Odelami, things were complicated by the fact that a female, who apparently was associated with him and invited by MacRae to come to Canada under a visitor’s visa, had not returned to Nigeria.3 That violation of visa regulations seriously undermined Odelami’s credibility with Canadian authorities in Nigeria. He was denied a visa in

October 19944 and subsequent applications were delayed despite the fact that he had travelled to Canada several times before and MacRae repeatedly vouchsafed for him. The major hindrance to Odelami’s travel, however, was that he did not have sufficient funds for excursions outside of Nigeria and he was dependent upon others to pay his expenses.5 Except for one trip to Canada in 1997 paid for by AU,6 Odelami did not visit ADC for the five years after 1994 before MacRae retired as Principal of the College in 1998.

1 See → on page 180. 2 See MacRae to Abiara, 1995-02-27; MacRae to Ogilvie, 1995-10-31; MacRae to J. Murphy, M.P., 1996-09-18. 3 MacRae to Odelami, 1995-03-14. 4 MacRae to P. Marshall, First Sec. of the Cdn. High Commission, Lagos, 1994-10-12. 5 See Odelami to MacRae, 1995-03-17; Odelami to MacRae, 1995-04-12; and see → on page 177. 6 MacRae to Odelami, 1997-02-10. See → on page 152.

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Although travel for MacRae was less difficult, it was challenging all the same. When the convocations in Nigeria for Decembers 1995 and 1996 were planned, AU was pleased enough to have MacRae represent Ogilvie, the President, and pass out Acadia degrees, but the University refused to cover MacRae’s expenses.7 The graduation in 1995 was postponed until 1996 because of scheduling conflicts,8 but by then, political relations between Canada and Nigeria were such that MacRae was not able to obtain a visitor’s visa to Nigeria from Canada. Travel for MacRae was arranged by Lasisi through the Nigerian embassy in New York9 and did not take place until February 1997. Canadian-

Nigerian relations normalized somewhat in 1998 after Abacha’s death, shortly before Obasanjo assumed democratic power in Nigeria in 1999. However, between 1994 and 1998, MacRae visited Nigeria only once, in 1997, to officiate at CINDICO’s and UNIDICO’s graduations and conduct the triennium review of CINDICO.10 Communications – From 1994 through 1998, mail, telephone, and facsimile communications between Canada and Nigeria were irregular and unreliable. Conditions in Nigeria militated against the easy exchange of information. Large sectors of the

Nigerian workforce were adversely affected by the international sanctions against Nigeria11 and frequent strikes and protests, including by university staff and personnel,12 disrupted basic community services. Odelami found it difficult to contact Canada13 in

7 Ogilvie to MacRae, 1995-11-09; MacRae to Folahan, 1996-10-08. 8 Folahan to MacRae, 1996-06-23. 9 MacRae to Abiara, Odelami, and Folahan, fax letter, 1997-01-21. 10 See → on page 207. 11 See Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter, 1997-05-25. 12 Odelami to MacRae, 1996-04-03. 13 Odelami to MacRae, typewritten letter, 1995-02-19.

199 large part because he lacked adequate resources and facilities and he had to rely on others to send, receive, and pass on communications.14 Odelami, also, seemed almost impossible to contact. Letters mailed to Nigeria by MacRae – and vice versa by Odelami – were often greatly delayed or sometimes they just went astray.15 Even facsimile communication did not work very well.16 Frequently, MacRae would make numerous attempts to contact Odelami only to be repeatedly frustrated in his efforts.17 The offices at Agbala Itura, Ibadan appear to have been well equipped for communications, but at times contact with CINDICO was maintained through New York,18 Toronto,19 and London, England.20 The Acadia Consortium – When it came to working with the Colleges, MacRae was determined to promote Odelami as the Academic Supervisor21 for both colleges in Nigeria.22 Despite MacRae’s best wishes, however, relations between CINDICO and UNIDICO appear to have been minimal. Since Odelami was no longer the Provost at CINDICO, it seems that he did not have the persuasive23 or administrative resources

14 Odelami used the offices of Hon. Fasogbon in Lagos. Once, while he was en route to Lagos, he was attacked and robbed. He lost his briefcase and all of its contents including College documents and $650USD. See Odelami to MacRae, typewritten letter, 1995-02-19. See also, Odelami to MacRae, 1995- 03-17; Odelami to MacRae, 1995-04-12; Odelami to MacRae, 1995-09-20; and Odelami to MacRae, “Situation Report on UNIDICO and CINDICO,” letter, 1996-03-28. 15 See MacRae to Odelami, fax letter, 1995-04-13; and Odelami to MacRae, “Situation Report on UNIDICO and CINDICO,” 1996-03-28. 16 See MacRae to Odelami, 1995-04-13; MacRae to Abiara, Odelami, and Folahan, fax letter, 1997-02-01; and Odelami to MacRae, “Situation Report on UNIDICO and CINDICO,” 1996-03-28. 17 See MacRae to Abiara, 1996-11-21. 18 MacRae to Abiara, 1995-02-27; Folahan to MacRae, fax letter, 1995-05-17. 19 MacRae to Abiara, 1995-06-26; Okunola and Aladejebi to MacRae, 1995-05-17. 20 Abiara to MacRae, fax letter, 1995-09-13. 21 In a letter addressed to Lasisi, MacRae referred to Odelami as the Academic Advisor to both Colleges. See MacRae to Lasisi, 1996-11-28. 22 MacRae to Folahan, fax letter, 1995-12-01; MacRae to Folahan, 1996-10-08; and MacRae to Lasisi, 1996-11-28. 23 For example, apparently Odelami requested the Provosts of CINDICO and UNIDICO to submit transcripts and information early enough to decide which students would most likely qualify for graduation

200 needed to enforce his position as academic advisor. ꜛOdelami asked MacRae for a supporting letter;24 and apparently at one point Imevbore told Odelami that the Governing Council of CINDICO needed to have official, written confirmation from MacRae indicating that ADC recognized Odelami as liaison between CINDICO and Canada. 25 But MacRae’s repeated appeals marked the difficulties in promoting Odelami and convincing CINDICO and UNIDICO to act cooperatively. The reality of the relationship is seen, for example, in MacRae’s remark to Abiara that, “If [forwarding diplomas through New York] were possible, I would have to ask you to take the Certificates for

UNIDICO also, and have them delivered safely to Dr. Odelami.”26 Around the same time MacRae wrote to Lasisi saying, “It is very important that Dr. Odelami be consulted and that decisions be made along with him …. ꜛPlease make sure he is consulted, particularly since Dr. Odelami is regarded as the Academic Advisor for both Colleges.”27 ꜛThe situation was really never worked out satisfactorily until 1997 when AU honoured Odelami with a DD (honoris causa) degree.28 It was at that time that the Acadia Consortium was announced29 and from then on Odelami has served as Acadia’s representative with UNIDICO and CINDICO, authorized to pass out Acadia degrees on

in the 1994-95 academic year. Odelami to MacRae, typewritten letter, 1995-02-19. But he was unable to get the transcripts until a year later. See Odelami to MacRae, “Situation Report on UNIDICO and CINDICO,” 1996-03-28. See also Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter, 1997-01-29, 2; and Odelami’s remarks in M. O. Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges of Acadia University Canada in Nigeria (Christ International Divinity College and Universal Gospel Divinity College), by Dr. M. O. Odelami, President of the Consortium of Affiliated Colleges in Nigeria,” (report to ADC President, Wolfville, 2011-09-30), 4. 24 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten note, 1995-02-19. 25 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter, 1997-01-29. Even though MacRae affirmed Odelami numerous times in various letters, there is no record showing that MacRae wrote Imevbore, or CINDICO’s Gov. Council, specifically to address Odelami’s representation of ADC to the colleges in Nigeria. 26 MacRae to Abiara, fax letter, 1996-11-07. 27 MacRae to Lasisi, 1996-11-28. 28 MacRae to Odelami, 1997-02-10. 29 See, “Spring Convocation, AU,” 1997-05-11, Convocation Bulletin, ECWA.

201 behalf of Acadia in Nigeria when necessary.30 It appears, though, that this arrangement has never been formalized with the University. It was established through ADC as an administrative convenience in accordance with the report of the ahC-EA,31 and in effect, the organization that MacRae envisioned in 1993 has never been officially ratified.32 Reporting and Transcripts – During MacRae’s tenure and afterward, acquiring the documentation necessary to fulfil the reporting obligations of the affiliations was very difficult, in part because of the challenges associated with communications and the socio- political climate in Nigeria. But it was complicated by CINDICO’s seeming reluctance to work through Odelami. MacRae urged the speedy provision of transcripts for graduating students before diplomas could be generated;33 at times he was bluntly insistent upon receiving them.34 But more often than not, these rudimentary supporting materials failed to arrive as hoped. While preparing for the proposed December 1995 convocation, officials at CINDICO promised to send a list of the graduands, but there was no mention of sending student records.35 Later CINDICO claimed to have sent transcripts to MacRae, but they were never received at ADC. Throughout his tenure, MacRae was as consistent with CINDICO as he was adamant: transcripts were required for graduation, and ꜛOdelami’s signature had to be affixed to them in order for them to be truly valid.36 For

30 Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 2011-09-03, 3. 31 See → on page 184. 32 In Odelami’s 2011 Situation Report, Odelami outlines the function and duties of the President of the Acadia Consortium, but while Odelami may have had ADC backing in his role, he has no staff and no Board, and appears to have lacked sanction from CINDICO to fulfil the expectations of his office as AU’s representative in Nigeria. Imevbore, Wooden, Odelami, and Dockendorff, informal conversation, Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, 2012-06-01; and also Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 2011-09-03, 4-8. For MacRae’s proposal see → on page 164. 33 See MacRae to Folahan, fax letter, 1995-11-09. 34 MacRae to Folahan, fax letter, 1995-12-01. 35 Folahan to MacRae, fax letter, 1995-10-25. 36 MacRae to Folahan, fax letter, 1995-12-01.

202 his part, Odelami often would plan to attend May convocations at Acadia and suggest that he would bring the transcripts for graduating students with him.37 But, unfortunately, when Odelami was unable to make the trip, he did not forward the transcripts to Acadia. It appears that Odelami may have had some difficulty in obtaining the records himself.38 Once in January 1996, after a considerable delay, Odelami couriered a package of documents to MacRae. It included long-awaited student transcripts, all of his unfaxed correspondence, and a “Situation Report on UNIDICO and CINDICO.”39 As part of Odelami’s explanation for the time taken to collect the material and to send his report, he noted that the person to whom he had entrusted his correspondence had not been able to fax his letters. He was switching to a different office in order to rectify the problem. And then he mentioned that he had just received MacRae’s letter, written four months previously, asking for the transcripts.40 He advised that part of the delay in sending transcripts was because CINDICO’s external moderator at the University of Ibadan had held the paperwork for three months. Odelami encountered no such difficulty with UNIDICO. He told MacRae, “I have given CINDICO one more week within which to complete the records, otherwise, only transcripts of students whose records are very ready and complete will be sent to you.”41 Apparently, Odelami’s letter was delayed a month in faxing, and even then it did not arrive electronically. MacRae only received the correspondence as a copy included with the transcripts in the courier package.42

37 See Odelami to MacRae, handwritten note, 1995-04-12. 38 See Odelami to MacRae, 1995-09-20. 39 See Odelami to MacRae, “Situation Report on UNIDICO and CINDICO,” letter, 1996-03-28. 40 It was not as if Odelami needed MacRae’s letter to inform him that transcripts were required for graduation. In his 1995-12-01 letter to Folahan, MacRae told Folahan that he had already spoken to Odelami about the critical importance of receiving graduating students’ transcripts. 41 Odelami to MacRae, “Situation Report on UNIDICO and CINDICO,” letter, 1996-03-28. 42 MacRae to Odelami, fax letter, 1996-04-10; and MacRae to Odelami, fax letter, 1996-05-22.

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Unfortunately, upon examination, there were irregularities in the documents that Odelami sent. MacRae and Ashley, ADC’s Academic Dean, perused the records of UNIDICO’s graduands for 1995 and MacRae noted two issues to Odelami.43 First, it appeared as if there had been some changes made to the required courses of which he had not been made aware. But second, Odelami’s daughter’s transcript from UNIDICO seemed not to record sufficient courses to meet the requirements for the degree for which her name had been submitted. MacRae inquired concerning her status and both Odelami and UNIDICO’s Provost replied.44 According to them, the name of only one female had been sent to MacRae for graduation in 1995. It was not Odelami’s daughter; it was his wife, Naomi. And apparently, she had advanced standing coming into the degree and had completed more than the required work by the time that she had finished her studies.45 In subsequent mailings, four CINDICO graduands were added to the 1995 graduating class list ten months after the initial list had been submitted and two years after their peers had completed their work.46 From the correspondence, it seems that some of the additions occurred because students had been late in submitting their long papers

(theses) and reviewers had been slow in marking them.47 In addition, Mala served as an external moderator for CINDICO. When he died in 1966,48 his death caused considerable

43 See MacRae to Odelami, fax letter, 1996-05-22. 44 D. O. Fajemisin, Provost at UNIDICO, to MacRae, 1996-07-30; and Odelami to MacRae, 1996- 08-02. Note the delays in this series of correspondence. The 1995 transcripts were prepared, supposedly, March 28, 1996, couriered April 4th, received April 10th, and questioned May 22nd. The responses were written July 30th and August 2nd and received August 30th. Fajemisin notes that he was late in replying “because the owner of the address to which the letter was faxed travelled overseas then.” 45 Curiously, Namoi was an assistant lecturer at UNIDICO at the same time as she was doing her course work. See D. O. Olayiwola, “A Self-Study on the Universal Gospel Divinity College (UNIDICO) Ile-Ifé Nigeria Presented to Acadia University, Canada for the Purpose of Affiliation, by the Provost, Pastor (Dr) D. O. Olayiwola,” (Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, [1993-01?]), 1. 46 Odelami to MacRae, “List of CINDICO Graduating Students Supplementary List, Class of 1995,” 1997-01-29. 47 Odelami to MacRae, “Situation Report on UNIDICO and CINDICO,” letter, 1996-03-28. 48 See → on page 80.

204 delay in that year’s transcripts.49 Because graduations were not held yearly, or even regularly, all of these interruptions meant that a graduating student’s name could be added to a class list that had already been submitted for graduation but for which degrees had not yet been awarded at a convocation. Convocations – The first convocation planned after UNIDICO’s inaugural convocation in 1994 was supposed to have been held on December 16, 1995. The date was suggested in October 1995 when CINDICO wrote directly to MacRae to make arrangements.50 MacRae’s calendar was fully committed so he was unable to confirm the date. But even if the date had been available, MacRae had not yet received the official transcripts from CINDICO, and he made it clear: without transcripts the graduation could not proceed.51 No convocation was held in 1995 because of the scheduling conflict and according to Odelami, this caused some in Nigeria to doubt the credibility of the two Colleges and the veracity of the UNIDICO affiliation.52 In 1996 CINDICO again wrote MacRae independent of UNIDICO, this time attempting to schedule a tenth anniversary Convocation celebration for Saturday,

December 7th. Abiara wanted MacRae to speak at Jesus Festival 1996 that Sunday, the 8th, as well.53 Unfortunately, since the Nigerian High Commission in Ottawa had been closed and all of the Nigerian officials in Canada were preparing to leave the country, visitors’ visas to Nigeria were impossible to obtain.54 MacRae contacted the Hon. John

49 Odelami to MacRae, “List of CINDICO Graduating Students: Class of 1996 December,” 1997-02-05. 50 Folahan to MacRae, fax letter, 1995-10-25. 51 MacRae to Folahan, fax letter, 1995-11-09. 52 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter, 1997-01-29. 53 Folahan to MacRae, 1996-06-23. 54 See → on page 181; and also T. Falola and M. M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 231-33; MacRae to Folahan, 1996-10-08; and MacRae to Abiara, 1996-11-07.

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Murphy, the local Member of Parliament, for assistance.55 Murphy advised MacRae that he needed to be cautious. In the end, MacRae was unable to make arrangements to go to Nigeria in time for the December 1996 convocation despite the fact that he attempted several times to get travel documents through the Nigerian Consulate in New York.56 MacRae advised the colleges that Odelami could award degrees on behalf of Acadia,57 but apparently CINDICO preferred to wait for MacRae. Odelami went ahead with the Convocation at UNIDICO and it was held on December 7, 1996 without MacRae.58 Both of the Colleges held graduation ceremonies in 1997: CINDICO on February

22nd59 and UNIDICO on February 23rd.60 Lasisi had intervened on MacRae’s behalf at the Nigerian Consulate in New York and had helped MacRae get a visa.61 The original 1995 Class list for CINDICO appears to be missing from the ADC files. But the records indicate that it did exist and that in January 1997 CINDICO added four more names to a list of graduands previously submitted. Later, in February 1997, Odelami added two more graduands to the 1996 CINDICO class list.62 For UNIDICO, it seems that there may also have been list of graduands for 1996 that is now missing. In January 1997 three additional names were submitted by Odelami for that graduating class.63

55 MacRae to J. Murphy, M.P., 1996-09-18. 56 MacRae to Abiara, fax letter, 1996-11-21; MacRae to Abiara, fax letter, 1996-12-16. 57 MacRae to Abiara, fax letter, 1996-11-07. 58 Odelami to MacRae, “Letter of Appreciation,” 1997-01-29. 59 MacRae to J. Loosli, Cdn. High Commission, Lagos, Nigeria, fax letter, 1997-02-13. 60 See Odelami to MacRae, “UNIDICO Graduating Supplementary List: Class of 1996,” 1997-01-29. 61 MacRae to Abiara, Odelami, and Folahan, fax letter, 1997-01-21. 62 Odelami to MacRae, “List of CINDICO Graduating Students Supplementary List, Class of 1995,” 1997-01-29; and Odelami to MacRae, “List of CINDICO Graduating Students: Class of 1996 December,” 1997-02-05. See also Odelami to MacRae, handwritten letter, 1997-01-29; and MacRae to Abiara, Odelami, and Folahan, fax letter, 1997-02-01. 63 Odelami to MacRae, “UNIDICO Graduating Supplementary List: Class of 1996,” 1997-01-29.

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ꜛIn 1998 and 1999 during the transition from MacRae’s principalship to McDonald’s presidency, while Drs. Ashley and Trites were co-principals of ADC,64 Odelami passed out degrees at convocations held for UNIDICO65 and CINDICO66 on 1998-12-12 and 1999-04-10, respectively. ꜛThe next graduation ceremonies in Nigeria took place three years later in 2002, and again Odelami represented AU in the absence of a Canadian delegate.67 This was Odelami’s third time acting as Acadia’s representative; and this convocation was the single graduation held in Nigeria during McDonald’s eight- year term as President of ADC. After 2002, there was a six year lapse until after

McDonald left and Gardner assumed the presidency of ADC. Graduations at CINDICO and UNIDICO were resumed in 2008 and 2012 when Wooden and I went to Nigeria.68 1997 CINDICO Triennium Review – ꜛ(199)ꜛ(212)When MacRae attended the Colleges’ convocation ceremonies in February 1997, he took the opportunity to conduct CINDICO’s triennium review as required by AU. He spent seven days in Nigeria attending the graduations, preaching, and talking with representatives from local universities, senior students, and CINDICO’s Governing Council, Senate, and Grand

Patrons. MacRae also received reports on CINDICO’s library and its use by students, the faculty and their qualifications, and a description of the courses offered at the College. Before he went, MacRae made it known that he wanted to see evidence of the College’s evaluation process and that he was especially interested in determining if changes had been made to the College’s academic program. MacRae’s other concerns for the visit centered on ensuring that Odelami was involved in the review as ADC’s Administrative

64 See → on page 209. 65 Odelami to Ashley, “UNIDICO Graduation: A Report,” 1999-06-03. 66 Odelami to Ashley, “CINDICO Graduation: A Report,” 1999-05-12. 67 See Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 3. 68 See → on page 217.

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Supervisor, receiving assurances that the two Colleges related well and supported each other, investigating the possibility of establishing a Nigeria-funded scholarship, and attending UNIDICO’s Convocation.69 UNIDICO Razed – On May 11, 1997 Odelami was awarded a DD (honoris causa) degree by AU for his educational efforts in Nigeria.70 He was in Canada for a couple of days for the convocation and when he returned home he “met Nigeria worse than [he] left her.”71 He arrived from London on the last flight allowed to enter the country before Nigeria and Britain refused landing rights to each other’s aircraft. He had to retrieve his luggage from Ghana. The hardships inflicted by the sanctions against Nigeria were increasingly evident as the nation became more and more isolated politically and numerous people lost their livelihoods.72 But the worst was not the flight or the poverty. It was what was about to happen in Odelami’s home area. Beginning in August 1997, the neighbouring communities of Ile-Ifé and Modakeke were rocked by communal violence. Fighting and reprisals were gruesome, and the violence, which was rooted in a centuries-old conflict, went on until

2000.73 Shortly after the conflagration began, Odelami reported that over 1,000 people were killed and more than 800 houses burnt.74 UNIDICO was razed. The College lost all

69 MacRae to Abiara, Odelami, and Folahan, fax letter, 1997-01-21. 70 See MacRae to Odelami, 1997-02-10; and “Spring Convocation, AU,” 1997-05-11, Convocation Bulletin, ECWA. 71 Odelami to MacRae, handwritten, 1997-05-25, stamped received at ADC on 1997-11-13. 72 See ibid. 73 See P. Soyinka-Airewele, “When Neutrality is Taboo. Navigating Institutional Identity in Protracted Conflict Settings – the Nigerian Ife Modakeke Case,” African and Asian Studies 2 (2003): 259- 305; B. A. Oyeniyi, “Greed–Grievance Debate and the Ife–Modakeke Conflict,” Soc. Hist. 35 (2010): 308- 29; O. O. Akanji, “Group Rights and Conflicts in Africa: A Critical Reflection on Ife-Modakeke, Nigeria,” Intl. Jour. on Minority and Group Rights 16 (2009): 31-51; O. A. Mayowa, “State and Ethno-Communal Violence in Nigeria: The Case of Ife-Modakeke,” Africa Development 26 (2001): 195-223. See also D. E. Eke, “Newswatch and Tell Magazines Coverage of Communal Clashes in Nigeria Between 1996-1999: A Case Study of the Ife/Modakeke Clashes,” (master’s thesis, University of Nigeria, 2000). 74 Odelami to Rev. and Mrs. W. Justice, handwritten, [post 1997-08?].

208 of its library holdings and some buildings newly under construction.75 Fearing the hostilities, UNIDICO students were scattered. The government could not intervene effectively and the major thoroughfare alongside of which UNIDICO is now located bypasses Ifé–Modakeke; it was constructed in case the conflict is ever repeated.76 In 2008 Wooden and I were shown, from a distance, the burned-out location of the UNIDICO site at Ifé. It was situated in an overgrown no-man’s land. The landscape was dotted with rusted tin roofs and houses that looked like someone ought to be restoring them. But there was no movement in the area and it looked totally desolate. The destruction was a blow from which UNIDICO and Odelami have never really recovered. The current permanent site of UNIDICO near Akinlalu Junction is functional but its facilities are substandard.

The McDonald Years (1999 – 2007) ꜛAs the Principal of ADC, MacRae had paid a great deal of attention to the Nigerian colleges and the other theological institutions affiliated to AU. When he retired on June 30, 1998, however, he was followed by a brief interim Principalship77 and then by a President who did not attend to the Nigerian affiliations well at all. Rev. Dr. Lee Martin McDonald was an able educator from the United States.78 He was well recognized internationally as a New Testament scholar, but he seemed unable to get his mind around the amorphous association that existed between his college and the two colleges in Nigeria. Essentially, the affiliations had been built upon a series of personal relationships

75 Odelami, informal conversation, 2008-06. 76 Odelami, informal conversation 2012-06. 77 Drs. T. Ashley and A. Trites served as joint Acting Principals of ADC and Deans of Acadia’s School of Theology after MacRae’s retirement, from 1998-07-01 until 1999-06-30. See “1999-2000 ADC Calendar,” 7. For more on Ashley, see his bio, Timothy R. Ashley, s.vv. >About Us >Our Faculty And Staff, accessed 2013-02-25, https://www.cbts.edu/. McDonald assumed responsibility for the College on 1999-07-01. 78 See “Lee McDonald’s 2010 CV,” accessed 2010-09-18, http://www.continuumbooks.com/ CompanionWebsites/view-resource.aspx?rid=2416&fn=1c__McDonald_CV.pdf&BookId=133997&ei= aM5YUOT_NYiq0AGMr4G4CA&usg=AFQjCNFitcKY7lKFLV0_dRrb1RVSybwhWA.

209 that had grown warmer as the discussions and years progressed.79 Some formalized reporting procedures had been required, but during MacRae’s tenure, despite repeated requests, documents were seldom supplied on time and when they did arrive, they needed considerable review. There were few, if any negative consequences for late reporting. After MacRae’s retirement, under McDonald, communication and interest in Nigeria appear to have lapsed. Unlike his predecessor who had made it a point to visit UNIDICO and CINDICO regularly, in the eight years that McDonald served as the President of ADC, he never once set foot on African soil to see or encourage the colleges.

If sheer volume is any indication, the letters between MacRae and Odelami and Abiara number in the scores and in the six years leading up to and including UNIDICO’s affiliation in 1994, they more than fill a three inch folder. In comparison, all of the correspondence in the fourteen-year period between the establishment of UNIDICO’s affiliation in 1994 and the Convocation that I attended with Wooden in 2008 measures less than a half an inch. Indeed, during McDonald’s term as ADC’s President, there are only three letters in the ADC files written by him regarding CINDICO and UNIDICO, two to Odelami and one to Abiara.80 To be fair, the paucity of written records during this period may be the result of two things. First, some of McDonald’s communication with Nigeria could have been conducted by email. Email tends to be less formal and unlike paper letters and other more deliberately written records, electronic notes and memos are more readily deemed inconsequential and deleted at the end of the day. That this is the case is unlikely, however, given the fact that at one point McDonald told the Colleges through Odelami that in the future he expected better communication with the two institutions. He

79 See Abiara to MacRae, 1995-09-13; and Odelami to MacRae, 1997-05-25. 80 E. DeSchiffart, Exec. Assistant to ADC Pres., H. G. Gardner, email, 2013-02-28. DeSchiffart located three electronic copies of letters in the ADC computer files. The letters to Odelami are dated 2006- 01-09 and 2006-06-19. The letter to Abiara is undated.

210 specifically mentioned that an adequate means of email had to be put in place so that communication was no longer impeded.81 Second, during McDonald’s tenure, in 2001, it was discovered that the vault at ADC in which the College records were kept was poorly ventilated and damp.82 Before the problem was noticed, large quantities of documents had become moldy and even though there was some effort to salvage the material, most, if not all of the records were destroyed and discarded. However, it should be noted that the years most affected by this mishap predated McDonald’s term and his correspondence was backed up on computer.

Insofar as the McDonald years relate to Nigeria, the kindest, and conceivably the most accurate assessment of this period comes from Dr. Chris Killacky. He was the Academic Dean at ADC while McDonald was President. Killacky suggests that it almost appeared as if McDonald did not know how to relate to Nigeria. It seemed not to conform to anything that he had dealt with before and so, it presented an anomaly to his thinking. As Killacky generously points up, it is to McDonald’s credit that he did not merely annul the affiliations with the Nigerian institutions.83 Generally speaking, he just left them alone, except for when Odelami visited Acadia in 2006. McDonald’s disregard of the Nigerian colleges continued for almost the entirety of his presidency. Part of the reason for the length of this lapse in communication has got to be attributed to ADC neglect. Once, McDonald suggested to MacRae that MacRae should go to Nigeria and see what was happening, but unfortunately for McDonald, MacRae’s wife, Jean, was present at the time. She advised him sharply that travelling to

81 McDonald to Odelami, 2006-06-19, 2. 82 This paragraph is based on T. Urquhart, interview by author, Wolfville, 2013-02-26; and P. Townsend, AU Archivist, Special Collections, conversation with author, ECWA, Wolfville, 2013-03-05. 83 C. Killacky, Assoc. Prof. of Theo., interview by author, Wolfville, 2012-11-20.

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Nigeria for oversight of the Colleges was the President’s responsibility.84 It was never again seriously suggested that MacRae should go to Africa. Reporting Default – McDonald’s “out of sight, out of mind” approach was finally broken in 2006 when McDonald asked Odelami to come to ADC for a review of CINDICO and UNIDICO. Odelami taught a course on Christianity in West Africa at the Divinity College85 while meeting with McDonald in a series of talks over the six months period that Odelami was at ADC from January to June 2006. It had been nine years since any one had gone to Nigeria from Canada86 and since Odelami had last been at Acadia.87

Despite the fact that only two graduations had taken place during that time,88 students were still being taught in the hopes of receiving a degree from Acadia University. MacRae consulted with McDonald and Odelami during the discussions in 2006; he wrote to Kuyebi intervening on Odelami’s behalf in an effort to maintain congenial relations.89 At the time, according to Odelami, despite his absence from Nigeria and because he was at ADC, he, Odelami, expected that transcripts for graduating students from both of the Colleges would be forwarded to Acadia in time for review and inclusion in the

2006 Acadia graduating class.90 He was “woefully disappointed”91 when over 125

84 MacRae, interviews by author, Wolfville, 2009-10-19 and 2012-09-19. 85 MacRae to Kuyebi, 2006-01-29. 86 Ibid. MacRae had last been in Nigeria when he had conducted CINDICO’s triennium review in 1997. See → on page 207. 87 Prior to 2006 Odelami had last been at AU in 1997-05 when he was awarded a DD degree. See → on page 201. 88 In 1998 and 1999, during the transition from MacRae to McDonald while Ashley and Trites were co-principals of ADC, Odelami passed out degrees at UNIDICO and CINDICO convocations on 1998-12-12 and 1999-04-10, respectively. See Odelami to Ashley, “CINDICO Graduation: A Report,” 1999-05-12 and Odelami to Ashley, “UNIDICO Graduation: A Report,” 1999-06-03. And then in 2002 Odelami again represented the University in the absence of a Canadian liaison. See Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 3. See also → on page 207 89 See MacRae to Kuyebi, 2006-01-29. 90 Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 3. 91 Ibid.

212 transcripts from the two colleges arrived late. Not only were these students not included for graduation, but the lapse triggered a strong reaction from ADC’s President. The issue was raised in the ADC Senate and on May 2, 2006, the Senate passed a motion stating,

ꜛThat the agreement [of Acadia University] with the schools in Nigeria be given immediate probationary status until the conditions of the agreement with both colleges have been met and until the Board documentation in line with the original agreement has been received by October 1, 2006. If documentation has not been received by October 1, 2006, then it is recommended that at the next ADC Senate meeting, this agreement with both colleges be terminated.92 McDonald drew up a list of requirements for reinstatement which Odelami presented to the governing boards of the Colleges when he returned to Nigeria in 2006 after his teaching at Acadia had concluded. In his letter McDonald itemized seven action points which needed to be addressed satisfactorily and received at ADC by October 1, 2006.93 In abbreviated form94 they included the requirements to provide:

1. ꜛAnnual reports from both Colleges, including annual transcripts and recommendations of students ready to graduate, by no later than April 15 each year. 2. Evidence to be submitted to the ADC Senate that the Boards of both Colleges were meeting regularly to provide oversight to the Colleges. 3. Affirmations from both Colleges that Dr. Odelami was viewed as responsible to provide leadership regarding the academic work of both Colleges. 4. Proposals to be submitted by Dr. Odelami of any changes to either of the Colleges’ academic programs so that proposed changes could be reviewed by the ADC Senate prior to changes being implemented. 5. Documentation showing annual financial audits of both Colleges to verify the responsible management of fiscal resources by both Colleges. 6. Adequate means of contact by email, telephone and fax to ensure effective communication between the Colleges and ADC. And the names and addresses and contact information for the Chairs of the Board of

92 Quoted in McDonald to Odelami, 2006-06-19, 1. 93 See ibid. 94 Included in the points listed by McDonald are comments that explain the reasons and/or the purposes underlying some of the requests. I have abridged the demands to make them clearer. For the full text see Appendix K.

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Governors, the Presidents, academic deans, and other officers of both Colleges. 7. A list of the faculty members of both Colleges, to be updated annually.95 In addition to requiring the requested information to be submitted by October 1, 2006, hard deadlines were established for the delivery of annual reports and transcripts from both Colleges to ADC. In the future everything was to be received well in advance of Acadia’s May Convocation. These demands were based largely upon a review authored by MacRae after numerous consultations with Odelami, Wilson, and Killacky and submitted to the ADC

Senate on May 2, 2006.96 In his brief MacRae acknowledged that an impasse had developed in the communications with CINDICO and UNIDICO, the result of which was that “no transcripts and reports on Faculty, Staff or the operation of the Colleges [had] been received in recent years.”97 But among other things98 he claimed that a great deal of the problem was the fault of the Canada Border Services Agency. According to MacRae, for some reason the latest materials couriered by FedEx from Nigeria on April 19, 2006 had been held for an inordinate amount of time in Montreal since April 21, 2006 and not speedily cleared for delivery to the College by Border Services. It had taken a full ten days before the documents were finally received at ADC on May 1, 2006 from Montreal. He opined that in the past “neither the Nigerian Colleges nor ADC was aware of the breakdown in communication.”99 And regarding the delay in receiving the transcripts

95 McDonald to Odelami, 2006-06-19, 2. 96 See MacRae, “Review of Relationships with CINDICO and UNIDICO,” report to ADC Senate, 2006-05-02, esp. 2. 97 Ibid., 1. 98 MacRae notes the difficult circumstances in Nigeria, which contributed to “the continuing communication impasse” between Acadia and Nigeria, including the adverse political climate that ultimately led to Nigeria being excluded temporarily from the Commonwealth of Nations, widespread social upheaval in the country, and the loss of UNIDICO’s campus site and subsequent relocation outside Ile-Ifé. See ibid. 99 MacRae, “Review of Relationships,” 1.

214 which eventually triggered the suspension of the affiliations, he concluded, “It is now overwhelmingly evident that the failure to receive these documents is not only the responsibility of the two Colleges, but of Canada Immigration and Border Services authorities, who took no initiative to get the materials to us.”100 Regardless of MacRae’s argument, the sanction against CINDICO and UNIDICO was imposed immediately. The Nigerian Colleges were censured by ADC’s Senate for non-compliance and they were put on probationary notice. No matter how conciliatory McDonald’s communication was, the message was still quite clear: the affiliations were in imminent danger of being cancelled. The next move belonged to the Nigerians. The Nigerian Response – Odelami returned to Nigeria on June 22, 2006 with McDonald’s letter and according to him, he immediately became seriously ill.101 Both Governing Councils of the two Colleges held dedicated meetings in order to address the concerns enumerated by McDonald. The UNIDICO Governing Council, led by Adesoji Olaoba-Efuntayo, the founding provost and now the Chair of the Council, met on August 20, 2006 in an emergency session that continued for nearly seven hours.102 The minutes of the meeting describe the several resolutions adopted by the Council, each one addressing a concern in McDonald’s letter and promising faithful adherence to the stipulations. In his personal response to McDonald, Efuntayo wrote,

Though all the documents speak for themselves, we wish to assure the authorities of Acadia Divinity College that we cherish the cordial relationship between the two colleges and are therefore more prepared than before to comply with all the conditionalities raised in the letter under reference.

100 MacRae, “Review of Relationships,” 1. 101 Odelami to McDonald, 2006-09-18, 1. 102 “Minutes of the Meeting of the Governing Council of UNIDICO held on August 20, 2006,” [2006-08-20?], 4. The meeting was held one month before McDonald’s 2006-10-01 deadline for the receipt of all materials at ADC and, purportedly, two months after Odelami had returned to Nigeria.

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UNIDICO is a pride of Acadia University in Nigeria and Africa. It will be sad for the agreement between the two colleges to be terminated. We pray that God will use you to restore our College to its permanent status. We are indeed very sorry for our past lapses. Such will not repeat themselves again. We will continue to count on your unflinching support for UNIDICO.103 CINDICO’s reaction to the suspension was no less accommodating. Governing Council members were called to “an urgent and very important meeting”104 on August 14, 2006 and to a follow-up meeting on September 18, 2006.105 Imevbore, like Efuntayo, addressed each item of concern as McDonald had listed them and he too affirmed the sincere intention of CINDICO to comply with all of the terms in McDonald’s letter.106 Odelami’s cover letter that accompanied the responses of both Colleges was friendly but cautiously subdued.107 Not all of the materials were available to be sent to ADC at the same time, but he promised to fax the missing documents immediately upon collecting them. In a petition filled with pathos Odelami appealed directly to McDonald:

Dr. McDonald, please use your good office to help the two colleges maintain their Affiliations (sic) with Acadia. The two colleges have hitherto been very useful to the various denominational Christian communities in Nigeria and the neighbouring African countries. The presence of Acadia Divinity College and University is increasingly being felt in our country and around. Very soon you will be informed of the launching of Acadia Alumni chapters in Nigeria. I hope you will do your best to increase the present enthusiasm.108 Apparently satisfied with the responses, McDonald lifted the suspension.109

103 A. Olaoba-Efuntayo to McDonald, “Re: Updated Information on the Operations of UNIDICO,” 2006-09-06, 1. 104 P. Aspesin, Dir. of Admin., to CINDICO’s Gov. Council, 2006-07-26. Emphasis NOT added. 105 S. O. Jedo, CINDICO’s Provost, to CINDICO’s Gov. Council members, 2006-09-11. 106 Imevbore to ADC Senate, 2006-09-18. 107 See Odelami to McDonald, 2006-09-18. 108 Odelami to McDonald, 2006-09-18, 2. 109 Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 4.

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Unfortunately, or perhaps not for the Nigerians, McDonald’s service as the President of ADC ended 2007-06-30, nine months after CINDICO’s and UNIDICO’s affiliations were reinstated. Wilson served as ADC’s Interim President from 2007-07-01 until 2007-12-31. In the new year, on 2008-01-01, Dr. Harry G. Gardner, former Executive Minister of the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches took up the roles of Dean of Theology and President of ADC.110 ꜛOdelami missed the April 15 deadline for submitting transcripts to ADC for the 2006 graduating class.111 But possibly due to the transition in leadership, no recriminations were made and the affiliations remained intact.

Gardner’s Term (2008 – present [2013]) ꜛPrior to Gardner being installed as ADC’s new President, Wooden was appointed as the liaison officer for AU and ADC to CINDICO and UNIDICO. He agreed to serve in 2007 shortly after Wilson assumed his interim position as ADC’s acting President. Wooden was keenly interested in the Colleges. He had been a student at ADC at the same time as Odelami, he was aware of the affiliations and the value that MacRae placed on them, and he too felt that they were important.112 ꜛRemarkably, despite Wooden’s interest and Odelami’s desire to present graduates for convocations each year, obtaining lists of graduates and their supporting documentation continued to be difficult. In Gardner’s first year as president, Wooden awarded over 200 degrees representing graduating classes between 2003 and 2008 at CINDICO and UNIDICO. After this, in 2009, according to Odelami, he was able to send to ADC material to support ten graduands from UNIDICO and forty-seven students from CINDCO. But in 2010, he was only able to submit one student from UNIDICO and none

110 See 2007 Annual Report of Acadia Divinity College, E15-E20, s.vv. >Tools & Resources >Yearbook >2008 Yearbook, accessed 2013-02-25, http://baptist-atlantic.ca/. 111 The next convocation for CINDICO and UNIDICO graduands after 2002 was not until 2008. 112 Wooden and Dockendorff, informal conversation, Wolfville, 2013-03-01.

217 from CINDCO. For the May 2011 AU convocation, nine of the ten students submitted from UNIDICO were accepted for graduation; no students were submitted from CINDCO. During Odelami’s visit to ADC in October 2011, he was able to bring the missing material for the tenth UNIDICO 2011 graduate. Regarding CINDICO, Odelami reported in his 2011 Situation Report, “Fortunately, I succeeded in forcing out from CINDICO, transcripts of 2009/2010, 2010/2011 graduating students and which I hereby present with the information data, and list of matriculated students of 2009 up to date.”113 Shortly after Odelami’s visit during which this material was received, Wooden again went to Nigeria. At the two convocations held at CINDICO on May 26, 2012 and at UNIDICO on June 2, 2012, a total of 125 degrees were awarded. At CINDICO there were twenty-eight graduands in the Class of 2009, forty-one in the Class of 2010, and thirty-six in the Class of 2011.114 For UNIDICO there were ten graduands in each of the Classes for 2009 and 2011.115

Summary Conclusions

The narrative of the exchanges between AU and the colleges in Nigeria after the affiliations were achieved in 1990 and 1994 is a difficult one to relate. What started off with such hope and promise seems to have all too quickly degenerated into a difficult and unsatisfying chore. As long as MacRae was Principal, ADC appears to have carried the bulk of the responsibility and felt the greatest burden of concern to keep the relationship alive. The Divinity College constantly appealed for information and stubbornly insisted that documents had to be supplied and protocols met. But the Nigerian’s lack of attention to detail, disregard for deadlines, and seeming indifference to the negative impact that all

113 Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges,” 4. 114 See CINDICO 9th Grad. and 11th Conv. Ceremony, program booklet, 2012-05-26, 12-13. 115 See “UNIDICO 10th Convocation Ceremony for the Award of Degrees by Acadia University, Canada,” prog. booklet for ceremonies at Akinlalu, Nigeria, 2012-06-02, 13.

218 of this was having on the people and purposes in Canada must have made the affiliate relationship unappealing for the host institution. Some of the difficulty can be attributed to the appalling circumstances in Nigeria. The country was bedeviled by communal violence and political instability; it was crippled by international sanctions and financial problems; the poverty was heartrending; the communication resources were almost nonexistent; and the lost opportunities must have been debilitating. But regardless, these things only served to accent troubling issues that seem to have been endemic to the relationship. Judging from the results only of the past twenty years (1994-2013), it appears as if Odelami, as the academic advisor of the Acadia Consortium, has been irremediably tardy, seriously inept, or patently incapable of rallying the necessary responses to the affiliations from both UNIDICO and CINDICO. The petty independence and competitive spirit at CINDICO has not helped much and it was woefully misplaced. From the narrative it seems that Abiara resented Odelami’s “defection” from CINDICO.116 But as angering as that was, the real focus of attention properly should have been the advance of the gospel and the training of indigent students. CINDICO’s seemingly blatant acts of autonomy and purposeful disregard of co- ordinating activities or using scarce resources to the greatest effect did not contribute to those larger goals. However, it must be remembered that CINDICO and UNIDICO are two different organizations. Apart from the geographical proximity of the two Colleges and whatever debt Abiara may owe to Odelami as a colleague and former CINDICO provost, Abiara is under no obligation to fund Odelami’s ministry. What is interesting in the narrative is the sense that just when things appear not able to get worse in Nigeria, they do. The abandonment of the Nigerian Colleges by McDonald was a devastating blow to the relationships. It may have made sense on some

116 In 2012 Imevbore was very clear that this was and continues to be the case. Imevbore, Wooden, Odelami, and Dockendorff, informal conversation, Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, 2012-06-01.

219 level, but it was a woeful misreading, or disregard, of the reality of the circumstances, the responsibility of partnership, and the contextual requirement for ample, if not excessive by North America standards, support and encouragement in the administration of the Nigerian affiliations. By 2006 it appeared as if the inevitable end of the mutual neglect, disregard, and presumption of ADC, CINDICO, and UNIDICO would be the ignoble dissolution of the affiliate relationship. If that had happened, it would have been the regrettable consequence of ADC’s careless forsaking and the Nigerian’s under- appreciation of the privilege of affiliation. Thankfully under Gardner, interest in Nigeria revived and six years later in 2013 it seems that the new President continues to be unwilling to let the difficulties of the previous twenty years go uncontested.

Assessment of the Affiliation Suspension In the next chapter the entire narrative will be summarized by first reviewing some important considerations concerning Africa and Nigeria in the coming decade. The accomplishments and the lost opportunities of both affiliations will be highlighted. And then several recommendations that appear to flow from this analysis will be offered for consideration for the future. But before that is done, the question needs to be asked here whether McDonald was justified in suspending the affiliations of the Nigerian Colleges. It appears as if there may be two answers to that question. The first one is “yes” and the argument for that position can be made rather briefly. The second answer is more complicated and the reasoning leads, ultimately, to a qualified “no.” McDonald may have been right in what he did, but he was not entirely justified, and therefore, he was not entirely fair. The argument for this case requires a review of the stipulations, expectations, and obligations of the affiliation from 1990 onward. Insights gained from that analysis may very well point a way forward for the future.

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Justified As a first response: yes, it seems almost self-evident that McDonald was justified in suspending the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO. By 2006, contact with Odelami had been lost for nearly a decade. Reporting, always inconsistent and hardly adequate at the best of times, had become non-existent. In the previous eight years, only one graduation had taken place at the colleges, four years prior in 2002.117 No one from Canada had seen either of the institutions working since MacRae’s last review in 1997; and no one from Nigeria had come to Canada to assure ADC that the schools were still functioning. Given the uncertainty surrounding the status of the colleges and the unique privilege of the arrangement, those responsible for the integrity and continuance of the agreements could hardly be faulted for placing the affiliations on probation. It was a minimalist response to a remarkable circumstance. Fundamental elements in the union had failed. After the affiliations had been so carefully established and thoroughly examined, if they were worth anything, they were worth protecting. And besides, the reputations of everyone involved were at stake. The request for confirmatory materials was hardly an unreasonable request. It was, in fact, a legitimate expectation required to safeguard the institutional integrity of AU, ADC, CINDICO, and UNIDICO and to preserve the personal credibility of everyone associated with the affiliations.

Unfair But while McDonald’s suspension may have been justified and needed – it may even have been “the right thing to do,” – it was likely also unfair, at least on the grounds on which it was argued and in light of the expectations and obligations that had been previously understood to govern the affiliate relationships. McDonald suggested that for

117 See → on page 207.

221 nine years the Colleges had not provided adequate information on a timely basis.118 In fact, it was longer than that. As far back as 1990, whenever graduations were scheduled, ADC would present Odelami and the Nigerian colleges with a succession of requests and proddings for graduands lists and supporting documentation.119 But, when Efuntayo respectfully objected to McDonald, for the record, that “the former terms of agreement between UNIDICO and ADC did not stipulate a time frame for sending of annual reports and other documents,”120 he was correctly asserting that regardless of what ADC was requiring now, or why, it was an additional expectation and a shift away from the norm.

Prior to McDonald’s “nine years,” Odelami had often not given ADC what he had been asked to give when he was asked to give it. And the reason was because the dates in the agreements were unclear and the sanctions were either undefined or hardly ever enforced.

Stipulations Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding in the decision to put the Nigerian colleges on probation is found in the summation argument of the suspension letter. There

McDonald contends that his list of stipulations is actually a reflection of the founding affiliation agreements: “Essentially, we are asking that we have full compliance with the original terms of agreement with both colleges worked out by Dr. Andrew MacRae and the then President of AU, Dr. James Perkin.”121 Even allowing for the error that UNIDICO’s affiliation in 1994 was not established by MacRae and Perkin but by MacRae during Ogilvie’s tenure, the intimation is clear and incorrect. In the original agreement there were no dates given, no reports requested, no affirmations expected, no updates needed, and no financial audits required. There were, in fact, only four

118 McDonald to Odelami, 2006-06-19. 119 See R. Baxter to Odelami, 1990-05-07; and R. Baxter to Abiara, 1990-05-17. 120 UNIDICO minutes, 2006-08-20, 6. 121 McDonald to Odelami, 2006-06-19.

222 continuance stipulations defined by such nebulous phrases as “significant progress” and “significant developments.” The four clauses, originally numbered 3 through 6, were:

3. That degree awards by Acadia University be conditional on the written recommendation of graduands by the Senate of CINDICO. … 4. That CINDICO be required to demonstrate significant progress in Library development during the next three years … 5. That evidence be available of significant developments in physical plant, and in physical security during the next triennium. 6. That proposed alterations to the curriculum and appointments to Faculty of CINDICO during the next three years, be made with the approval of the Principal of Acadia Divinity College … and the endorsement of the Acadia Divinity College Senate.122 The core of the relationship, and the heart of its functioning, was in the personal and academic accountability of Odelami and Abiara to AU through MacRae at ADC. And as such the oversight of the affiliation was not the organizational model that the probation stipulations intended to “reassert.” It was a relational arrangement operating within the context of a cooperative partnership established among the original three visionaries of the Nigerian affiliations. Within that framework, at times some things were overlooked in the larger effort of accomplishing the greater goal of helping Nigerians train Nigerians in Nigeria for ministry within their own country. And as a result, initially, transcripts were not required, and even the formal authorization of graduands by the Senate of CINDICO as specified by the Acadia Senate was overlooked. Documents were frequently reviewed, renewed, and re-typed at ADC to make them more presentable. And at times, some enthusiastic phrasings were helpfully re-tuned for Western ears. The requirement for annual reports and transcripts was only added after the first triennium review of CINDICO by MacRae in two strongly worded recommendations in his May 1993 “Report from Nigerian Visit.”123 As late as November 1994, five years into

122 A. MacRae, “Report and Recommendations to Acadia University Senate,” report presented to the AUS, Wolfville, 1990-01-08, 11. See also → on page 109. 123 See recommendations 5 and 6 → on page 165; and Appendix I.

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CINDICO’s affiliation and just four weeks before UNIDICO’s first Convocation, MacRae, for the first time in written form, described to Odelami the data that was needed by Acadia’s registrar and Senate in order for CINDICO to win approval for its graduands: transcripts, including the names, courses, and grades of graduating students by year.124 The records show that even this was, in fact, a shift from the material and reporting to which Odelami had been accustomed: a list of names that he personally vouchsafed. The fact is, organizational oversight through reports and transcripts was only entrenched in the affiliation relationships in 1994 with the affiliation of UNIDICO; and at that time it was proposed in the report tabled by the ahC-EA in March 1994. Of the eight recommendations, most clauses dealt with other issues; just three referred to reports and reporting. And even here in these items, no dates were mentioned and one of the reports that was required by the Senate was expected to be generated by Acadia personnel, not by UNIDICO staff. The recommendations, numbered 3, 4, and 6, were:

3. That the chief academic officer of UNIDICO be required to submit an annual report on academic matters to the Acadia Senate through the Senate of the Acadia Divinity College. 4. That upon receipt of recommendations from the Administration of UNIDICO, supported by transcripts, students who have satisfactorily completed the requirements for the B.Th. or B.R.E. degrees at UNIDICO shall be admitted to the appropriate Acadia degree. 6. That Acadia University personnel who visit UNIDICO shall be required to submit a report to the Senate of Acadia University through the Senate of the Acadia Divinity College.125 In the 1994 agreement there were no formally stated deadlines or specific reporting requirements asking for proof of administrative oversight or operational performance. The point here is not that these reports could not or should not have been provided to ADC. It is merely that these documents were not included as part of the original

124 MacRae to Odelami, faxed letter, 1994-11-09, 1. See → on page 189. 125 See → on page 183; and Appendix J.

224 agreements. Again, oversight of the Nigerian affiliations and the responsibility to monitor them were based on a spirit of mutual trust, friendship, accountability, and mentoring that was to be offered through MacRae first and the Senates of the various institutions second. It would seem that as far as MacRae was concerned, the key to the affiliations was not in reports. It was in collegial support and congenial compliance. In his memos and thinking he may have emphasized such things as “required courses in agriculture” and the Colleges’ “indigenized curriculum,” but from the beginning the fact that the two Colleges had been helped by academics in the surrounding universities and that they were willing to be monitored externally by these neighbouring institutions and by Acadia were major factors in their gaining and maintaining affiliation.126 In 1990, a year after CINDICO’s affiliation, MacRae told Perkin, “[While in Nigeria,] I suggest you look out for Professor Babs Mala [and] Dr. Imevbore …. The continuing credibility of CINDICO rests largely on such men, and on Michael, and on the willingness of the Universities to make library and other facilities available to CINDICO and UNIDICO students.”127

Obligations If the Nigerian Colleges failed at anything by 2006, they failed to live up to the spirit of the affiliation and to what MacRae was trying to accomplish by supporting them. The failure may not have been intentional but it was significant. MacRae did his best to smooth the way, to moderate North American expectations, and to coerce and cajole compliance with basic requirements because his vision was for a larger ministry. Repeatedly he emphasized that AU wanted to see cooperation between the schools and partnership with the University, especially in the provision of scholarships. But he ran afoul of two things: national circumstances and the Nigerian agenda.

126 See MacRae, “Address by the Principal,” delivered at CINDICO’s 1st Convocation ceremony for awarding AU degrees, Erinmo-Ijesha, 1990-07-14. 127 MacRae to Perkin, memo, 1991-10-23, 3.

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National Circumstances Economic and political conditions in the Republic militated against producing, or perhaps, even seeing the need of producing timely records. Other, larger issues were of greater concern. Living conditions were extremely difficult and social, political, financial, and moral upheaval marred the nation. Basic items needed for existence – such as food, water, and electricity – were scarce or unreliable. Communicating was a challenge within the country, let alone outside of it. And then, although it cannot be universally applied, the stereotypically non-North American African attitude towards time and timeliness

(commonly referred to as “Nigerian time” or “African time”) appears to have governed relations between ADC and Nigeria. Some of the required materials took months to be submitted and even then they had to be accepted and reviewed in whatever condition they were received. Documents that needed to be perused were often reformatted to put them into a form whereby they could be verified. But, as unfortunate as these things may have been, none of these conditions alone, or even all together, is sufficient reason for the Nigerian colleges to have failed to fulfil the meagre obligations so carefully described and enthusiastically endorsed in the affiliation agreements. ꜛ(244)ꜛ(267)It is interesting to note that recently other schools in Nigeria have done quite well, establishing themselves in a much shorter timeframe than the decades used by CINDICO and UNIDICO. Imevbore himself has helped launch a denominational institution named Joseph Ayo Babalola University (JABU). It operates differently than CINDICO, but regardless, its success shows that it is quite possible to provide higher education effectively in Nigeria. JABU is owned and operated by the

CAC. It was approved by the CAC Executive Council in February 2006, received its licence in March 2006, opened to students in October 2006, and received full

226 accreditation for ten of its fourteen programmes six years later in July 2012.128 Recently, other private Christian universities have been established and are performing equally as well as JABU. Covenant University (CU) is owned by David Oyedepo, the General Overseer of Winners Chapel. CU received its license to operate as a private university in Nigeria in February 2002, construction began in March 2002, and it opened to 1,500 students in October 2002.129 Benson Idahosa University was granted its license to operate in February 2002 and opened with an initial enrolment of 400 students in March 2002.130

Nigerian Agenda So, over the past twenty-five years the greatest problem in the AU-Nigerian affiliations appears to be human rather than environmental. Kalu’s description of the influence of non-Africans on African ministries, made fifteen years ago is overstated, hopefully, with regard to CINDICO and UNIDICO. But all the same it may be helpful in understanding both the dynamics and the causes of the difficulty. It is devastating, of course, if it is true of the AU affiliates. Kalu writes,

The nature of the relationship between the African pastor and a western patron is different from that which existed in the colonial mission church. In this modern period [1985-1995131], the African pastor has his hidden agenda and knows the needs of the people. He then seeks a foreign patron for prestige, funds and access to television, as well as accreditation for his Bible school. He is not looking for a scholarship to spend fifteen years working for a PhD. A summer school is enough. He quickly dons a doctorate and knows that the foreign partner needs him just as much. He

128 See JABU’s official website, accessed 2013-02-28, http://jabu.edu.ng/. 129 See “Our History,” s.v. >About Us, accessed 2013-02-28, http://www.covenantuniversity. edu.ng/. 130 See “Our History,” s.vv. >About Us >History and Philosophy, accessed 2013-02-28, http:// www.biu.edu.ng/. 131 This is the period to which Kalu refers in his immediately preceding paragraph. While Kalu’s argument in the quote may be a contrast between the colonial and post-colonial periods, the reference to television and flambouyant clothes is at least after the 1970s. The essay was published in 1998. See O. U. Kalu, “The Third Response: Pentecostalism and the Reconstruction of Christian Experience in Africa, 1970-1995,” Jour. of African Christian Thought 1 (1992): 8.

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indigenises his message and techniques rapidly, even though he may sound “Americana” and wear designer clothes. These are symbols of the prosperity, international standing and embellishments that dazzle and arouse local interest.132 From the record it appears as if both of the original founders have hurt the affiliation. Without attempting to ascertain or question motivation, the single most disruptive thing that Abiara did for CINDICO was to deploy Lasisi, Okunola, and Tukasi outside Nigeria in New York, Toronto, and London, respectively. His reasoning is easy to understand and on the face of it, it even appears logical and therefore quite acceptable. At the time, there was a dearth of people in Agbala Itura who could speak English well and all of these men could do that and more. They were well-trained and valuable and totally dedicated to the ministry.133 But the fact that the early ADC-trained CINDICO graduates did not honour their bonds to return to Nigeria hurt MacRae’s credibility. Sponsors were sorely affronted and retreated from assisting Nigerian students. And when the first wave of graduates failed to go back and teach the next generation of Nigerian theological students, they robbed the church in Nigeria the opportunity to educate the hopeful minds of those who saw the accomplishments of the fortunate “Four” and longed to be like them. Unfortunately, apart from either finding new sponsors or enhancing local training, these new students could never hope to emulate their models. The decision to place the Four in locations outside of CINDICO and Nigeria was an expedient move that lost a generation of capable servants for ministry and stopped the generosity of patrons who might have aided in developing the College and its facilities. Churches in key cities in Europe and North America were advanced, but the cost has been high for CINDICO, succeeding students, and ADC-

132 Kalu, “The Third Response,” 8. 133 See → on page 134.

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Nigerian Christian relations. Ultimately, it was a faulty strategic move that has resulted in broken trust, not so much within the affiliation, but in the larger Christian community. With Odelami the issues are similar but different. No one can doubt his passion and commitment. But his transparency, and therefore, his honesty may be questioned. Odelami’s single biggest fault seems to be lack of full disclosure. Frequently it was only after he had struggled to fulfil some reporting objective that he disclosed the reasons for the delay. Oftentimes the troubling issues were quite legitimate and they would have been readily understood if they had been told before the impending default. But in not sharing the challenges he was facing, Odelami did not spare the waiting recipient the inevitable angst and anxiety of looking for materials that did not come. Regardless of the reasons for this disguising of circumstances and reticence to share information, it has had the detrimental effect of making Odelami look incompetent, incapable of keeping his word, and unable to achieve desired results. Ultimately this results in a lack of confidence and gives his partners the sense that they are not always fully informed.

ADC’s Obligations Now, in this discussion of conflicting agendas and hidden information, it seems only fair to examine the underlying reasons for the actions of ADC and AU as well. For ADC it appears that there might have been three. First, in 1988 after MacRae’s first meeting with Odelami and Mala regarding CINDICO’s affiliation, Ohsberg off-handedly remarked: “We may end up doing our own Globalisation!”134 This thought of the college obtaining a broader sphere of influence is echoed in MacRae’s 1990 “Report to AUS.” But in the preamble to the report, MacRae seems to intimate a second idea. He very nearly suggests that establishing an affiliation with CINDICO was an obligation and a

134 MacRae, “Christ International Divinity College, Nigeria,” aka, “During Hayward Week,” memo/report, [1988-10?], 2, ECWA/ADCPO. See → on page 88.

229 duty by informed people to counteract the oppressive restrictions of Nigeria’s military regime. There were Christian students in Nigeria who desired an education but who were kept from attending university because of the influence of Islam in the national institutions. When MacRae described CINDICO as a nondenominational college whose founding paralleled the history of AU he added a third influence. Baptists had started AU and they had insisted from the beginning that there would be no religious test established for admission.135 MacRae saw CINDICO’s genesis paralleling AU’s independent-minded history and he was sympathetic to the work in Nigeria. These three higher principles and underlying purposes were at the core of ADC’s affiliation argument and formed the base from which the associations sprang. This broader view of the effort undertaken in the affiliations seems to have been shared by the University. Not only did the AUS respond to MacRae’s argument in 1990, but shortly after the affiliation of CINDICO, concern for those less fortunate appears to come even more to the fore. When Perkin officiated at CINDICO’s second graduation in July 1991,136 he visited a couple of universities in Nigeria. Perkin was struck with the courage of local academics despite their limited resources. His conclusion was that in addition to being involved in large projects in developing countries, “there is a great deal that we can do on an individual basis by supporting the efforts of our academic colleagues.”137 That these and similar sentiments guided the approach of AU when the

Senate considered the Nigerian affiliations can be seen in the deliberations of the

135 See MacRae, “CINDICO,” 3-page preamble to MacRae’s “Report to AUS,” 1990-01-08. See also, → on page 106. 136 See → on page 145. 137 Perkin, Office of the President and Vice Chancellor, “File Memorandum – Visit to the United Kingdom and Nigeria,” report, 1991-11-18, 3.

230 ahC-EA. In a meeting memo it was noted that if North American standards were applied to African universities, not one of them could survive the affiliation process.138 If the committee was correct and no African institution could be affiliated with a Western university without special consideration being allowed it, then it seems that the offer of international educational assistance by Western patrons needs to be informed by the realistic requirement for a double standard in programming and oversight. And, if that is the case, even at least in Acadia’s instance, then the question must be asked whether the decision to affiliate UNIDICO to AU should not have included a deliberate plan whereby greater oversight and apprenticeship was given to both Colleges as part of their association with the University. It might have been helpful to include in the relationship assistance in strategic planning, help in setting target objectives with firm dates and specific goals, and role-modeling that went beyond monitoring to include academic and administrative mentoring. These questions, and the work involved in providing what might be considered to be appropriate, contextually-defined interaction, raise the issue of how well the affiliation of the Nigerian colleges fits into the mission of AU and ADC. That Christian mission and Christian missions were underlying factors in the affiliations, for ADC at least, is evident in 2006 after McDonald had initiated the belated but much needed review of CINDICO’s and UNIDICO’s status. As a precursor to all that was about to happen, MacRae wrote to

Kuyebi in Ibadan. He wanted Abiara to understand the importance of Odelami’s trip to report on the lapsed relationship between ADC and the Nigerian colleges; and he was keen to ensure that Abiara would pay for the travel costs willingly. He wrote,

138 See, “Two Approaches,” typewritten ahC-EA mtg. note, [Oct. 1993?], f.f. “AU Senate: Ad Hoc Committee on Affiliation,” ADCPO. Also see, → on page 181. Given the outstanding educational achievement of the four Nigerians studying at ADC at the time, it is unlikely that this memo is referring to Western intellectual superiority. Rather, it acknowledges the superiority of educational resources available in institutions in the West.

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The reputation [that] both Colleges now enjoy in Nigeria and elsewhere arose from their affiliation to Acadia. My own love for both Colleges and my regard for their leadership enabled me to secure affiliation for both without them having to pay anything to Acadia Divinity College for their affiliation. In fact, I know that Dr. McDonald has been asked by the Association of Theological Schools in the USA and Canada why no financial payments are demanded from these Colleges, and he has replied, as I did before him, that we regard it as part of our mission to help our fellow-believers to expand their influence, in training leaders in their own country and culture.139 The debate is as old as the concerns that were noted in the first chapter of this thesis. And the issue turns both on the manner in which one understands the mission of God and the way in which one determines what is the most effective means of doing missions.140 After answering that, the question remains: how prepared are we to fulfil God’s calling? ADC’s mission is “to equip Christian leaders for full-time and volunteer ministry in Canada and the world.”141 Specifically with regard to the four affiliations that the Divinity College has brokered with AU, ADC sees itself as “support[ing] the training of Christian leaders in other linguistic and cultural settings.”142 ꜛTo do this effectively, it would seem that contextualization is just as important as the inculturalization of the gospel. At its most fundamental level this means that the manner in which ADC deals with CINDICO and UNIDICO cannot be the same as the way in which it deals with Bethel Bible Seminary in Hong Kong, or even the Faculté de Théologie Évangélique in Montreal, Canada. The long-term goal may be to bring the various approaches closer to each other at some point in the future in the interests of standardization. But it seems that since these colleges come from different cultures and contexts, of necessity, the

139 MacRae to Kuyebi, 2006-01-29. 140 See, → on page 33. 141 See “Acadia Divinity College Mission Statement,” in “Introduction,” ADC Handbook, 2012- 2013, 5, accessed 2013-02-28, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/adc/Admissions/ADC%20Calendar %2012-13%20-%20FINAL.pdf. 142 See, “Affiliated Colleges,” in ADC Handbook, 2012-2013, 6, accessed 2013-02-28.

232 expectation for each of them cannot be the same. Logically, too, the level of involvement and oversight afforded each of them would need to be different as well.

ADC’s Missions Obligations The final point in this assessment has to do with the obligations that ADC may or may not want to assume as a result of its administrative role in Nigeria. In the next chapter more detailed recommendations will be offered. So at this point, perhaps, it is sufficient to focus on the need for mutual interaction and support in affiliate relationships.

It is interesting to note that when McDonald wrote to CINDICO and UNIDICO in 2006, the Nigerians were informed of their revived responsibilities under the “renewed” affiliation agreements, but nowhere is there a description of the reciprocal obligations of ADC as the overseeing body to the Nigerian Colleges. It is not as if the issue had not been discussed. For, in fact, Odelami had been able to negotiate two expectations of ADC in relation to the colleges. They were not recorded in McDonald’s letter to CINDICO and UNIDICO, but they were noted in a nine point summary of Odelami’s and McDonald’s

“ongoing discussions over six weeks.” The synopsis appears to be much more extensive than the stipulations that were cited in McDonald’s correspondence, and in the digest the ADC president acknowledges, as part of the “Agreement Summary” section of his memo,

1. That ADC petitions for support and missionary involvement in support of our affiliated colleges. 2. That ADC become involved in the spiritual benefit and blessing of our affiliated colleges, faculty, staff and students through prayer and other Christian love.143 This is reminiscent of the plea by Rev. V. S. Azariah, a south Indian priest, and one of only 17 non-white delegates out of 1,200 attendees at the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910 to discuss strategy for global

143 [L. McDonald?] “Report on ADC’s two Nigerian Colleges,” ([Wolfville, 2006-05?]), ADCPO.

233 missions.144 In what became, perhaps, the most oft quoted and the most influential address, he concluded, “Through all the ages to come the Indian church will rise up in gratitude to attest the heroism and self-denying labours of the missionary body. You have given your goods to feed the poor. You have given your bodies to be burned. We also ask for love. Give us FRIENDS!”145

144 “The 1910 Edinburgh meeting [was] not . . . a church leaders’ meeting . . . but rather a mission leaders’ meeting . . . focused on strategy rather than on mobilization.” See R. D. Winters, “The Legacy of Edinburgh, 1910,” in R. D. Winters, The Unfolding Drama of the Christian Movement (internet doc., n.d.), 300. Also published as an e-book by Institute of International Studies, 2011-09-28, accessed 2013-09-08. See http://www.lulu.com/ca/en/shop/ralph-winter/the-unfolding-drama-of-the-christian-movement/ebook/ product-17417558.html.

145 K. R. Ross, “Edinburgh 1910 – Its Place in History” (internet doc., n.d.), 5, quoting from World Missionary Conference 1910: The History and Records of the Conference, (Toronto: Fleming H. Revell, n.d), 315, accessed 2010-11-22, http://www.towards2010.org/ downloads_int/1910-PlaceHistory.pdf.

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Chapter Six: Thoughts and Recommendations

Introduction The purpose of this final chapter is to offer a series of concrete recommendations regarding the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO that, perhaps, may be useful to those who are responsible for administering the relationship between the Colleges in Nigeria and AU. The suggestions are presented as reasonably informed conclusions based on careful research and the intention is to provide material here that is proactive and helpful in considering the best approach to continuing the affiliations between AU and Nigeria. Some of the ideas offered in this chapter address concerns that appear to be immediate and critical. Other proposals contain longer-term propositions. The recommendations offered here are based on a particular understanding of the future in Nigeria and so the first section of this chapter will identify three things that need to be considered concerning Africa and Nigeria, at least with regards to the coming decade. Then, since the proper functioning of the affiliations is the ultimate concern, the accomplishments of the Nigerian colleges will be reviewed, as well as some of the opportunities that might have been missed in the past twenty-five years. After that, and following the model of a strategic assessment, the strengths and weaknesses of the colleges will be noted. And then the major concerns and possibilities that might affect the futures of both of the Nigerian colleges will be considered. The various premises that underlie the suggestions offered in this chapter will be identified before concluding the discussion with a list of recommendations.

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The Future is Full of Potential There are at least three things that need to be kept in mind concerning Africa as one considers the value and future of the affiliations of AU with CINDICO and UNIDICO. The first is that Africa is changing.1 Although it has been said before, especially of Nigeria, the coming decade or two appears to be filled with brightening possibilities and promise for the “Dark Continent.”2 Wars are less frequent, democracy is the norm rather than the exception, the stranglehold of military dictatorships and bloody coups is weakening, and people are finding their voices in civil society and in greater political and economic control. There is still a great deal that needs to be corrected, but Africa is not the same Africa that it was at any prior period in its history. Resource rich and filled with a youthful population, many of the nations on the continent appear poised to take advantage of all the lessons that may be learned from the excesses and privations of the past fifty years. With the fortunate coincidence of increasing education, wealth, heightened social conscience, and democratic rule, the changes that are about to take place in Africa will occur in decades, not centuries. Indeed, they have already begun.

When Wooden and I went to Nigeria in 2008, it was the first time that I had ever been in Africa. And while I had visited places like Jamaica and China on vacation and Cuba on a missions trip, I had never before experienced the poverty and living conditions found in some of the world’s poorest countries. That trip was a strange mixture of stark

1 The assessment of Africa in this section is based on the material in this thesis, particularly the development and growth of the church in Africa and Nigeria since 1900 (Appendix C); the religious shift across the continent from ATR to Christianity and Islam (see Appendix E and → on page 364); the social, political, and economic changes – both past and planned – in Nigeria, the Giant of Africa (Appendix A); and my own experience in two brief visits to Nigeria that juxtaposed four years of changes from 2008- 2012. Also for further information, see the article O. August, “Emerging Africa: A hopeful continent,” Special Report: The Economist (London), 2013-03-02, accessed 2013-03-02, http://www.economist.com/ news/special-report/21572377-african-lives-have-already-greatly-improved-over-past-decade-says-oliver- august; and the author’s interview on the same webpage, “Special Report: Emerging Africa,” (Video interview by Edwin Carr), [2013-03?], accessed 2013-03-02. 2 See the explanation of this term → on page 6.

236 contrasts. We drove through the streets of Lagos as the tail of a motorcade behind a shiny black car with tinted windows that followed behind an equally shiny black SUV with flashing lights and a siren blaring, filled with four armed policemen. As we wended our way through traffic, such as I had never seen before, a path opened in the sea of vehicles for the Big Man, Abiara, being escorted. I remember, especially in Lagos, the contrast between our privilege and the people picking through the filth on the sides of the roads looking for anything of value. Garbage and people were everywhere. Four years later, in 2012, the changes were incredible. We did not have a police escort; they had been banned. The streets, though still crowded, were greatly improved. The litter had been mostly removed and a valiant effort was being made to scythe the grass in the medians in order to plant shrubbery there instead. The makeshift police barricades that had dotted the carriageway between Lagos and Ibadan were gone; no longer did underpaid policeman require us to pay “dash” before we could continue on our way. On our first Saturday in Ikeji Arakeji, Oṣun State, where we stayed at JABU’s resort center, we had no agenda planned because no one was available to meet with us. The

Governor had declared Saturdays as a state-wide beautification day and people honoured it. Wooden had a friend who is a businessman in Lagos with whom he communicated by Blackberry. Messages were sent and replies received in minutes. Certainly, we stayed in lodgings that had intermittent power and shoddy workmanship by North American standards; I stayed at one place that had a single candle for light, no running water, and where I showered in a bucket and used my dirty bath water to flush the toilet. But everywhere there was a general discontent with the way things were. And people talked about it on their ubiquitous cellphones.

Nigeria is Important The second thing that one needs to remember concerning Africa is that out of all fifty-five nations on the continent, Nigeria is one of the most important. With Kenya and

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South Africa, it sets the pace and augers the future. Despite some crippling challenges,3 the Republic is still the Giant of Africa. With 174.5 million people as of July 2013 (est.), an oil-rich economy, and abundant natural resources, Nigeria is a favoured candidate to lead the continent, if it can effectively address such troubling issues as political corruption, economic hardship, and a woefully inadequate national infrastructure. But more than just in politics and economic growth, Nigeria is important spiritually, too. Religiously, the battle for the spiritual heart and peace of the future is being fought now in Nigeria by proxy for the world. It lies on the religious fault line that runs across the continent and marks where the Muslim north meets the Christian south.4 That means, in effect, that what happens in Nigeria in the next few decades, as it attempts to bridge the gap between the two faith-communities, will decide the future for millions of Christians in the country and will also, perhaps, presage the future in the rest of the continent and the globe as well.

Indigenous Leaders are Key

Third, one needs to remember that when it comes to Christian missions and Christian education in Africa, it is the African people who are the most important in the delivery of the faith and the passing on of knowledge.5 If there are any lessons to be learned from the history of missions in Africa after 1792, it is that the gospel makes its greatest inroads into a culture when it is enrobed in native flesh6 and expressed using the

3 See in Appendix A, → on page 279. 4 See → on page 306. 5 For example, a thirteen-year old Kenyan boy found a way to save his father’s cattle and predatorial lions at the same time. Note the following comment: “‘This is a solution that was invented by somebody in the community,’ explained P. Kahumbu, executive director of the Kenya Land Conservation Trust and chairman of the Friends of Nairobi National Park. ‘Therefore the support for it is very high.’” See N. Kalinauskas, “Kenyan teen saves family’s livestock from lions with simple invention,” Good News (Yahoo! News Blog), 2013-02-28, accessed 2013-03-02, http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/ kenyan-teen-saves-family-livestock-lions-simple-invention-170021190.html. 6 See → on page 27; and → on page 46.

238 indigenous terms and thoughts of the native religious worldview.7 Indigenous leaders are the key to development in their own country. And as much as missionaries and educators may not like it, they must release control to people who are partners, not apprentices, and who are equally led by the Spirit of God to fulfil the mission of God. That means, specifically with regard to the role of Western educators in Nigeria, they must act as advisors, mentors, and facilitators more so than as directors and overlords.

Accomplishments of the Nigerian Colleges

One must also consider that despite appearances, there have already been some important achievements made in Nigeria through CINDICO and UNIDICO. While it may not seem like much, the first and greatest accomplishment of both of the colleges is that they continue to exist. MacRae was correct over two decades ago to advise the University Senate that the Nigerian colleges cannot be viewed from a Western perspective using Western expectations.8 At its most basic level, no student from North America would even consider attending CINDICO or UNIDICO and, quite frankly, likely no professor at

ADC would agree to teach at them for even a partial semester. At the time that MacRae proffered that caution in 1990, he used phrases such as “sparsely equipped,” “marginally adequate,” “serious lack,” “exceedingly meager,” “barely exist,” and “serious deficiency” to describe CINDICO’s facilities.9 Those same terms might still be used to describe the facilities at both Nigerian colleges today. But if they were, it would be grossly unfair, for literally millions of naira have been spent to build the facilities that are currently at both college sites. MacRae was speaking of a campus that did not exist and where students got their drinking water from a brook. Today, it does not look like much, but buildings have

7 See → on page 372; and → on page 425. 8 See → on page 95. 9 See A. MacRae, “Report and Recommendations to Acadia University Senate,” report presented to the AUS, Wolfville, 1990-01-08, 8-9.

239 been erected, dormitories have been built, and there are libraries on site. Despite the fact that the personal library of most North American pastors far eclipses the resources available to an entire student body at either of the colleges, at least CINDICO and UNIDICO are doing what few from Canada would have attempted to do for two and a half decades in a decaying economy. The second accomplishment of the Nigerian colleges is equally as impressive. They continue to exist staffed by teachers and administrators who are so grossly underpaid that it is evident that it is only the love of the gospel and the passion to see young men and women trained in the knowledge of Christ that keeps them at their stations. Olunlade, the Provost of CINDICO, a former Muslim whose wife and children left him after he converted to Christianity, has remained single for his ten years of service at the College because he cannot afford to remarry. And yet he supports several students on his stipend. He does not own any transport and he shares his living space with one of the college lecturers.10 Such dedication and commitment is hardly seen if ever heard of in the theological colleges and schools in the United States and Canada. Despite low pay, little opportunity for career advancement, almost non-existent resources, and very little recognition, the faculty and staff of CINDICO and UNIDICO have graduated 46011 students with AU degrees in the past twenty-three years since 1990. Thirdly, both CINDICO and UNIDICO continue to attract students who are inspiring in their desire to learn. I chose not to use in this project the results of the sixteen interviews and questionnaires that I conducted in Nigeria in 2012 because they were so consistently adulatory concerning the teachers, teaching, facilities, and value of their

Acadia degrees. I did not have the opportunity to select randomly the interviewees. But

10 J. O. Olunlade, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06-11. 11 See → on page xviii.

240 by not including that data I am not suggesting that they were lying or had been coached, for they spoke candidly and naturally of such experiences as having extended periods of fasting and prayer and of having transforming encounters with God. One female student answered all of my questions regarding her future with, “God knows, and He will tell me when the time comes.” Just as I was beginning to doubt her sincerity, she told me a remarkably detailed and quite believable story of how she had been dynamically directed to attend CINDICO.12 The students at both CINDICO and UNIDICO are indigent. Many are unsupported by their families because of their career choice or because they are converts to Christianity. And yet, they still want to work in Christian ministry. Given such accomplishments and such dedication to the founding vision of providing affordable education to those who can least afford it, as MacRae said a few years ago, it would be Acadia’s own fault if the University and ADC lost interest in the affiliations thinking that they were too much work or too difficult to administer.13 He was understating it, of course, for it would, in fact, be a shame. Odelami has had numerous opportunities to leave Nigeria and reside in Canada. He has family who lives in Ontario, he admires Canada’s “maintenance culture,”14 and his denomination has often urged him to look after his health. But he refuses to step back as long as there is work to be done on behalf of UNIGAC and UNIDICO. Abiara travels the world and could readily excuse himself by looking after his ministry in some other country where living conditions are easier. But he willfully does not become part of the Nigerian diaspora. He remains dedicated to Nigeria and to his original desire to establish CINDICO as a tuition-free

12 A. E. Shiji, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06-18. 13 MacRae, interview by author, Wolfville, 2009-10-19. 14 Odelami and Dockendorff, informal conversation in car, en route to New Minas, 2011-10-21.

241 institution15 where Nigerian Acadia-trained teachers16 root worthy but impoverished students in strongly biblical, contextualized African theology.17 The expectation is high; and perhaps, it is undoable. Imevbore is clear: “You cannot run an institution as a charity! Abiara needs to understand – CINDICO needs more money!”18 But at least Abiara and Odelami try. Personally speaking, I must admit that I believe that those in the West ought to do no less than that, if not more. The cost of keeping tuition at CINDICO and UNIDICO inordinately low has been high. The facilities, the staff, the academic resources – everything – sorely needs attention and could benefit from generous financial funding. It is incontestable that something more than moral support and sage advice is required in order to fulfil this Nigerian dream. Whether it is the responsibility of AU or ADC to be involved in fund-raising is debatable. But the resources are indubitably in the church and surely, someone with a global vision can be a catalyst for positive change and development in Nigeria.

Missed Opportunities

But there have been failures at CINDICO and UNIDICO over the years as well. Perhaps the greatest missed opportunity has been the opportunity to educate a generation of brilliant minds. It is impossible to believe and hard to accept that the fortunate “Four” who received full scholarships to attend ADC in the first two years of CINDICO’s graduating classes are the only ones out of 460 graduates who are capable of acquiring higher degrees and of going on to do advanced studies. When I spoke informally with students after CINDICO’s graduation on May 26, 2012, their enthusiasm was infectious

15 See S. K. Abiara, “Address by Pastor (Dr.) S. K. Abiara, Chancellor CINDICO on the Occasion of CINDICO’s 3rd Convocation held at Erinmo on Saturday, 16th January, 1993,” speech delivered on 1993-01-16. ECWA/ADCPO. 16 Abiara to MacRae, 1991-11-12, 2. 17 Abiara to MacRae, 1994-05-26. 18 Imevbore, Wooden, Odelami, Dockendorff, informal conversation, Ile-Ifé, Nigeria, 2012-06-01.

242 and out of a dozen chatting at the time, one young woman asked me point blank, “How can I get a sponsor so that I can go to Canada to do more study? Who will support me?” I cannot forget that question, or its obligation. Second, in the past two and half decades the colleges have lost the opportunity to select strategically and to develop deliberately the lecturers at CINDICO and UNIDICO. The colleges need people who will commit themselves to advanced training and who will then return to the colleges to teach. Many of the administrators that I met during my 2012 visit had either earned PhD degrees from local universities or were candidates completing their studies. Often the effort was made at considerable personal cost and sacrifice. But the greatest issue for development is not merely supporting these faculty members. It is in giving them an opportunity to use their training and hone their skills at CINDICO and UNIDICO. Ideally, these teachers need to have the opportunity to expand their careers in positions that pay them salaries sufficient to allow them to live, work, do research, and feel appropriately acknowledged in their profession. Without this, despite an obvious commitment to theological education at AU’s affiliated colleges in Nigeria, the valuable staff who understand the culture of Nigeria, who are familiar with the needs and challenges of indigent students, and who sincerely desire to make a significant contribution to the institutions at which they serve will be lost. They will eventually abandon their positions to take more supportive employment elsewhere.

As a corollary to missing the opportunity to develop lecturers at the colleges over the past twenty-five years, there is the additional lost opportunity of recruiting future staff from the student body. The “Four” who received full scholarships to attend ADC in 1990 and 1991 were supposed to return to Nigeria to bolster the faculty at CINDICO. But they broke their commitment, disregarded their bonds, and did not return to Nigeria to teach at the place where they had their beginning. Instead they were employed in other areas of Agbala Itura ministry. In orchestrating this, Abiara made a serious error. He missed a critical, strategic opportunity to develop CINDICO to its greatest potential and to impact 243 a generation of students who could then impact a generation of people for Christ in southwestern Nigeria. In the last two decades, if these Four had returned to CINDICO with their MDiv and MA degrees to teach as promised, they could have taught twenty graduating classes of students and released them into better-educated service for Christ in Nigeria and beyond. These graduands would have become pastors and teachers inspired by the commitment, passion, and sacrifice of “Four” who gave their word, experienced a land of greater opportunity, and returned to tell them about what they had learned. Some of them might have done what the “Four” could not do – go further in study and training

– but their accomplishments would have been a testament to the strategic decision to develop a college to reach a nation instead of growing a church in a few select and privileged locations. Fortunately, it is not too late to correct this error. Finally, both CINDICO and UNIDICO have failed to take advantage of the incredible opportunity to offer a fully accredited, internationally recognized degree from AU. It is difficult to understand why there are not more students attending the Acadia- affiliated colleges in Nigeria. The examples of JABU, Covenant University, and Benson

Idahosa University show that it is possible to open the doors of an educational institution and within one year have a charter class of hundreds of students.19 Part of the reason that this can be done is the quality of the facilities, the renown of the faculty, and the courses being offered. But regardless, in Nigeria currently there are 117 universities, and they are able to admit only 15% of the qualified university candidates.20 Since conventional institutions cannot meet the demands of students seeking higher education, distance learning is being investigated as a possible solution, and in some areas, says Odelami, it is already being implemented. Even if CINDICO and UNIDICO marketed their training

19 See → on page 226. 20 F. K. Olakulehin and S. K. Panda, “Private Cost of Education: A Comparative Study of Distance and Campus-based University Students in Nigeria,” European Jour. of Open, Distance and E- Learning (2011): 2.

244 to Christian students as a basic degree preparatory to further education at other institutions, enrolment might be increased readily with the further benefits of wider recognition for the colleges in the Nigerian community and access to additional revenues that could be used to upgrade facilities. In their affiliation with AU, CINDICO and UNIDICO possess an incredible resource that they have failed to exploit fully.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Possibilities, and Concerns Many of the strengths of the affiliated Nigerian colleges flow from their accomplishments over the past twenty-five years. They are locally based, presently existing, staffed by local lecturers, teaching an indigenized curriculum, and attuned to the African religious milieu and mindset. In addition, they seem still to have good relations with the local universities and access to the professors and library facilities in these institutions. But beyond this, there are three things that are their greatest strengths: both CINDICO and UNIDICO continue to be open to other Christian denominations, continue to grant degrees from an internationally recognized affiliate university, and continue to have a body of young teachers and leaders who are interested in the colleges, some of whom would make the colleges their vocational focus if they were given the opportunity and properly encouraged. Further to these three features, as a secondary consideration, both CINDICO and UNIDICO have some level of denominational backing. In addition, Abiara’s college, CINDICO, has two other advantages that UNIDICO does not: access to the academic and administrative experience of Imevbore and access to the resources of the Agbala Itura churches worldwide. The latter is a wonderful source of potential financial support, an ideal place to recruit new faculty and students, and a ready vehicle for ministerial training and placement. Unfortunately the weaknesses of the colleges are many and significant. To begin, there are all those identified by MacRae since the start of the affiliations: inadequate

245 facilities, insufficient security, the lack of a deliberately conceived and fairly implemented staff development program, and a paucity of on-site library holdings. Beyond these, staff salaries are inadequate, there are on-going funding concerns, and students do not have scholarship or bursary support. Both of the colleges are personally owned and therefore do not benefit from the support and interest of a wider constituency, with the vested interest in the colleges that would bring. Their proprietors are getting older and there are no clear succession plans or procedures in place for when they die. More significantly in the near term, both colleges are very dependent upon their founders for leadership, vision and direction, and funding; they are not part of the new wave of tertiary institutions that is developing in Nigeria and of which Covenant University and JABU are a part; and they are not accredited by a local, Nigerian accrediting body. In CINDICO’s case, Abiara is also very busy and seems, recently at least, unable to give CINDICO the attention or finances that it needs in order to operate smoothly. As far as opportunities are concerned, the two largest advantages that both CINDICO and UNIDICO have are that they are situated in a region where there is no shortage of qualified youth seeking education and, currently, they have affiliate status with AU to confer Acadia accredited degrees. As Nigeria develops, it is reasonable to presume that morality-based learning will increasingly be an important asset; and as people continue to mature in their Christian faith and understanding, there will be an ever greater need for Christian men and women trained to serve in the church. The major concern of both colleges should be the possibility that their affiliate status with AU might be revoked for some reason. While CINDICO may be able to work some arrangement with JABU or another CAC institution, the loss of status would be devastating to the much smaller UNIDICO. UNIDICO might not have to cease operating, but its credibility and prestige would be greatly damaged and it would wane even further in academic acceptance. Other dangers to both colleges might include all of the staff, or a critical portion of them, resigning en masse due to inadequate salaries, discontent with 246 inferior facilities, and the lack of advancement opportunities. Further, if the Nigerian economy improves, as inevitably it must, and remuneration to staff and faculty and investment in the facilities of the colleges do not reflect the changes, staff at both colleges may leave for better positions; and students that are no longer indigent, may find other places for theological training. If another, better equipped and better staffed Christian- training center was to be founded in the area, both CINDICO and UNIDICO could be impacted negatively. If AU ever affiliated with other, more viable institutions in southwestern Nigeria, the colleges would be hurt. And if Christianity was overwhelmed in the region by militant Islamic groups such as the Boko Haram,21 then the futures of the colleges would be at stake. There is enough uncertainty in the future to cause concern.

Underlying Assumptions to the Recommendations Based on the preceding discussion a number of recommendations may be made. They take into consideration that there are three parties, or stakeholders, who are particularly interested and impacted by the affiliations of CINDICO and UNIDICO to

AU. The first is the Canadian contingent of AU and ADC. For them, the greatest asset and therefore the greatest concern for any university is its reputation. When the first of the Nigerian colleges was affiliated with Acadia, according to Perkin, the single-most concern of the University Senate was safeguarding the quality of education being delivered in Nigeria and by extension, the reputation of AU.22 That concern should not be diminished, for the value of an Acadia degree resides in the perceived quality of its teaching at its Canadian and affiliate sites. CINDICO and UNIDICO need to work hard

21 Attacks by the Boko Haram are on-going. Currently, they are mostly located in the Muslim north, but the violence is spreading and the Islamic terrorist group appears determined to establish Nigeria as an Islamic state. See “Nigerian army ‘fights off Boko Haram attack,’” Aljazeera, 2013-03-04, accessed 2013-03-04, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/03/201333175724320641.html. 22 See → on page 109.

247 to “keep the flag flying”23 and ADC needs to be vigilant to protect the reputation of the university of which it is a part. For ADC, as a Canadian stakeholder in these affiliations, the risks and rewards are equally as high. The University has reposited great trust in its School of Theology, a trust that ultimately enabled ADC to pursue its educational mandate through two affiliate colleges in Nigeria and two others in Montreal and Hong Kong. To allow something to happen, either wittingly or inadvertently, would be to break faith with the University and to impair greatly the relationship that ADC now enjoys with Acadia. For its own sake, ADC needs to be involved and informed in the business of the

Nigerian colleges and it cannot afford to slacken in its administrative responsibilities. In Nigeria there are two stakeholders: the colleges themselves and the students. Firstly, it is assumed that the colleges want to excel. In 1995 Abiara wrote, “It is also my ardent desire to raise the standard of CINDICO so that it can be on the same footing with the best bible (sic) institution anywhere in the world.”24 I am taking this desire as fact and counting that he has not changed his intentions. As regards the students, the assumption is that if they invest four years of their lives preparing for Christ’s ministry, believing that they will receive due recognition and a valid, internationally-appreciated degree for their work, then it is appropriate that they receive the best attention the colleges can give and be held to the highest standards to which they can attain. No one should do or expect less.

Recommendations

Thus, it is recommended: 1. That ADC and the colleges in Nigeria revision the future.

a. ADC should consider re-building the relationship between AU and the colleges, especially establishing alliances with the next generation of leadership in

23 Abiara to MacRae, 1990-07-16. 24 Abiara to MacRae, 1995-03-31. Bible is not capitalized in Abiara’s letter.

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Nigeria. CINDICO and UNIDICO might include younger participants in the affiliation discussions, so that they learn the history and value of the relationship with AU, develop contacts and establish friendships at ADC, learn the processes involved in maintaining the association, be active participants in revisioning the future, and both claim ownership and sense responsibility for bringing it about. b. The stipulations of the affiliation agreements should be refreshed or revised and all parties should consider renewing their commitment to the purpose of training qualified leaders in their cultural context. Everyone needs to understand the

rationale behind reporting and administrative mechanisms. They should commit to fulfilling the obligations and celebrating the achievements of the affiliations; to pledge mutual respect and cooperation among all of the colleges; and to endorse AU’s authorized representative in Nigeria. c. The ultimate nature of the affiliation might be determined in line with an agreed model of relations that best suits the Nigerian environment and that helps to achieve the purpose of the affiliations. Each of the parties could seek to identify

the means whereby they may contribute most effectively to the affiliations, to the achievement of their mutual vision, to the benefit of the faculty, students, and staff, and to the progress of educational missions. Concrete goals could be established with the purpose of advancing the Nigerian colleges and helping

them to become independent, self-regulating, self-sustaining institutions that ultimately might be able to assist or establish other organizations in Nigeria that share their goals and values.

2. That CINDICO and UNIDICO, with ADC’s involvement, address the pressing needs of the Colleges in the areas of: a. Faculty care, including adequate remuneration, professional development, job security, housing, and child care.

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The goal of these initiatives is to build strong faculty members who are both committed to the colleges, attractive to the students, and personally and professionally satisfied. Salaries that are at par or better than the going wage will attract lecturers who are good at what they do and free from financial concerns. While some teaching outside the colleges may be permitted, moonlighting by staff ought to be discouraged and that can only be addressed when adequate resources for staff are made available. Professional development provides additional security, needed supported and encouragement, and is more likely to ensure long-

term commitment by the teachers to the colleges. Housing and childcare are expected at good educational institutions in Nigeria and are part of the requirements in the new Nigerian context. b. The maintenance and upgrading of current facilities and prudent planning for

future campus infrastructure.

The first concern here is to maintain and secure the facilities that the colleges

already have. Small changes could be made that might result in large attitudinal

differences. The following items ought to be easily fixed at minimal cost: open

stairwells, missing safety railings, exposed electrical wiring, hanging bulbs, and

the lack of garbage cans. Beyond that, other things could be added: grass, flowers,

ornamental trees, walkways, recreational areas, leveled spaces, and flag-stoned

areas. Larger projects might include: painting buildings, fixing or cleaning the

colleges’ generators, securing the water supply, providing suitable toilet areas,

planting fruit trees, developing an arboretum, planting communal gardens,

establishing small cash-crop farms, and raising fish and animals. Planning the

college sites would be both prudent and generate interest in the colleges. Future

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buildings might include a protected outdoor cooking area, renovated dormitories,

and more staff and student housing. c. Campus security, providing students and faculty with a safe environment in which

to study and teach, that is free from concerns for personal safety.

This has been an on-going issue ever since the colleges have been established; it

has often been mentioned in past convocation addresses and reports. It is also the

single issue that was noted during my 2012 interview sessions. One interviewee

consistently expressed confidence in the leading and protection of God. But when

asked, “Do you feel safe at the College?” she answered without hesitation or

equivocation, “No.”25 Enclosed properties with walls topped with broken glass or

barbed security razor-wire, and high fences, and sometimes armed security guards

are the norm in Nigeria currently. Concerns for the security of persons and

property at the colleges need to be addressed urgently. CINDICO is in an isolated

area and UNIDICO is built beside a heavily trafficked carriageway. d. The safeguarding and development of library holdings, including access to

quality book and electronic resources.

There needs to be a deliberate, creative, and extended process for securing

adequate, locally-housed, library resources for CINDICO and UNIDICO.

Currently, the holdings and facilities are inadequate and regardless of students’

access to books at other institutions, without regular and affordable transportation

to these locations, they are not likely being accessed to advantage. The challenges

25 Female student, interview by author, Ibadan, 2012-06-18. [Name withheld by author.]

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are great. Paper items deteriorate in the environment and so a good library facility

needs to have a dedicated power source and climate control. Because they are

scarce and valuable, books and other resources need to be secured and their use

monitored. Costs are close to prohibitive and that makes obtaining current and

scholarly works difficult. But, there is great potential in electronic resources and

amazingly, JSTOR is offered for free in Africa!26 Challenges remain concerning

computer equipment, software, and a clean power supply, but if access to the

internet can be achieved, the world would be opened to the students. There is a

wealth of other free resources available online and the exposure to such works

would be invaluable. Also, iPads and e-readers could contain vast quantities of

material and they could be catalogued similar to books. It would be important to

look for grants and sponsors to assist with this, or to gain concessions from

publishers and authors.27

3. That ADC, with CINDICO’s and UNIDICO’s involvement:

a. Develop clearly defined administrative expectations including reporting

objectives with firm deadlines and enforceable sanctions.

MacRae, McDonald, and the University Senate were not wrong in wanting

regular reporting. But first, the nature of the relationship between Canada and

26 JSTOR has waived the standard participation fees (the Archive Capital Fee and the Annual Access Fee) for any not-for-profit institution in a country on the continent of Africa. See “How to Subscribe: African Access Iniative,” s.vv. >For Librarians >African Access Iniative, accessed 2013-04-10, http://about.jstor.org.

27 For further ideas, see http://bandwidthconsortium.org/, a bandwidth purchasing consortium of 11 African universities and institutions, supported by the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA). See also http://www.foundation-partnership.org/index.php?id=29 and http://www.foundation- partnership.org/pubs/press/bandwidth.php. All websites accessed 2010-04-01.

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Nigeria needs to be clearly defined by AU and ADC. Depending upon the role

that ADC sees itself fulfilling with regard to CINDICO and UNIDICO, the

administrative and reporting requirements would be defined accordingly. The

expectations of a charity are different than those of a sponsor, or an affiliation, or

a partnership. And just because the relationship established between Nigeria and

AU is identified as an “affiliation,” does not mean either that it is so self-evident

that it does not need to be clarified, or that it is the same as, or even similar to,

other “affiliations,” such as in Hong Kong and Montreal. This is an area for

further research and respectful discussion.28

b. Standardize the reporting requirements, giving details of the materials expected

for the continuance of their affiliations.

Once the nature of the relationship has been determined and the types and

frequency of the reports required to monitor the association identified, then the

documents should be carefully described and endorsed by all parties. Further, the

purposes, sanctions, and bases of the reporting ought to be outlined clearly so that

28 For further reading see: L. P. Spencer, “Not Yet There: Seminaries and the Challenge of Partnership,” IBMR 34 (2010): 150-54; J. Samoff and B. Carrol, “The Promise of Partnership and Continuities of Dependence: External Support to Higher Education in Africa,” African Studies Review 47 (2004): 67-199; B. J. Van der Walt, “The Challenge of Christian Higher Education on the African Continent in the Twenty-First Century,” Christian Higher Ed. 1 (2002): 195-227; C. Ross, “The Theology of Partnership,” IBMR 34 (2010): 145-48; s.vv. “Partnerships,” “Research,” and “Consortium For Development Partnerships,” accessed 2010-04-01, http://www.ascleiden.nl/; Higher Education Partnerships for Global Development: Knowledge, Cooperation, Results, 3 (NY: The Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development, 2003), 1-133, accessed 2013-09-08, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pnada124.pdf; Higher Education Partnerships for Global Development: Knowledge, Cooperation, Results, 4 (NY: The Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development, 2004), 1-138, accessed 2013-09-08, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pnada468. pdf; HED Annual Report 2012, s.v. >Resources, accessed 2013-09-08, http://www.hedprogram.org/; and (in the search box), “higher education partnerships,” accessed 2013-09-08, http://www.usaid.gov/. Google searches for “Higher Education Partnerships for Global Development,” and “Higher Education Partnerships,” are also incredibly fruitful.

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the rationale behind the communications is understood. Sanctions do not need to

be punitive, but they should be effective, objectively verifiable, and consistently

applied without prejudice. AU’s authorized representative in Nigeria needs to

have enough authority to monitor progress effectively. In the event of a pending

default, the representative must be able to give substantive warnings; and in the

case of default, the representative must be able to implement sanctions. c. Insist on annual Convocations at both colleges for which completed transcripts of

graduating students are submitted for review and at which a duly-appointed

Canadian or Nigerian Acadia representative passes out degrees.

One of the challenges for the Nigerians in the past has been to provide detailed

and timely transcripts for the graduating classes each year. It seems that this is

complicated by poor reporting systems, inadequate records keeping, lack of

attention to detail, a failure to value excellence, and an over-reliance on ADC to

peruse the final product and to query and correct errors. The reporting period and

requirements need to be adjusted and expectations clearly defined. But beyond

this, it is noted that transcripts from CINDICO and UNIDICO are required at one

of the busiest times of the year for AU. The reporting deadline for a Spring

convocation could be met, perhaps, if the long papers were required earlier from

Nigerian students. Transcripts could then be finalized and submitted to ADC’s

Senate earlier for recommendation to the University. But barring this, even

though it may not be ideal, the Nigerian colleges might consider shifting their

convocations to a time period unique and convenient to them. Regardless of how

it is accomplished, it seems imperative that the colleges hold annual convocations

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so that qualifying graduands may receive immediately the degrees for which they

have worked. Initially, it may be important that a Canadian representative of AU

be present to pass out degrees. But once the relationship between AU and Nigeria

is more firmly established, at agreed upon intervals – perhaps, every third year – it

might be advisable that AU’s Nigerian representative pass out degrees. Even

when the Canadian liaison is present at Nigerian convocations, it seems important

that AU’s Nigerian representative have a visible role at the ceremonies.

d. Review the curriculum and standards of the two institutions.

Since stipulations regarding curriculum and standards were a key part of the

original affiliation agreements,29 ADC needs to ensure that the courses offered at

CINDICO and UNIDICO continue to meet the requirements for Acadia-approved

BTh and BRE degrees. Unauthorized changes must be carefully noted and dealt

with accordingly. Then to promote relevancy in the programs in Nigeria, the

proper procedures for updating or introducing new courses should be reviewed

with both colleges and they should be encouraged to develop new curricula that

reflect current indigenous concerns. ADC would need to review and approve any

suggestions before they were implemented.

The grading and evaluation of students and the appointment of faculty

ought to be reviewed, as well, in order to confirm that they remain parallel to the

standards used at AU. Admissions requirements for students are supposed to

conform to the standards used at other institutions in Nigeria.

29 See CINDICO’s affiliation in 1990 → on page 110; MacRae’s recommendations in 1993 for UNIDICO’s affiliation → on page 164 (items a, b, and c); and the report and recommendations of the ahC-EA regarding UNIDICO in 1994 → on page 183.

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e. Confirm the support and involvement of academics at local universities.

ADC might consider contacting representatives in local universities to gauge the

level of support offered by qualified academics who serve CINDICO and

UNIDICO as adjunct faculty, external examiners, and members on of the

colleges’ governing councils and academic committees. Until the colleges are

more established, the assistance that the colleges receive from these academics is

critical for their credibility with AU and their institutional development.

f. Gauge support from local government, the Church, and community leaders.

ADC might consider contacting Grand Patrons of CINDICO and UNIDICO, local

government officials, denominational authorities, and other African dignitaries to

gauge the support and acceptance that the colleges enjoy within the wider

community. Specific questions could be addressed to each of these bodies in an

effort to discover the level and possibility of funding, acceptance by government

officials, and the perceived value of the colleges by local leaders.

4. That ADC, jointly with CINDICO and UNIDICO:

a. Identify programs where it might provide expertise and support.

ADC should neither determine nor deliver programming for CINDICO and

UNIDICO. Any project undertaken in Nigeria should be selected by the colleges

themselves according to localized criteria. But once a project is selected, ADC

does have experience and skills that may be useful to help refine the approach,

sharpen the focus, and guide the project to a successful conclusion. Valuable

initiatives might include strategic planning, recruiting qualified teachers,

curriculum development, and administrative training. ADC’s role in these tasks

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would be as an interested and affiliated institution. Counsel would need to be non-

directive and perhaps, most of all, encouraging. b. Identify and secure funding from North American sources.

While there is money available in Nigeria, financial support from North America

does present an opportunity for the church in North America to share resources,

participate in growth, and show an interest in the African church. ADC could help

identify individuals and corporations in Canada and the United States, who may,

for example, fund partial or full scholarships to assist worthy graduates and

faculty from CINDICO and UNIDICO to attend ADC, or, in most cases

preferably, an institution of higher learning in Nigeria or Africa. Initially, these

grants would be directed toward developing the faculty at the colleges. Graduands

could be recruited who are willing to commit to teaching at CINDICO or

UNIDICO for a set period of time, to advance theological education in Africa,

and to make a contribution to the growth and development of Christianity in

Nigeria. If need be, scholarships could be co-sponsored by donors in Nigeria and

North America. Further assistance towards advanced degrees might be offered

later to qualified faculty based on years of service at CINDICO or UNIDICO.

These degrees might best be taken in African or Nigerian institutions so that

exposure to the Nigerian context and contacts in the Nigerian academic

community could be maximized. c. Encourage the colleges to develop a comprehensive development plan.

The colleges need to develop comprehensive plans addressing such future-

oriented issues as student recruitment, financial stabilization, and site planning.

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AU degrees provide the colleges a unique opportunity to expand their institutions

through educational marketing. Increasing revenues by charging higher tuition

fees or by attracting more donors needs to be considered. And the facilities need

to be evaluated with a view towards future growth in the midst of an increasingly

discriminating marketplace.

d. Consider initiating a jointly sponsored bi-annual lectureship series in Nigeria not

unsimilar to the Hayward and Simpson lectures at ADC.

These lectureships would alternate bi-annually with the Nigerian sponsored

lectureship series proposed below (see 5.e) and they could address specific

pastoral and academic issues in Nigeria. ADC might sponsor speakers from North

America either from its own staff or from other qualified personnel. The purpose

would be to advance the standing of the colleges in the Nigerian community, to

expose speakers and students to cross-cultural experiences, to deepen the

colleges’ academic offerings, to stimulate interest in further studies, to encourage

cooperation between CINDICO and UNIDICO, and to increase the credibility of

the partnership between ADC and the colleges in Nigeria.

5. That CINDICO and UNIDICO:

a. Divest the colleges from proprietary control.

Both Abiara and Odelami own the institutions that they founded. They should

relinquish control of these colleges and their properties to their respective

denominations, or better, to independent, incorporated boards. By doing this they

would be released from the burden of personal responsibility for the colleges,

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avoid the perception of “kingdom-building,” and expand the constituency bases

for the two colleges.

b. Seek to involve members of the faculty, staff, students, and wider constituency

in planning and support of the colleges.

Based on the assumption that CINDICO and UNIDICO become independent of

Abiara and Odelami, it is believed that the colleges could then more effectively

generate interest in and support for the colleges. Current students and faculty and

alumni could be a rich source for new ideas, leadership talent, and financial

involvement. Greater financial, visionary, and administrative support for

CINDICO and UNIDICO might also be received from the broader community. c. Seek the active involvement of denominational and individual sponsors.

Widening the field of support for the colleges to include denominational leaders,

Christian business leaders, and interested sponsors would also be an important

approach to development. These individuals are key leaders already. They possess

wide experience and could have sufficient personal interest in the colleges to

support them strongly. Both CINDICO and UNIDICO should identify and

cultivate relationships with these individuals. d. Identify and recruit Nigerian funding support for student bursaries and national

and international scholarships.

CINDICO and UNIDICO should make a concerted effort to identify Nigerian-

based sources of funding for their students. The intention is to develop local

awareness, interest, and pride in the accomplishments of the colleges and in

specific students. This initiative would have the added benefit of showing native

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support for the colleges, which might in turn encourage others from outside the

region to support the colleges and their students. The development of a locally-

sponsored scholarship program would also attract positive attention to the

colleges and aid in recruiting academically capable students. Bursaries, or

leadership development awards, could be offered to assist those who had already

excelled in their course work and involvement in the student community. e. Initiate a lectureship series on indigenous pastoral and academic issues.

This lectureship series is proposed as a bi-annual event that would alternate with

the lectureship series jointly sponsored by the colleges with ADC (see 4.d above).

It would be Nigerian-funded and use local authorities who would address

concerns of particular interest to African leaders, students, and pastors. The event

could be widely advertised and might be used both to draw attention to the

colleges and to show the cooperative spirit between them. Topics such as ATR,

Islam-Christian relations, and religious violence might be offered, for example. f. Seek accreditation with a local African body.

Academic credibility, peer review, and local acceptance for the colleges and their

students must become a paramount concern. CINDICO and UNIDICO need to

seek the endorsement of an African or Nigerian-based accrediting body and they

need to take seriously the protocols and procedures involved in the process,

viewing them as a vehicle for self-improvement, of evaluating institutional

progress, and achieving stature in the Nigerian academic community. The

administration of the colleges should investigate the criteria and begin working

immediately toward this milestone in their growth and development. They could

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solicit support from local institutions, such as the Nigerian Baptist Theological

Seminary, Ogbomosho, who might be able to provide pointed assistance. g. Address leadership continuance issues.

Both CINDICO and UNIDICO need critically to address succession issues at the

colleges. They should define a succession process that is culturally acceptable and

that will result in the timely and orderly appointment of a capable successor to the

incumbent leadership in the event of their deaths. A program whereby new

leaders are trained in the vision, mandate, and operations of the colleges ought to

be developed and implemented as soon as possible. Challenge and respectful

opposition are as valuable as deference. And younger leaders need to be identified

according to their gifting and given areas of responsibility and oversight. h. Consider establishing profit centers to support the colleges.

Both colleges are situated on extensive properties located in arable areas; they

emphasize agricultural training, need money, and are attended by people who are

indigent and accustomed to hard work. As part of the husbandry courses, the

colleges should consider developing small-scale industries that capitalize on the

needs in the local economy and the availability of student labour. Useful both for

sale and consumption at the college, things such as palm oil production,

aquaculture, small animal husbandry (goats, hens, and pigs), a community garden,

and cash-crops such as yams, cassava, and cocoa could be developed. The

colleges and students could benefit and skills such as entrepreneurism, crops

cultivation, and industry could be taught through practical experience.

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6. That ADC, with reference to AU:

a. Re-establish any obligatory reporting requirements previously requested by the

Senate of AU, including a formal affiliation continuance review.

The material presented in this thesis should be perused to identify comments and

previously defined requirements established by the AUS for the Nigerian

affiliations. These are principally contained in the four affiliation documents30 and

other arrangements brokered by ADC with the colleges through Odelami.31 The

obligations should be noted and executed exactingly. In addition, the Canadian

liaison to the colleges might be asked to conduct an in-depth review of CINDICO

and UNIDICO with the intention of substantiating the Nigerian affiliations in the

AUS. At this point these initiatives may need to be preceded by careful informal

preparation to ensure a fair, accurate, and positive outcome.

b. Develop other regularized reporting procedures.

It is suggested that ADC identify other reports that might be deemed necessary

and appropriate for the proper administration of the Nigerian affiliations on behalf

of AU. Depending upon the report and its purpose, this material could be required

on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis and include such things as briefs,

updates, plans, and critiques from the colleges, the Acadia Consortium, and the

Nigerian-Canadian liaisons. Documents could be directed to the ADC president,

30 See Appendices G (MacRae’s 1990 Report to AUS), I (MacRae’s 1993 Report to AUS), J (1994 Report of the ahC-EA), and K (McDonald’s 2006 Letter of Probation). 31 See M. O. Odelami, “Situation Report of the Two Affiliated Colleges of Acadia University Canada in Nigeria (Christ International Divinity College and Universal Gospel Divinity College), by Dr. M. O. Odelami, President of the Consortium of Affiliated Colleges in Nigeria,” (report to ADC President, Wolfville, 2011-09-30); and [Lee M. McDonald?] “Report on ADC’s two Nigerian Colleges,” ([Wolfville, 2006-05?]), ADCPO.

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the ADC Senate, or the Senate of AU through the Senate of ADC. It seems

important that whatever else, information regarding CINDICO, UNIDICO, and

the affiliations is prompt, transparent, and includes both positive and critical

assessments of the colleges and developments in Nigeria. c. Ensure that AU’s student files are updated annually with Nigerian data.

The names and personal data of matriculating students in Nigeria ought to be

submitted annually so that files may be opened at AU on Nigerian students. Their

courses and completion records, including final marks, should be updated and

recorded yearly. ADC might consult with AU’s registrar to determine other

relevant data that the registrar might want to have included in the student files.

These materials ought to be obtained and kept current. In their final year,

graduating students should receive an endorsement from their supervising

professors, the external examiners, and the college senate at their graduating

institutions. This material should be included in their files and be supported by

copies of representative examples of their work, signed by their professors.

d. Provide AU with annually updated contact and personnel information for both of

the Nigerian colleges.

This administrative detail is more than a mere formality. It is an attempt to show

good faith and to indicate the sincerity of the relationship between CINDICO and

UNIDICO and AU. As an affiliated partner, the affiliating body deserves the most

current information available on the personnel at the colleges and their standing.

263 e. Introduce visiting Nigerian personnel to relevant authorities at AU.

In keeping with the spirit of cooperation and full disclosure, Nigerian

representatives visiting Acadia should be introduced to AU authorities. Meetings

could be scheduled well in advance and background information could be made

available. The President of ADC might introduce the Nigerian representatives

personally. These meetings could also be conducted on a triennial basis and

include the University President, registrar, and members of the AUS.

f. Determine whether the names of AU graduates in Nigeria should be recorded in

the Alumni records of AU.

At the 2012 convocations in Nigeria, Odelami emphasised the fact that the

graduands, by virtue of their degrees, were now alumni of AU, Canada. They

were exhorted to uphold the reputation of the University in all that they did and to

support their “alma mater.” It was intimated that included among their

responsibilities was the obligation to contribute financially to AU; and it was

suggested that an Acadia alumni chapter might soon be established in Nigeria.

When I returned to Wolfville, Nova Scotia, I checked at the Office of Alumni

Affairs, Alumni Hall, to see if Acadia graduates in Nigeria are recorded in

their files. They did not even have a record of the Four Nigerians who had

graduated with Masters degrees from ADC. Apparently, alumni who cannot be

reached by the alumni office are periodically purged from the system. When I

mentioned this to the registrar at AU, she thought that it only made sense that the

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Nigerians would be recorded as Acadia alumni and promised to look into it.32 The

issue might be clarified for the record so that Nigerian graduates of Acadia

studying at CINDICO and UNIDICO are not misinformed. g. Seek clarification on the role and authority of the Acadia Consortium.

It seems that the Acadia Consortium was an administrative convenience

established by ADC, announced when Odelami received his DD from AU in

1997, but never formally ratified either at AU or ADC. In 1996 Imevbore

requested, through Odelami, an official letter from MacRae confirming Odelami’s

role and authority.33 It appears that the strongest responses provided by ADC

were that ADC considered Odelami to be the academic advisor to CINDICO and

UNIDICO34 and that transcript documents had to bear Odelami’s signature for

them to be official.35 This organ – and the function of its president – needs to be

clarified. Without formal sanction, it seems unfair both to the colleges and to

Odelami to have the Consortium president serve a function that is not endorsed,

funded, defined, nor granted authority sufficient to deal effectively with

CINDICO and UNIDICO. This may be part of the problem why Odelami has

such recurring difficulty in securing transcripts from CINDICO on a timely basis.

32 R. Jotcham, interview by author, Wolfville, 2012-11-20. 33 See → on page 201. 34 See → on page 201. 35 See → on page 202.

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Conclusion

Currently, as of May 2013, the affiliations of CINDICO and UNDICO with AU are in jeopardy and sorely in need of reorganization. The evidence is incontrovertible: after a six year hiatus (1997-2006), during which there was virtually no contact between

ADC and the colleges in Nigeria, and after the affiliations had been placed on probation by ADC’s Senate pending the submission of documentary evidence of proper functioning,36 Odelami missed the April 15, 2007 deadline37 to submit transcripts for graduation in May. Without a question, if McDonald had remained as the president of

ADC, the affiliations would have been terminated eventually and this thesis would be a totally different record. The fact remains: securing even the most basic requirement of the affiliations – completed and accurate transcripts of graduating students – continues to be difficult, and except for the patience and favour of AU and ADC the relationship between the colleges and AU would have been severed any number of times in the last half dozen years with unfortunate consequences for CINDICO and devastating results to UNIDICO.

But another fact remains, too: ADC has a great deal that it can contribute to educational missions in Nigeria through AU. It seems that the Divinity College will need to provoke change, though, for everyone’s sake. The situation cannot be allowed to continue as it has in the past. Hopefully, both ADC and the Nigerian colleges may be prepared, able, and permitted to implement needed improvements in the days ahead. But, with even the slightest shift of sentiment at AU, either because of impatience or lack of interest, the affiliations could be terminated at almost any time with little or no recourse

36 See → on page 213. 37 See → on page 213; and also → on page 217.

266 and hardly any ground for argument. This paper has suggested that North American standards cannot apply without alteration or adaptation to CINDICO and UNIDICO in

Nigeria.38 But Nigerian standards cannot be the only rule for these colleges if they are to remain affiliated with a Western institution of such repute as AU. The University needs to guard its reputation and qualifications; at times, it may even need to defend them. It is significant to note, though, that “the standards” in Nigeria have changed over the past twenty-five years.39 In the past decade alone, many institutions of quality have been established by religious organizations in southwestern Nigeria. They have performed with distinction. Perhaps, now is an opportune time for ADC and AU, with CINDICO and UNIDICO, to take a new and more effective part in the emerging Nigeria.

Personally, I believe in the colleges. What a waste of resources and potential if

Nigerian students were not given the opportunity to train for Christian ministry. And what a privilege it is to take lives that have such prospect, but lack financial resources and opportunity, and help them to become all that God can make them to be. It is my sincerest hope and desire that this study may assist in clarifying issues and plotting a prudent path to an additional, yet qualitatively different, twenty-five years of affiliation between AU and its associated colleges in Nigeria. If, for some reason, that turns out not to be the case, my alternate and equally as sincere desire is that this study will have pointed up the pitfalls in cross-cultural educational missions and that in any future attempt at globalization by ADC and AU these difficulties might be avoided successfully.

38 See → on page 232. 39 See → on page 226.

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Addendum This Addendum contains three items that were, originally, part of previous drafts of this thesis. They are not related to each other, but they do help to advance the narrative in critical areas. The first article tells the story of Abeokuta, the entry point for Christian missions into southwestern Nigeria. It outlines the genesis of the CMS mission to the Yoruba in 1842, exactly one half century after the arrival of the Nova Scotia Settlers in Sierra Leone.1 Today Abeokuta is the largest city and capital of Ogun State. In 2005 it had a population of 593,000 people. Located seventy-nine km (forty mi.) southwest of Ibadan, Abeokuta is about halfway between Ibadan and Lagos on the coast. Missionary interest in Abeokuta in the mid-1800’s eventually led to increased British control in the southwestern region and ultimately, to the creation of Nigeria in 1914. The second article describes Abiara’s belief that his ministry is based on a series of divine anointings. It also describes Abiara’s view of a prophet’s role and function in the Nigerian context.2 These two understandings form the base of his ministry and calling and provide the platform upon which his ministry is built and grows. The final entry is CINDICO’s course list from 1990. It was this list that MacRae presented in his “Report to AUS”3 and it shows both the detail of CINDICO’s curriculum and Odelami’s attempt to indigenize studies at the fledgling college to suit the Nigerian context. MacRae’s 1990 report is provided in its entirety as Appendix G; the course list is on pages 6-8 of that document.

1 On the Nova Scotia Settlers, see → on page 27. This entry on Abeokuta relates to material in Chap. 1 and could be read just before The Great Century → on page 38..

2 This material was taken from Chap. 2, immediately after Abiara’s Story. It could be read just before Abiara’s Ministry → on page 60. 3 The course list was part of MacRae’s 1990 report to AUS. See → on page 99.

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Item I: Abeokuta, “Sunrise within the Tropics” (1842 – 1853/1914) Starting in 1839 converted Recaptives from Sierra Leone returned to their homes and began living in Badagry and Abeokuta.4 The Wesleyans were the first to respond to their urgent requests for assistance in bringing the gospel to the area.5 Thomas Birch Freeman (1810-1890)6 arrived in Badagry on September 23, 1842. He spent two months there before going to Abeokuta.7 When Freeman returned to Badagry, he was met by Henry Townsend, a white CMS missionary who had come to assess the territory in preparation for a Yoruba mission using Sierra Leone emigrants. Townsend visited

Abeokuta and then went to London to deliver his report and to prepare for ordination.8 Samuel Crowther,9 meanwhile, just off the Niger Expedition (1841),10 had been called to England for ministry training. He was ordained in 1843 as one of the first African priests of the Anglican Church,11 and then returned to Freetown to conduct services in Yoruba in

4 For the story of the Yoruba Mission from a mission perspective, see S. Tucker, Abbeokuta; or Sunrise Within the Tropics: An Outline of the Origin and Progress of the Yoruba Mission, 4th ed. (London: James Nesbit, 1854), 55-83, accessed 2011-07-15, http://www.google.com/books?id=-ykUAAAAIAAJ. See also African historian, J. F. A. Ajayi, in J. F. A. Ajayi, “Mission and Empire: The Ambiguous Mandate of Bishop Crowther, Lecture I: Philanthropy in Sierra Leone,” (Henry Martyn Lectures, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, October 25-26 and 28, 1999); J. F. A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841-1891: The Making of a New Élite, 2nd ed., K. O. Dike, ed. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 31-4, and 38-40; and J. D. Y. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 124-32. 5 See S. A. Fatokun, “Christian Missions in Southwestern Nigeria, and the Response of African Traditional Religion,” Intl. Review of Mission 96 (2007): 107. 6 Freeman was of mixed African-white heritage. On Freeman, see L. Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983), 120-25. See also F. Pilkington, “The Church in Nigeria,” African Affairs 56 (1957): 158-59; and P. Ellingworth, “Mr. Freeman’s Case,” JRA 27 (1997): 50-58. 7 See S. Tucker, Abbeokuta, 87-8. 8 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 82; Ajayi, Christian Missions, 32. 9 See → on page 34 and → on page 42. 10 See → on page 33. 11 Crowther was not the first African to be ordained as an Anglican priest. In 1765, P. Quaque from present-day Ghana, had been brought to England as a boy and appointed chaplain to the British trading settlement at Cape Coast. He died in 1816. See Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” IBMR 16 (1992): 20n6.

269 preparation for the mission. A year later he, with Rev. Charles A. Gollmer,ꜛ Townsend, and twelve others departed for Abeokuta.12 They arrived in Badagry in January 1845 and began the ministry in Abeokuta in 1846. The city was only twelve years old at the time, but already it had a population of 30-40,000 people, including 2-3,000 Sierra Leone emigrants.13 It became a central point for expansion as the Yoruba Mission pushed into the interior14 to Ibadan15 and Ijaye in 1851 and 1853, respectively, by the CMS. Starting in 1847, the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and in 1850, the American Baptists used Abeokuta as a base for their missions as well.16

In the eleven years between 1842 and 1853 the missionaries laid the foundations for Christianity on the coast. One of their great concerns during this period was to secure the protection of the British navy for their work. They became involved in local political issues and increasingly the British became involved in African affairs. When the British finally annexed Lagos in 1861, their territorial intentions were revealed. In response, the missionaries were expelled from Abeokuta in 1867 and restrictions were placed on the movement of all Europeans in the Yoruba country.17

But British involvement in Nigerian territory was not halted. The on-going Yoruba civil wars threatened to destabilize the region, and in 1893 the British used this as sufficient cause to intervene in the conflict. They annexed Yoruba territory to the now British colony and seaport of Lagos.18 Six years later, in 1899, the various southern

12 Gollmer, a German, had been in Sierra Leone since 1841. See Ajayi, Christian Missions, 34. 13 Ibid., 21 and 39. 14 Peel, Relig. Encounter, 126 and 131-32. 15 See E. Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 177-78. 16 J. B. Grimley and G. E. Robinson, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 272. 17 Ajayi, Christian Missions, xv. 18 See M. Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, rev. ed. (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), chaps. 11 and 12; also S. Neill, A History of Christian Missions, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 308; and Peel, Relig. Encounter, 43.

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British protectorates were amalgamated into the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria; and in 1903 the northern Muslim Sokoto Caliphate was subdued and came under British control as the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria.19 In 1914 both of these Protectorates were finally united into one entity forming Nigeria as it is known today.20

Item II: Abiara: Prophetic Anointings for Expanded Ministry ꜛAbiara relates that his initial calling and vision in 196321 were followed by a series of divine encounters. Over the years these celestial communications shaped his sense of purpose in ministry and convinced him that above all else he is a Prophet of God.22 Starting with his commitment to Jesus and his entry into Christian ministry, three periods stand out. Each interval appears to have been preceded by a special, heavenly announcement, followed by an increased anointing for service. The first announcement was when Abiara was commissioned to preach in 1963. According to him, shortly afterward, another angel appeared to him in 1965 and pointed to the four corners of the earth, indicating that the way was opened for him to preach the gospel throughout the world.23 It took fifteen years for this second portent to be realized. In the interim Abiara focused his labours on a thriving ministry that grew from his first church near the Akufo Farm Settlement to other areas within Ibadan. Throughout it all he fasted and prayed regularly and worked hard.24 In 1980 when his flagship ministry

19 See Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, chap. 13. 20 See ibid., chap.14, esp. 232. For the long-term implications of this see → on page 290. 21 See Abiara’s call to ministry → on page 58. 22 When asked to name which appointment God had assigned him from the list of divine appointments (in I Cor. 12:28 – apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, healing, and tongues) given by the Lord for leaders in the Church, Abiara replied, “All of them. But the greatest anointing under which I function is in the office of a Prophet.” See O. Adenaike, S. K. Abiara: The Anointed Shepherd (Ibadan: Johnmof [sic] Printers, 1998), 135. 23 Ibid., 134. 24 Ibid., 66 and 82-83.

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CAC Agbala Itura transitioned from a local mission and began to spread throughout Nigeria, the expansion marked the end of the first period as presaged by his calling in 1963. It also signalled the beginning of the second phase announced by the angel in 1965. Eventually, affiliated churches were planted in a number of key cities overseas, so that by 1998 Abiara’s spiritual empire consisted of twenty-three branches of the CAC Agbala Itura Church in Nigeria, plus ten sister churches in other countries. A staff of thirty-five pastors served the ministry worldwide.25 This period of international missionary expansion, from 1980 to 1996, defines the second interval of Abiara’s ministry and is his basis for claiming that he was favoured with an increased anointing from God, as implied by the 1965 divine visitation and as required for such remarkable global growth. In 1993, three years before the end of the second segment of his ministry, Abiara relates how God foreshadowed a third period of transformation in his work. As with the angel’s announcement twenty-eight years earlier, this sign heralded a future point that would not start until after the end of CAC Agbala Itura’s main international and media expansion. The third phase coincided with the beginning of Abiara’s greater involvement with the CAC denomination and it too promised additional divine blessing. Abiara recalls that the Lord spoke, “loud and clear in my ears.”26 He was called by name, and God said, “Abiara arise and I will arise with you. Whoever rises up against you will fall and whoever supports you, I will support. I am the Lord, I change not.”27 The encouragement was sorely needed. Apparently for two decades, from 1976 through 1996, Abiara faced serious trials and temptation. The breakthrough finally came in 1996 when, after having withstood the period of testing, Abiara claims that God spoke once again and delivered this message: “Abiara, I have permitted you to be tempted and because you have not

25 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 154. 26 Ibid., 134. 27 Ibid.

272 failed me, I have again increased your anointing. I have increased and reinforced you with more angelic ministry. You will speak on my behalf to many nations.”28 It was the beginning of a new era of effectiveness in ministry as relations within the CAC were improved29 and there were increased opportunities to preach Christ in different parts of the world. By 2002 Newswatch suggested that Abiara was one of the fifty most influential pastors in Nigeria,30 a remarkable feat in a country of 174.5 million people filled with a surfeit of pastors. Since 2007 he has served as the fourth General Evangelist of the CAC (worldwide).31 Abiara has a global ministry and is well travelled. Presumably he continues to operate today under the unction announced in 1996.

The Importance and Role of a Prophet ꜛAbiara’s understanding of the prophetic paradigm has significant implications to his understanding of his calling and ministry.32 He considers himself self-evidently anointed by God as a Prophet: his work attests to itself and demonstrates its divine origin. He claims to be in regular direct contact with the Lord and maintains that God and angels have visited him on numerous occasions. He holds that as he approaches ministry and outreach, he is specifically directed to accomplish particular tasks, which, because they

28 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 136. 29 To catch a sense of the controversies and divisions in the CAC during this time period, see O. A. P. Alokan and C. B. Ogunyemi, “An Examination of the Politics of Schism and Secession Amongst Indigenous Pentecostal Groups in Nigeria: Trends and Prognosis in Church Literature,” Jour. of Ed. and Practice 2 (2011): 21-32. Abiara is specifically mentioned as one of three ministries that sprang up in the early 1980s that caused considerable consternation in the CAC because of their progressive approach to ministry, contrarian stance on established CAC doctrines, and the founding of independent and semi- independent “Ministries” within the CAC denomination. See, ibid., 25 and 28. See also E. H. L. Olusheye, The Story of My Life (Ibadan: Gideon Global Press, 2006), chap. 9, “C.A.C.’s Internal Crisis (1991-2006),” 90-98; and remarks made by Dr. A. M. A. Imevbore in his testimony concerning Olusheye, in ibid., 135-36. 30 B. Williams, “50 Most Powerful Pastors,” Newswatch (Lagos), 36, 2002-08-05, accessed 2012- 08-09, http://www.newswatchngr.com/editorial/allaccess/2002/29072002/cover10730223541.htm. 31 See “CAC Gen Evangs,” accessed 2012-08-10, http://www.cacworldwide.net/info/about.asp? idm=355. See also “Reception for Prophet Abiara,” accessed 2012-08-10, http://www.cacworldwide.net/ info/news.asp?idm=422. 32 See Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 133-37.

273 have already been sanctioned in Heaven, are undisputable and certain to happen. When he speaks, his words are inspired; and when he speaks into peoples’ lives, he speaks with the authority of the Lord. He expects illnesses to be healed, lives to be changed, people to respond, and miracles to occur. All of this is part and parcel of his prophetic office and reminiscent of the type of authority expected in the African religious worldview to be resident in spiritual figures.33 But according to Abiara, this influence has not come automatically. He insists that it has required great work and dedication and that it is critically dependent, first, upon God’s continued blessing, divine grace, and protection, and second, upon his own personal faithfulness to the Lord, obedience to God’s written and spoken Word, and unswerving discipline in fasting and prayer.34 Abiara relates an incident that took place early in his ministry which must have driven this point home to him dramatically: shortly after he surrendered to the Lord’s calling, at age 23 he confronted the people of his hometown, Erinmo Ijesa, on their continued worship of a local god, Agidanyi.ꜛ Like Gideon in Judges 6:25-32 and Babalola before him,35 in 1965 under direction from the Lord, Abiara allegedly burnt down Agidanyi’s shrine. People were furious with him. They predicted that he would die in seven days, but when he did not, the people were awed and they reconciled themselves to him. Today, a cross stands on the former site of the shrine.36

33 See the discussion of àsę, → on page 429; ori, → on page 420; and the priests of the òrìṣà (àwòrò → on page 423) and Ifá (babaláwo → on page 423). 34 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 136. 35 Babalola confronted the people of his hometown, Odo-Owa; and he burnt a shrine in front of the oba’s palace at Ilesha during the 1930 Revival. See Olofinjana, 20 Pentecostal Pioneers in Nigeria, 15-16 and 18, respectively. 36 Introduction to Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 11. I was unaware of this incident when I visited Nigeria in 2012. I have not confirmed the story or verified the existence of the cross by visiting the site personally, but the fact that this story is reported in Abiara’s official biography suggests that there is such a cross and that it is located at the site as alleged.

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According to Abiara, a prophet’s ministry has a dual component of blessing and warning included in it.37 First, as the Lord’s servant, a prophet intercedes on behalf of people, nations, and the world. As such, prophets are the vehicles through whom God works to save people from personal sin and national destruction. But, second, in the course of this work, prophets are inevitably misunderstood, opposed, and persecuted. For the people who stand against them and their authority, the consequences are daunting. Opposition to God’s prophet is effectively opposition to God38 and when God is affronted He will protect both His own reputation and that of His prophets.39 According to Abiara,

“People must be careful the way they relate to prophets …. People rise and fall by the ministry of the prophets. Prophets who are standing in the office to which God has called them are tremendous blessings to nations, missions and people in general.”40 But the God-inspired influence of the prophetic office has at times caused considerable dissension in the CAC and other indigenous Pentecostal groups in Africa.41 That is why Abiara insists that God often proves a prophet by testing: He is concerned that the duties of the office are soberly discharged. For Abiara, the necessary qualifications for being a prophet include “integrity of heart, waking (sic, walking) with God in uprightness of heart, self-denial and understanding by revelation the ways of the Lord.”42

37 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 136. 38 “To judge a Christian minister is to judge God who appointed him. … You (sic) Pastor already has enough enemies without you increasing the number …” S. O. Folahan, “Understanding the nature and design of the ministerial office,” Torch of God (Ibadan), June, 1989. When this article was written in 1989, Folahan was Abiara’s assistant, the General Secretary of CAC Agbala Itura, Ibadan, and the Secretary of CINDICO’s Board of Management. 39 This view is not uncommon. See Olusheye, My Life, 89. On Olusheye, see n → on page 390. 40 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 136. 41 See the essay, Alokan and Ogunyemi, “An Examination of the Politics of Schism,” 21-32. 42 Adenaike, Abiara: Anointed Shepherd, 137.

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Item III: CINDICO: Course List 1990 ꜛThe course list: Courses offered (required and elective) in the BTh include: A. GENERAL EDUCATION STUDIES 1. Division of Language – English Language and Literature and Greek are required: Introduction to French English Grammar and Composition English Literature Hebrew and Old Testament Hebrew Greek and New Testament Greek 2. Division of Religion/Philosophy Introduction to the Bible Church History – A Survey Biblical Geography and Customs Biblical Archeology Islam in West Africa 3. Division of Education Principles of Christian Education Educational Administration in the Church History of Education 4. Division of Social Sciences Introduction to Sociology Introduction to Psychology Counselling Church Business Management 5. Division of Science Agricultural Science/Home Economics General Science 6. Division of Arts and Music Introduction to Fine Arts Music in the Church Music Fundamentals Speech Communication B. BIBLICAL STUDIES Old Testament History and Literature New Testament Literature Historical Books Part I and II Old Testament Prophets Old Testament Poetical Books New Testament Gospels New Testament Epistles C. THEOLOGICAL STUDIES Systematic Theology I Systematic Theology II Philosophy of Religion

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Ethics Biblical Concept of Womanhood D. HISTORICAL STUDIES Church History I Church History II History of Christianity in West Africa Traditional African Religions Historical Introduction to Old Testament Historical Introduction to New Testament E. MINISTRY STUDIES Orientation to Ministry Homiletics Evangelism Senior Seminar Degree Essay Psychology of Religion Ministry in Practice

Courses offered (required and elective) in the BRE include: A. GENERAL EDUCATION (as above) B. BIBLICAL STUDIES (as above) C. THEOLOGICAL STUDIES Systematic Theology I Systematic Theology II Biblical Concept of Woman Ethics D. HISTORICAL STUDIES (as above) E. EDUCATION STUDIES History of Education Philosophy of Education Principles of Christian Education Educational Psychology Teaching Practice Senior Seminar43

43 This list is taken from the report presented in the ADC Senate. In the Faculty Committee notes the course list is incomplete; it refers to various pages in 1988/89 CINDICO’s Prospectus. The list above follows CINDICO’s Handbook closely but not exactly. The differences are insignificant, amounting to minor editorial interpretations. The course list included in MacRae’s final report to the AUS is exactly the same as this list presented to the ADC Senate. See 1988-89 CINDICO Prospectus, 40-43.

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Appendix A: Nigeria, the Giant of Africa1

Introduction

Nigeria is a giant of a country in so many ways.2 In all of Africa, there are few nations like it: few that possess such an abundance of human, natural, and spiritual resources; few that so naturally could assume leadership within the continent; and few that so readily could make a significant contribution to the development of global society. And yet Nigeria faces circumstances on a national scale that are truly daunting: its wealth is squandered by a rapacious few, its people are crushed under poverty, and its bright future seems interminably overshadowed by violence and discord. In this appendix we shall examine the bases for the distresses that Nigeria suffers by first looking candidly at Nigeria’s current condition. The data that has been compiled by the present regime suggests a nation that is in dire straits in so many areas, but which also has taken remedial steps in the recent past and outlined an aggressive vision for a much better future. How successful those plans will be remains to be seen, but at the very least, they are encouraging. In the second section of this essay, in order to gain a sense of the extent and depth of the challenges facing Nigeria, we shall examine the historical antecedents to many of the concerns with which the Republic struggles today. It will be argued that during the pre-colonial period the manner in which the Sokoto Caliphate was first created in the

1 This was the name given to Nigeria around the time of independence, 1960-10-1, indicating the place and role that Nigeria and the world expected Nigeria to assume on the continent. Nigeria’s population, economic resources, and peaceful transition to independent nationhood made it appear as a “beacon of hope and progress for other colonized people emerging from the yoke of alien rule.” See T. Falola and M. M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 158. 2 For a map comparing the land masses of Africa with other nations see fig. 1 → on page xiv.

278 north and then later expanded into the south had a tremendous impact on the makeup of Nigeria. During the colonial period under Britain, the contention will be that the manner in which Nigeria was established and ruled, and subsequently, the form that it took as it entered independence set the ground from which many of the current struggles in modern-day Nigeria have sprung. In the third section of the essay, the rise and/or the enlargement of the fruit of these legacies will be delineated: principally, the religious, ethnic, political, and regional divisions that threaten to partition the country and render it ungovernable. The argument is that these divisions are the result of fundamental differences between the worldviews of Christianity and Islam; and that the consequence of disparate views regarding the nature of the state, the role of religion in polity, and what constitutes legitimate means of political and societal change have led to and spring from such controversies as the shari’a law debate, the Islamization of Nigeria, and the escalation of deadly religious violence. The appendix will conclude by proposing some of the necessary features of the Church as it faces the twin challenges of Islam and social upheaval in Nigeria. It will be argued that faith in the sovereignty of Christ and reliance on basic Christian virtues may be the only effective means available to impact Nigeria for the better.

The State of the Nation ꜛAs a nation, the Federal Republic of Nigeria has the potential to be a leader in Africa and influential in the world. With a landmass of 923,768 square kilometers (356,669 square miles), Nigeria is one of the largest countries in Africa and the 32nd largest in the world. Its geography varies from the sub-Saharan Sahel region in the north, to the grassy savannah land in the middle belt, to the tropical and forested regions in the south. Nigeria has a diverse population with more than 174 million people comprised of

279 over 250 minorities, speaking over 500 languages and dialects.3 There are three tribal groups that together represent 68% of the population: the Hausa-Fulani in the north (29%), the Yoruba (21%) in the southwest and the Ibo (18%) in the southeast.4 An estimated 48% of the population is urbanised and 52% of Nigerians live in rural areas.5 Nigeria’s natural resources include bitumen, topaz, lignite, coal, tin, columbite, iron ore, gypsum, barite and talc;6 it produces agricultural products such as cocoa, rubber, palm oil, yam, cassava, vegetable, rice, fruits, maize, cotton, groundnut, potatoes, sorghum, and sugar cane.7 The main industry is oil production: in 2009 oil accounted for

96.7% of all exports, and contributed 66.4% of the total national revenue.8 Nigeria has more than thirty-five billion barrels (Bbo) of proven petroleum reserves of crude and over 187 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas.9 The bane of this blessing is that Nigeria is

3 In Africa Nigeria is the fourteenth largest country. It is almost twice as large as Atlantic Canada: NB, NS, PE, and NL (539,820 kilometers2/208,426 miles2). Nigeria’s population is 174,507,539 (2013-07 est.). For population and land mass statistics, see The World Factbook (Washington, DC: CIA), accessed 2011-08-30, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html. Provincial land areas can be found on the official provincial government websites, sites accessed 2011-08-30 and 2013-03-31. Nigeria’s land mass includes 909,890 kilometers2 (351,310 miles2) of land and 13,879 kilometers2 (5,259 miles2) of water. See “Nigeria Millenium Development Goals: Report 2010,” Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2010, 8, accessed 2011-09-25, http://nigeria.unfpa.org/pdf/nigeria_2010.pdf. 4 Other influential ethnic groups in Nigeria include Ijaw 10%, Kanuri 4%, Ibibio 3.5%, and Tiv 2.5%. See The World Factbook 2009. Not including Nigerians living in other countries (the Nigerian Diaspora) there are five (5.04) Nigerians for every Canadian living in Canada (pop. 34,568,211; 2013-07 est.); and approximately one Nigerian for every two (1.87) people living in the United States (pop. 316,668,567; 2013-07 est.). By land mass Nigeria, Canada, and the United States are the thirty-second, second, and third largest countries in the world; their populations are eighth, thirty-seventh, and third. See http://www.stats.gov.nl.ca/Statistics/Population/Default.aspx and The World Factbook. 5 NMDG: Report 2010, 8. 6 “2009 Annual Performance of the Nigerian Economy,” National Planning Commission, 2010, 6, accessed 2011-09-06, www.npc.gov.ng/vault/2009.pdf. 7 Accessed 2011-08-30, http://www.nigeriaembassyusa.org/index.php?page=about-nigeria. 8 “2009 Annual Performance,” 7 and 45: exports and revenue, respectively. 9 Ibid., 8. By contrast the United States, with twenty-one billion barrels (Bbo), has the largest proved reserves of conventional crude oil in North America, followed by Mexico (15 Bbo) and Canada (4.3 Bbo). Additionally, Canada has reserves of oil sands of approximately 175 Bbo. The United States, with 193 Tcf, has the largest natural gas reserves in North America, followed by Canada (88 Tcf) and Mexico (15 Tcf). Energy Policy Scenarios to 2050 North American Report, United States Energy Association (USEA), Energy Council of Canada (ECC) and W(orld) E(nergy) C(ouncil) Mexico, (2008): 8. Total oil

280 hazardously reliant on world oil markets and the uninterrupted flow of petroleum from the Niger Delta Region, both of which have been seriously disrupted in recent years.10 While agriculture contributes more than oil to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) each year (on average, 41.76% in 2005-08 compared to oil at 20.76% during the same time period11), its contribution is far below its potential. The sector is informally organized and most farms do not use advanced technologies. Productivity is low and growth is largely the result of expanding the hectares cultivated rather than increasing crop yields per field.12 Eighty-six percent of the land in Nigeria is agricultural; 41% is arable, and 3% is under permanent crops.13 Taken together agriculture and mining (including crude oil and gas) account for 65% of Nigeria’s real gross output, over 80% of

reserves for Alberta, including oil not recoverable using current technology, is an estimated 1.8 trillion barrels (initial volume in place) of crude bitumen. See Alberta Government, “Oil Sands: Facts and Statistics,” accessed 2011-09-22, http://www.energy.alberta.ca/OilSands/791.asp. 10 The Niger Delta has been the locus of dissatisfaction since the 1950s, but increasingly so after the Nigerian Civil War (aka the Biafran War, 1967-70) in the 1970s and 1980s. Starting in the 1990s the Niger Delta Region has experienced intense and often violent conflict, much of it fuelled by oil and resulting from environmental degradation, national economic neglect, and a desire for self-determination. The unrest and its implications have been much studied. See A. Ikelegbe, “The Economy of Conflict in the Oil Rich Niger Delta Region of Nigeria,” Nordic Jour. of African Studies 14 (2005): 208-34; C. I. Obi, “Oil Extraction, Dispossession, Resistance, and Conflict in Nigeria’s Oil-Rich Niger Delta,” Canadian Jour. of Development Studies 30 (2010): 219-36; C. I. Obi, “Enter the Dragon? Chinese Oil Companies & Resistance in the Niger Delta,” Review of African Political Economy 35 (2008): 417-34; E. E. Osaghae, et al, Youths Militias, Self Determination and Resource Control Struggles in the Niger-delta Region of Nigeria, CODESRIA Research Report No. 5, Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa), (2011): 1-98; and A. N. Thomas, “Beyond the Platitude of Rehabilitation, Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Nigeria: Revolutionary Pressures in the Niger Delta,” Jour. of Sustainable Development in Africa 12 (2010): 54-71. 11 “2009 Annual Performance,” 15, Table 2.1.1. 12 Ibid., 10. The Nigerian government wants to move agriculture, and the economy as a whole, from primary production toward “greater value addition.” 13 These figures are from The World Bank that calculates land and its usage based on the net of total land area less water. Agricultural land refers to land that is arable (that is, under temporary crops, meadows, gardens, and/or fallow; abandoned land is excluded), under permanent crops (such as cocoa, coffee, and rubber; and/or flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vines; land with trees grown for wood or timber is excluded), and under permanent pastures (land used for five or more years for forage, including natural and cultivated crops). In contrast with Nigeria, 7.4% of the land in Canada is agricultural, 5% is arable and .8% is under permanent crops. See The World Bank, accessed 2011-08-30, http://data. worldbank.org/topic.

281 government revenues, over 90% of foreign exchange earnings and 75% of employment.14 Realistically this means that even after years of independence, the productive base of the Nigerian economy remains “weak, narrow and externally-oriented.”15 In the manufacturing sector, the infrastructure is “appalling”16 and its contribution to GDP is “abysmal.”17 In transportation: for many years the rail system has been inactive due to obsolete tracks and equipment; water transportation is hampered by the poor state of water routes; and land transport is largely hindered by the poor state of roads.18 Electrical power is also a problem.19 In 2009 generation capacity increased 48% over 2008, from

1,953.9 megawatts to 2,900 megawatts; during the same period capacity utilization increased from 23% to 39%. Taken together that means that the power generated and used in Nigeria in 2009 was just less than ten million megawatt hours.20 But when compared to Prince Edward Island – Canada’s smallest province, 1/163rd the size of Nigeria – two years earlier in 2007, on a per capita basis, the Island used 132 times more electricity than Nigeria.21 It is little wonder, therefore, that Nigeria’s National Planning

14 “2009 Annual Performance,” 9. 15 Ibid., 9. 16 Ibid., 10. 17 Ibid., 5. 18 Ibid., 42. 19 I am indebted to R. Younker of Maritime Electric Co. Ltd., Charlottetown, PE for helping me interpret and understand electrical power generation and capacity. Any errors here continue to be mine. 20 Generation capacity (2,900 megawatts) x hours in a year (8,760 hours) x utilization capacity (0.3916) = 9,948,206 megawatt hours. 21 The comparison with 2008 would be even starker. The 2007/2009 analysis is based on: – Pop. stats.: 142,266 people in PE in 2010, compared to over 174 mill. people in Nigeria (a ratio of 1:1,092 persons). See n2 above and http://www.stats.gov.nl.ca/Statistics/Population/Default.aspx, accessed 2011- 08-30. Regarding Power Generation and Usage Statistics: in 2007 PE generated and bought a total of 1,205,667 megawatt hours, compared to 9,948,206 megawatt hours in Nigeria (a ratio of 8.49:0.064 megawatt hours per person, or 132:1 megawatt hours per person). For PE power usage, see Statistics Canada, Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution 2007, Catalogue, no. 57-202-X (2007), 33, Table 10-4, accessed 2011-08-30, http://www.statcan.gc. ca/pub/57-202-x/57-202-x2007000-eng.pdf. Regarding land mass statistics: PE’s total land mass is 5,656 sq. km (2184 sq. mi.); Nigeria’s landmass is 923,768 square kilometers (356,669 square miles). Nigeria is 163 times larger than PE. See accessed 2011- 08-30, http://www.gov.pe.ca/infopei/index.php3?number=13104 &lang=E. See also n3 above.

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Commission concludes: “given Nigeria’s population and the desire to sufficiently power the industrial sector, generation capacity remains grossly inadequate.”22 Oil refining capacity in Nigeria is little better. In the first half of 2010, Nigeria produced 2.23 million barrels of oil per day (mbpd).23 But in order to satisfy local demand for petrol, and because of the dismal state of Nigeria’s refineries, it was forced to import foreign refined oil products. In 2009 this accounted for nearly a third (28.86%) of all the goods brought into the country. 24 The Nigerian government is attempting to make improvements. In 2008 it reopened the Port Harcourt Airport and renewed efforts to revive the rail system.25 In the agricultural sector, commercial farmers from Zimbabwe have begun production, and the Federal Government intends to introduce land reform hoping to encourage greater productivity.26 Growth in the telecommunications sector has been stellar. In 2009 it grew by 34.18%,27 and in the five years earlier its growth was “explosive.”28 Lacking the conventional pole and wire infrastructure of developed economies, in 2000 a Christian run organization, Econet Wireless Nigeria, a subsidiary of South African based Econet

Wireless International, helped establish a series of towers throughout the country that has transformed communications and many Nigerian lives.29 But despite an average annual

22 “2009 Annual Performance,” 42. 23 Nigerian National Planning Commission, “Nigerian Economy: 1st Half 2010,” n.d.: 6, accessed 2011-08-30, http://www.npc.gov.ng/vault/Half%20Year%202010%20Perfomence%20of%20Nigerian%20 Economy.doc. [sic, the spelling of “perfomence” in the address] 24 See “2009 Annual Performance,” 59. 25 Ibid., 40. 26 Ibid., 10. 27 Ibid., 5. 28 Ibid., 9. 29 See Z. Wazara, “The Ministry and the Marketplace,” in Out of Africa, edited by C. P. Wagner and J. Thompson (Ventura: Regal, 2004), 151-71.

283 gross domestic product growth rate of 6.75% during the period 1999-2009,30 the unemployment figures are sobering. The unemployment rate in 2006 was 11.9%. In 2007 it rose to 14.6% and by the end of December 2009 it had ballooned to 19.7%. Unemployment figures for January 2010 are worse. The rate rose to 21.1%; joblessness, for all age groups, is more prevalent in rural communities than in cities.31

Recent Initiatives Since returning to democracy in 1999, however, Nigeria has made great strides in a number of important areas beginning with debt reduction.32 By the end of 2004 Nigeria’s external debt had increased to US$36 billion; most of it was owed to the Paris Club33 of creditors. After six years of negotiations starting in 1999, the Paris Club agreed in 2005 to write off US$18 billion on condition that the Republic pay out the approximately US$12.4 billion balance owing. The following year Nigeria paid off the Paris Club – and paid an additional US$1.962 billion on debt owed to the London Club of creditors as well.34 The ratio of external debt to GDP went from over 100% in 1990 to

30 NMDG: Report 2010, 9, Table 1: Selected macroeconomic indicators in Nigeria (2000-2009). 31 “2009 Annual Performance,” 59-60. 32 See the story of the debt relief effort at Nigeria, Debt Management Office, “Nigeria’s Debt Relief Deal with the Paris Club,” 2005-10-06: 1-17, accessed 2011-10-22, http://www.dmo.gov.ng/debt relief/resources/nigdebtreldeal.pdf. Also see “Nigeria Payment of Foreign Debt: The Largest Transfer of Wealth in Modern Time,” Africa Political & Economic Strategic Center (AFRIPOL), 2010-06-24, accessed 2011-10-22, http://afripol.org/afripol/item/36-nigeria-payment-of-foreign-debt-the-largest-transfer-of-weal th-in-modern-time.html; and Nigeria, The Presidency, Government of Nigeria, “Making Debt Relief Work for the Poor: Achieving the MDGs in Nigeria 2005-2010,” 2010: 9ff, accessed 2011-09-6, http://www. mdgs.gov.ng/images/documents/debtrelief.pdf. 33 On the Paris Club, see S. Béranger-Lachand and C. Eugène, “Paris Club: A Strategic Instrument within the International Financial Community,” Banque De France Bulletin Digest 86 (2001): 25-45, accessed 2011-09-06 in English, http://www.docstoc.com/docs/120565107/Paris-Club-Strategic-Instrument -within-the-International-Financial, 2013-09-20 in French http://www.banque-france.fr/fileadmin/user_up load/banque_de_france/archipel/publications/bdf_bm/etudes_bdf_bm/bdf_bm_81_etu_2.pdf. 34 See “Nigeria Payment of Foreign Debt;” and also President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Address to the Nation: “Debt Relief for Nigeria: A Dividend of Democracy,” accessed on 2011-09-6, http://www.dmo. gov.ng/ardrparisclubdeptdealwithnigeria.php. [sic, note the spelling of “debt” in the address.] The left side margin contains links to a number debt relief related documents. For background and the rationale of debt relief see E. E. Ifeoma, “Nigeria Foreign Policy and the Politics of Debt Relief,” Canadian Social Science 7

284 below 10% in 2009;35 and debt servicing fell from 15.2% of exports in 2005 to 0.5% in 2008.36 The US$1 billion of annual debt servicing savings, made possible through debt relief, has since been expended on “pro-poor programmes”37 resulting in, among other things, the near-total eradication of polio in the country, a significant drop in maternal mortality, and the recruitment of 74,000 primary school teachers.38 Recently (2010) Nigeria initiated a strategic long-range planning program aimed at guiding the Republic for the next decade.39 The goal is to “leapfrog”40 Nigeria into being among the 20 largest economies of the world by 2020.41 Unique in a sense, Vision

20:2020 was the collaborative effort of 5,000 stakeholders.42 Its Vision Statement encapsulates the national aspiration: “By 2020, Nigeria will have a large, strong, diversified, sustainable and competitive economy that effectively harnesses the talents and energies of its people and responsibly exploits its natural endowments to guarantee a

(2011): 153-65; Nigeria: Foreign Debts, Stolen Wealth, IFIS and the West – A Case Study, Harare: African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) , 2007: 1-52, accessed 2011-09-06; and L. Rieffel, “Resolving Nigeria’s Paris Club Debt Problem: A Case of Non-Performing Creditors,” The Brookings Institution (2005-08-1) : 1-26, accessed 2011-10-22, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/ 2005/08/01globaleconomics-rieffel. 35 NMDG: Report 2010, 9, Table 1. 36 Ibid., 6. 37 Ibid., 1. 38 Ibid., 57. 39 See Nigeria, National Planning Commission, “Nigeria Vision 20:2020 Economic Transformation Blueprint,” 2009-10: 1-217, accessed 2011-08-30, http://www.npc.gov.ng/vault/vision%20 2020%20document/Nigeria_Vision_2020.docx; Nigeria, National Planning Commission, “Nigerian Vision 20: 2020 Abridged Version,” 2010-12-10: 1-29, http://www.npc.gov.ng/vault/Abridged_Version_of_ Vision2020.pdf; and Nigeria, National Planning Commission, “Nigeria Vision 20:2020 Abridged Version. 1st NV20: 2020 Medium-Term Implementation Plan (2010–2013),” 2010: 1-119, accessed 2011-08-30, http://www.npc.gov.ng/vault/FIRST_NIP_REPORT_STRUCTURE_FINAL_FINAL_13_DEC_20102.pdf. 40 “2009 Annual Performance,” 9. 41 “Vision Abridged Version,” 3. 42 S. Usman, “Nigeria-Vision 20:2020, The First Implementation Plan (2010–2013),” slide presentation, Validation Workshop on the First Four-Year Implementation Plan for NV 20:2020, Victoria Island, Lagos, 2010-08-5, slide 3, accessed 2011-09-06, http://www.npc.gov.ng/vault/files/ph-nip-valida tion-hmnp.pdf.

285 high standard of living and quality of life to its citizens.”43 It is an ambitious document containing two specific targets: first, by 2020 to achieve a GDP of not less than US$900 billion; and second, by 2020 to have a per capita income of not less than US$4,000.44 Given that in 2010 Nigeria’s GDP was US$194 billion and its Gross National Income (GNI) per capita was US$1,18045 these are lofty, albeit, arguably necessary targets for a single decade. President Goodluck Jonathan launched the first of three National Implementation Plans (NIP 2010-13) on June 14, 2010.46, 47 In September 2000 Nigeria, with 188 other countries, was a signatory to the

United Nations’ (UN) Millennium Declaration committing “to free humanity from extreme poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease by 2015.”48 From this Declaration eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed.49 Largely by targeting the US$1 billion gained in debt relief from the Paris Club towards the MDGs, Nigeria has participated in the UN program. But according to the candid assessment of the Countdown Strategy for achieving the MDGs in 2015, Nigeria’s progress towards the

43 “Vision Abridged Version,” 3. 44 Usman, slide 8. 45 See accessed 2011-09-07, http://data.worldbank.org/country/nigeria. GNI per capita (formerly GNP per capita) is the gross national income, converted to US dollars using the World Bank Atlas method, divided by the midyear population. 46 Usman, slide 3. 47 Not everyone is hopeful regarding Vision 20:2020 and its eventual success. See J. Ezekiel-Hart, “Reflections on Politics and Policies of Education for Vision 20:2020,” European Jour. of Educational Studies 3 (2011): 365-74. 48 See United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2011, NY: United Nations, 2011, 1-67, accessed 2011-09-25, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/(2011_E)%20MDG%20Report %202011_Book%20LR.pdf. 49 The eight MDGs are: Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education; Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women; Goal 4 Reduce child mortality; Goal 5 Improve maternal health; Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability; Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for development. Goals available at United Nations Development Programme, “The Millennium Development Goals: Eight Goals for 2015,” accessed 2011-09-08, http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/. See also MDGs Report 2011, 4-5. For other MDGs reports see: United Nations, “Millennium Development Goals Reports,” accessed 2011-09-07, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/reports.shtml.

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MDGs is mixed. In five MDGs, improvement was average, but in three others, change was less satisfactory.50 The expectations for success have increased since 2006,51 and various groups have proffered advice as to what is the most effective means whereby Nigeria may be able to achieve all of its goals by the target dates.52 It seems clear that people want to be engaged and that they are willing to speak out critically. Regardless of the current state of the country, Nigeria has incredible potential. It has a large, industrious, and creative population. It is endowed with abundant natural resources, many of which remain untapped or under exploited. And the market for domestic and international products is huge.53

50 Nigeria, National Planning Commission, “Nigeria: Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): Countdown Strategy: 2010 to 2015: Achieving the MDGs,” 2010: 4, accessed 2011-09-08, http://www.ng.undp.org/mdgs/MDG-Count-Down-strategy-report.pdf. See also, NMDG: Report 2010. The five areas of “average achievement” are Goals 2-4, 6, and 8. See “Nigeria MDGs: Countdown Strategy,” 17, Table 2.2. “Nine out of ten eligible children are now in school … However, disadvantaged groups are still excluded and the quality of education remains poor” (4); “Malaria infection rates have dropped, but malaria still accounts for an average of 300,000 deaths each year” (5); “Drop-out rates for girls are higher in schools that do not have separate toilet facilities for boys and girls” (24); “Diseases due to poor water and sanitation cause the loss of millions of school days each year. … [T]he education system largely excludes disadvantaged groups and the quality of education is poor” (33). “Nigeria MDGs: Countdown Strategy,” all quotations. The other, “less satisfying” areas relate to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, improving maternal health and ensuring environmental sustainability. “Five out of every ten Nigerians still live in poverty. However, nutrition has improved significantly.” (4); “The proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel increased slightly from 36 per cent in 2003 to 39 per cent in 2008” (5); “A quarter of children … aged between 5 and 15 are engaged in work such as street hawking” (23). “Nigeria MDGs: Countdown Strategy,” all quotations. 51 See United Nations Development Programme, “UNDP’s Support to the Achievement of the MDGs in Nigeria,” accessed 2011-09-08, http://www.ng.undp.org/nigeriamdgs.shtml. See also United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006, NY: United Nations, 2006: 1-28, accessed 2011-09-08, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/resources/static/products/progress2006/mdgreport2006.pdf. 52 “Agriculture must be linked to a comprehensive industrial strategy so as to create jobs for the teeming millions of our unemployed youth. Nigeria’s future lies in an agriculture-led industrialisation strategy.” Centre for Democracy and Development, “Vision 20-2020 and Nigeria’s Poverty Eradication Strategy: Re-Energising the Policy Agenda,” Memorandum to the Federal Government by Civil Society Organisations for the dialogue on Nigeria’s current development, Challenges organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development, Rockview Hotel, Abuja, Nigeria, 2008-05-22: 25, accessed 2011-09-08. http://www.cddwestafrica.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=34&Itemid=60; also see 17ff and 25ff. 53 See T. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001), 25.

287

Nation States & Islamic Jihad Modern Nigeria is a relatively recent construct born out of British colonialism. It came into being in 1914 when Sir Frederick Lugard, the first high commissioner of Northern Nigeria and the first governor general of Nigeria, amalgamated the two British protectorates of Southern and Northern Nigeria into one political unit.54 Flora Shaw, a British journalist for The Times, who later married Lugard, had suggested the name “Nigeria” as early as 1898.55 For most of its history, Nigeria, divided by the Y-shaped confluence of the Benue and Niger Rivers, existed as three non-related regions of more or less independent socio- political groupings. Governance differed from region to region.56 In the southeast the Igbo were part of an egalitarian community-based system ruled by interconnected yet autonomous matrilineal or patrilineal based villages.57 In the southwest the Yoruba formed a confederate of independent nation states which traced their common heritage from Ile-Ifé. To the north the Hausa were arranged in dynastic city-states each led by a mai, or ruler, later known as emir.58

Muslim traders introduced Islam into the northern region in the eleventh century, but the Islamization of Hausaland occurred mainly in the fifteenth century when Islam was formalized as the state religion in a number of Hausa states.59 Muslim Fulani,

54 Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, 17. 55 M. Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, rev. ed. (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), 21. 56 See O. B. Osodolar and L. E. Otoide, “State Formation in Precolonial Nigeria: A Historiographic Assessment,” in Pre-colonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, ed. A. Ogundiran (Trenton: AWP, 2005), 159-72. 57 See A. I. Okpoko and A. M. Ibeanu, “Igbo Civilization: An Archaeological and Historical Ethnographic Profile,” in A. Ogundiran, ed., esp. 185. See also E. Uchendu, “Women, Power and Political Institution in Igboland,” in A. Ogundiran, ed., 203-14. 58 Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 40. 59 S. Shankar, “Religion, State and Society in Hausaland: History and the Politics of Incorporation in the Kano Chronicle,” in A. Ogundiran, ed., 285-86.

288 originally nomadic herdsman and traders, acted as counselors and administrators in the Hausa courts. Beginning in 1804, Usman dan Fodio, an Islamic scholar and reformer, led a six year jihad to purify Islam by eliminating syncretism, establishing the supremacy of the Koran, and sparking a revival of orthodox Islamic faith and practice among less devote Muslims.60 By 1812 the old Hausa dynasties had become part of an Islamic state known as the Sokoto Caliphate and, by 1830,61 the resulting caliphate had become the largest political unit in Nigerian history extending across the northern region and encompassing Yoruba territory as far south as Ilorin. The caliphate was divided into several emirates, each headed by emirs with enormous power.62 The manner in which the Sokoto Caliphate was created is important. Dan Fodio’s nineteenth century religious jihad was meant to purify the faith. But it was part of a larger mission to create in northern Nigeria a theocratic state: a politico-religious entity faithful to Allah under the rule of Islam. That vision has not died out after 200 years. According to Sir Ahmud Bello,63 there is an ancient Islamic prophecy that “the Fulani would dip the Holy Koran in the sea.”64 Given this inspiration, the goal of territorial expansion has little reason to fade in Nigeria. And since in the Caliphate religion and politics are both equally important means of maintaining identity, purity, and existence, the nature and power of the forces that help shape the current political quagmire in Nigeria are more easily seen.65

60 See C. J. Korieh, “Islam and Politics in Nigeria: Historical Perspectives,” in Religion, History, and Politics in Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ogbu U. Kalu, edited by C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji (Lanham: UPA, 2005), 112. See also, S. N. Nwabara, “The Fulani Conquest and Rule of the Hausa Kingdom of Northern Nigeria (1804-1900),” Jour. de la Société des Africanistes 33 (1963): 231-42. 61 Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 106. 62 Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, 16. 63 Sir A. Bello (1910-66) was the great, great grandson of U. dan Fodio and the ruling Sardauna (war leader) of the Sokoto Caliphate. He led the Muslim dominated Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), established in 1949. 64 Sir A. Bello, My Life, 2nd ed. (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 16. 65 See Korieh, “Islam and Politics,” in C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, eds., 112-13.

289

The linkage between statehood, religion, politics, and jihad is clear in a recent (June 16, 2011) article from The Nigerian Voice News:

ꜛBoko Haram, the Islamist sect terrorising and orchestrating deadly attacks in Northern Nigeria has said that it (sic) associates from Somalia have arrived Nigeria (sic) to orchestrate fiercer and deadly attacks in the country.

‘Very soon, we will wage jihad … our jihadists have arrived in Nigeria from Somalia where they received real training on warfare from our brethren who made that country ungovernable…,’ (sic) said the group in a handwritten statement.

… Also known as the Nigerian Talibans … Boko Haram, meaning “Western Civilization is Forbidden”, seeks the imposition of fundamentalist Islamic law into the region through two crusades: wage a holy war in the existing Islamic provinces of Nigeria and overcome the secularist presence, and secondly to expand that operation into the rest of the country in order to defeat the non-Muslim entities and establish the Emirate of Nigeria.

… The group … has allegedly been in existence since 1995, though under many different names.66

Colonial Legacy67

ꜛBritain was politically active in Nigeria just shy of 100 years: Lagos was made a British colony in 1861 and the country gained its independence in 1960. Nigeria was

66 I. G. Ringim, “Boko Haram import militias from Somalia, vows fiercer attacks,” The Nigerian Voice News, 2011-06-16, accessed 2011-09-19, http://www.thenigerianvoice.com/nvnews/54024/1/boko- haram-import-militias-from-somalia-vows-fierc.html. On 2011-08-26, Boko Haram, in a suicide attack, car bombed the UN complex in Abuja killing 18 people. See accessed 2011-11-2, http://peoplesworld.org/ bombing-of-un-s-nigeria-office-raises-questions/. Boko Haram in the Hausa language may also be translated, “Western education is sacrilege.” D. Hinshaw, “Attacks in Nigeria kill at least 143,” Wall Street Journal Online, 2012-01-21, accessed 2012-01-21, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970 204301404577174601103950824.html. 67 A number of the points in this section are contradicted in A. Abba, “The Misrepresentation of Nigeria by Nigerians and Others,” Paper presented at a workshop on behalf of the Nigeria UN Reform Committee, Assembly Hall, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, 2005, 1-20, accessed 2011-09-21. http://www.ceddert.com/publications/ceddert004.pdf. I do not agree with Abba.

290 under direct imperial control for a little more than a generation,68 from 1914 through 1960. In that time Britain left a legacy that continues to trouble Nigeria today. First, the mere creation of Nigeria has caused problems. When the boundaries of Nigeria were drawn in Berlin during the Scramble for Africa, a country was formed that included groups of peoples who, up until that point, had never considered themselves joined. Nigeria’s national unity and identity is constrained by arbitrarily determined geographical parameters rather than by natural affinities for each other.69 As Obafemi Awolowo said in 1947, “Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There is no

‘Nigerians’ in the sense as there are ‘English,’ ‘Welsh,’ or ‘French.’ The word ‘Nigerian’ is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria from those who do not.”70 Bugaje71 said, thirteen years after independence,

Can a people of divergent and conflicting worldviews, cultures and history forced under one colonial administrative unit, hardly sharing anything beyond the common misfortune of falling prey to British imperialism, form a nation? Is this common misfortune, which indeed they all share in itself, a sufficient cohesive force to integrate and hold together these diverse groups?72

68 From “Anatomy of an Explosion,” Christian Hist. 79 (2003): 8, an interview with O. Kalu, accessed 2010-07-03, http:// www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2003/issue79/6.7.html. Kalu collapses the colonial period into a generation. 69 See Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 158ff. 70 O. Awolowo, Path to Nigerian Freedom (London: Faber & Faber, 1947), 47-48, quoted in E. Nwaubani, “Constitution-Making and the Nigerian Identity, 1914-1960,” in The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, ed., A. Oyebade, 1, 2 vols series (Trenton: AWP, 2002), 88. 71 In 2011, U. M. Bugaje (n. 1951-09) was the Action Congress of Nigeria’s (ACN) gubernatorial candidate contesting in Katsina State, Nigeria. Previously he worked with the Islam in Africa Organisation (IAO), and taught at Ahamdu Bello University, Zaria and the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. He has published in both academic and non-academic journals and other media, and served as the political adviser to vice president A. Abubakar for four years. See “About Hon. (Dr) Usman Bugaje” in U. Bugaje, “The Failure of the National Assembly,” paper presented at the International Conference on Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria 2005, Imperial College, South Kensington Campus, London, UK, 2005- 06-25, accessed 2011-09-19, http://www.fggn.org/conference.html. See also accessed 2011-09-19, http:// allafrica.com/stories/201102240191.html. 72 U. M. Bugaje, “The Islamic Political System and the Political Future of Nigeria,” Paper presented at the National Conference on the Political Future of Nigeria organized by the Muslim Forum,

291

After World War II the struggle for nationhood brought Nigerians together for a time, overcoming ethnic and religious divisions. But in one sense, the desire for independence was as much a reaction against fifty years of colonial rule as it was a desire to establish an autonomous, unified African nation. As Falola has pointed out, the effort to unite the country after independence was taken on by poets and playwrights, perhaps more effectively than by the politicians.73 Second, the British endorsed the Muslim ruling class in the north. When Lugard subdued the Caliphate in 1903, he left intact the already entrenched Muslim aristocracy.

British colonial officials, intrigued by the sophistication of the administrative structure of the Sokoto Caliphate,74 adopted it as the vehicle for indirect rule. Under the British many things remained unchanged and traditional kings and chiefs continued to govern their territories using political structures and social institutions with which the people were already familiar.75 On the face of it, indirect rule made sense. It was cheaper and required less staff than trying to govern the area through a cadre of British administrators. When Lugard first took control of northern Nigeria, it had a population of ten million people and he had a staff of only nine European administrators plus a regiment of the West African Frontier Force consisting of 3,000 African troops led by European officers. By the late 1930s the population in all of Nigeria had increased to twenty million people and still less than 400 colonial administrators governed the country.76 But for the Fulani it further enforced their sense of privilege and cultural superiority, reinforcing their elitist

Zaria, Nigeria, 1986-08-01/3, quoted in Korieh, “Islam and Politics,” in C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, eds., 114. 73 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 159-63. 74 O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman: Islam and Shari’a in Pentecostal Rhetoric: A Nigerian Case Study,” in African Pentecostalism: An Introduction, ed., O. Kalu (NY: Oxford U. Press, 2008), 228. 75 See Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 112. 76 M. Meredith, The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence (NY: Public Affairs, Perseus Books Group, 2005), 5.

292 political position and building on nearly a century of self-satisfaction, dating back to dan Fodio’s jihad.77 Lugard’s attitude toward the Fulani is evident in his first annual report as high commissioner: “The Fulani rule has been maintained as an experiment, for … I am anxious to utilize, if possible, their wonderful intelligence for they are born rulers.”78 Third, under colonial rule the Muslim north was advanced at the expense of the south. Despite being much larger than the south,79 the north required annual subsidies: in the period 1906-1912, an average of £300,000 from England and £70,000 from the south.80 Since the south operated at a surplus and had a long seaboard available for international commerce and shipping, colonial authorities came to believe that the more prosperous Southern Protectorate could subsidize the North until such time as the North became self-supporting.81 In 1912 Britain decided that the two regions would be joined. Lugard who had moved to Hong Kong as governor in 1906,82 returned to oversee the amalgamation and the process was completed in 1914.83 Fourth, when the north and south were joined they were not united. Since the amalgamation was based on financial expediency rather than on any broader vision of

Nigeria as a whole, the socio-political particularisms of Southern and Northern Nigeria were maintained rather than harmonized.84 Against advice, Lugard governed Nigeria as two regions, preserving the distinction between the north and the south rather than

77 Korieh, “Islam and Politics,” in C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, eds., 115. 78 Sir F. Lugard, Annual Report for Northern Nigeria 1901. Report for period 1901-01 to 1901-03, 15, quoted in Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 220. 79 The north comprises approximately two thirds of Nigeria’s landmass. 80 Nwaubani, “Constitution-Making,” in Transformation, ed., A. Oyebade, 76. 81 Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 241. 82 T. Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912 (NY: Random House, 1991), 653. 83 See Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, chap. 14, esp. 232. 84 See Nwaubani, “Constitution-Making,” in Transformation, ed., A. Oyebade, 76.

293 breaking the country up into smaller provinces. In the south Lugard employed native administrators in a system similar to the indirect rule he used in the north. But unlike in the north where the emirs were content to extend their powers under British authority over an already subservient emirate, in the southwest indirect rule was neither a concession to nor an extension of traditional rulers’ roles. In the south obas were not sovereigns and the new authority and political powers they received as agents for the British administration violated customary patterns.85 Among the egalitarian Ibo of southeastern Nigeria, indirect rule and the imposition of a new system of warrant chiefs was perhaps even worse than among the Yoruba and it radically altered traditional political, economic, and social patterns.86 Fifth, the colonial administration preserved the Muslim identity of the north by deliberately restricting Christian activity in Muslim areas in the north.87 Lugard, whose parents had been missionaries,88 promised the Sultan of Sokoto that he would not interfere with the Muslim religion.89 Missionaries were barred from emirates, although much lobbying modified this to a ‘one mission, one emirate’ policy.90 This was partially

85 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 117. 86 See Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 246-50; Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 112-18 and 132. Also see Achebe’s poignant description of the social disruptions caused by the advent of colonial rule in eastern Nigeria at the end of the nineteenth century in K. Appiah, Introduction to Things Fall Apart, by C. Achebe (NY: A.A. Knopf, 1958). On Achebe see a brief biography at accessed 2012-01-18, http://kirjasto.sci.fi/achebe.htm. 87 See C. N. Ubah, “Christian Missionary Penetration of the Nigerian Emirates, with Special Reference to the Medical Missions Approach,” Muslim World 77 (1987): 16-27. 88 Lugard’s hero was D. Livingstone. But in 1887 he “lost his faith in God.” For the story see Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, 413. 89 E. Ikenga-Metuh, “Muslim Resistance to Missionary Penetration of Northern Nigeria, 1857- 1960: A Missiological Interpretation,” Mission Studies 3 (1986): 32. See also Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 236. 90 Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 228. See A. E. Barnes, “‘Evangelization Where It Is Not Wanted’: Colonial Administrators and Missionaries in Northern Nigeria during the First Third of the Twentieth Century,” JRA 25 (1995): 412-41.

294 for political reasons. Personally Lugard had high regard for missionaries,91 but he wanted to maintain good relations with the Muslim leaders and sensed that if he protected their interests from Christian missionary intrusion they would better protect the interests of Britain.92 But his efforts were also a reflection of the time and possibly mixed with a white fascination with Islamic culture.93 When Christian missionaries entered southern Nigeria, they appeared irresistibly drawn to the Muslim north,94 and by the time that the British assumed control of northern Nigeria in 1903, there had already been a serious debate in England as to whether Africa should be left for the Muslims to evangelize.95

Lugard, apparently, considered northern Nigeria his “spiritual home.”96 At one point he wanted to move the central government from Lagos to Kaduna.97 But restricting Christian missionary activity in the north only entrenched the religious differences between the Christian south and Muslim north and further demarked the north from the south. Sixth, because Christian missions were restricted in the north, Muslims did not have access to western education provided by church schools.98 Trained administrators

91 Ikenga-Metuh, “Muslim Resistance,” 33. 92 See Korieh, “Islam and Politics,” in C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, eds., 113. 93 “Arts, architecture, durbars and horses and the speed of the cavalry and tone of skin colour led to the racist conclusion that this was a non-African people and culture worthy of protection and preservation.” See O. Kalu, “Shari’a and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970-1973,” paper presented at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, 2003, quoted in Korieh, “Islam and Politics,” in C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, eds., 114. 94 “The encounter between Islam and Christianity in Northern Nigeria was not an encounter over proselytization, but over the conversion of the vast numbers of adherents of Traditional Religions in the area. … the European missionaries, [not realizing this] still nursed the hope of converting Muslims.” Ikenga-Metuh, “Muslim Resistance,” 34. 95 See T. Prasch, “Which God for Africa: The Islamic-Christian Missionary Debate in Late- Victorian England,” Victorian Studies 33 (1989): 51-73. See also Walls’ essay, A. F. Walls, “Africa as the Theatre of Christian Engagement with Islam in the Nineteenth Century,” JRA 29 (1999): 155-74. 96 Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 243. 97 G. N. Uzoigwe, “Federalism Versus Centralism: Continuity and Change,” in The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, edited by A. Oyebade, (Trenton: AWP, 2003), 185. 98 Emirs did not seek western education for a variety of reasons. Tibenderana argues against this view, but in doing so, perhaps, he inadvertently concedes his position with his argument. See P. K.

295 and clerks were required under indirect rule and a new “élite” developed in Nigeria based on educational achievement rather than age or social class or traditional roles. The church, already active in missions and health care, became responsible for education and, up until 1899, was the sole source of western education in Nigeria.99 As a result, northern Muslims were at a significant disadvantage. Just prior to independence the number of secondary schools in the south outnumbered those in the north by twenty to one. By 1950, graduates from southern universities numbered in the hundreds as compared to just one in the north.100 Most of the clerks and administrators in northern Nigeria were from the south, educated in mission schools, converted during their studies, and subsequently hired to fill colonial civil service vacancies in the north.101 They lived in segregated areas commonly known as sabon gari, “strangers’ quarters.”102 The paucity of educated personnel was felt most pointedly just before independence. Starting after 1951, the Western and Eastern Regions sought full internal self-government. The Northern Region opposed the move indicating that it was not ready yet for self-government; they still lacked sufficient personnel. It was decided that while no region would be compelled to become self-governing, regions could chose to govern themselves beginning in 1956. Both the Western and the Eastern Regions opted for self-government in 1957; the Northern region did not become self-governing until 1959,103 just one year before

Tibenderana, “The Emirs and the Spread of Western Education in Northern Nigeria, 1910-1946,” JAH 24 (1983): 517-34. 99 The first government founded primary school was in Lagos. It was established to provide education for Muslim children. See A. B. Fafunwa, History of Education in Nigeria (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1974), 95. 100 K. Maier, This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis (Boulder: Westview, 2000), 11, referencing E. E. Osaghae, Crippled Giant: Nigeria Since Independence (London: Hurst and Company, 1998), 5. Falola cites that “by 1960 over 700 secondary schools were in operation in the southwest alone, and over forty in the north.” Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 146. 101 Ibid., 150. 102 Maier, This House Has Fallen, 11. 103 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 154.

296 national independence. The educational divide since independence continues to exist between southern and northern Nigeria. Currently, in all of Nigeria, nearly nine out of ten children, 88.8 per cent, are enrolled in school. But the differences between regions are stark. State primary completion rates range from two per cent in the north and northeast to ninety-nine per cent in the southeast.104 In the north, the literacy rate of youths aged 15-24 ranges from 49-73%; in the south it ranges from 83-99%.105 And girls in the north are particularly disadvantaged. In 2008 the number of girls per 100 boys in primary education in the south ranged from 91 to 115; across the north the range was 42 to 79.106

Cultural barriers in the north discourage girls from attending school 107 and it is clear that these and other issues will need to be addressed if the disparity between the south and north regions is ever to be adequately bridged. As a final legacy of the colonial era, regionalism, with its constellation of attendant difficulties, was enshrined in Nigeria’s constitution. Onwuekwe has suggested that it was Britain, for imperialistic purposes, who wanted to keep Nigeria as a single political unit rather than dividing it into smaller independent states along ethnic lines.108

Whether he is correct or not that is certainly what happened: the pre-existing colonial boundaries that defined Nigeria as one country were retained. But functionally, Britain’s colonial administration in its role as chief architect and director of Nigeria’s constitutional evolution recognized and designed substantial division into Nigeria as

104 See NMDG: Report 2010, 5-6; also ibid., Fig. 5: Primary completion rate by state, 2007, 19. 105 Ibid., Figure 7, Youth literacy by state, 2008, 21. 106 Ibid., Figure 10: Ratio of girls to boys in primary education by state, 24. 107 Ibid., 5. On women and education in northern Nigeria, see P. Williams, “The Impact of Islam on Women in Hausaland and Northern Nigeria,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 591-622; M. Csapo, “Religious, Social and Economic Factors Hindering the Education of Girls in Northern Nigeria,” Comparative Ed. 17 (1981): 311-19; and P. K. Tibenderana, “The Beginnings of Girls’ Education in the Native Administration Schools in Northern Nigeria, 1930-1945,” JAH 26 (1985): 93-109. 108 See C. B. Onwuekwe, “Constitutional Development, 1914-1960: British Legacy or Local Exigency?” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 156.

297 well.109 Three constitutions were drawn up between 1945 and 1960 in preparation for Nigeria’s independence110 and in each of them regionalism, with its inherent religious, ethnic, cultural, and social distinctions, was used as the basis of political governance. Whatever the intent, the effect was to create three autonomous, connected but competing, ethno-religious regional powers. It does seem true that this regional division, while obviously based in fact and desire, was not initially an indigenous formulation. British administrators played a leading role in defining the nation. And it was not until the crafting of the second constitution, the Macpherson Constitution, negotiated in 1950 and effected in 1951, that Nigerians were consulted in the creation of the governing blueprint for their country.111 At that time, all levels of society were involved: village, district, provinces, and regions, with a final general conference held in Ibadan in 1950.112

Constitutional Evolution The first of the three independence-driven constitutions, the 1946113 Richards’ Constitution, divided the country into three regions along ethnic/religious lines114 – the

Northern, Western and Eastern Regions – each with substantial powers to run their affairs

109 Uzoigwe’s analysis of Nigeria, and Lugard’s role and errors in its creation, is riveting, insightful, and delightfully opinionated. See G. N. Uzoigwe, “Federalism Versus Centralism,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 181-99. 110 For details see “Three Constitutions,” in Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, 273-88; Nwaubani, “Constitution-Making,” in Transformation, ed., A. Oyebade, 73-112; and J. O. Adekunle, “Nationalism, Ethnicity, and National Integration: An Analysis of Political History” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 405-33. 111 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 149 and 152-53. 112 See E. E. G. Iweriebor, “Nationalism and the Struggle for Freedom, 1880-1960,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 99; and Nwaubani, “Constitution-Making,” in Transformation, ed., A. Oyebade,89. Onwuekwe views this differently: “With the exception of the 1954 conference, there was no real participation of Nigerians in the constitutional development of their own country.” Onwuekwe, “Constitutional Development,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 156-57; also see 169. 113 This Constitution was made effective 1947-01-01. Iweriebor, “Nationalism,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 99. 114 See A. Oyebade, “A Retrospect on Colonial Nigeria,” in Foundations, ed. by A. Oyebade, 24.

298 autonomously. By including the Northern Region in the central legislature for the first time,115 the Constitution promoted greater unity. But at the same time it ensured that the North would not lose its separate identity. Further, with the creation of Regional houses of assembly, regional distinctives were reinforced, the country was moved closer to federation,116 and the difficulties involved in creating a single, united Nigeria were exposed.117 With the second constitution, the 1951 Macpherson Constitution, three ethno- regional political parties were formed to contest the Regional elections. Each party was dependent upon and deliberately solicited ethnic support in their Regions.118 The National

Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), was created in 1944 and led by Herbert Macaulay119 and Nnamdi Azikiwe.120 As an Ibo, Azikiwe attracted support mainly from the Christian Ibos of the Nigerian southeast. Chief Obafemi Awolowo,121 a Yoruba

115 Iweriebor, “Nationalism,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 96. 116 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 148. 117 Iweriebor, “Nationalism,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 96. 118 Ibid., 100. 119 Oyebade, “A Retrospect,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 23. Macauley (1864-1945), the father of Nigerian nationalism, was the son of missionary and school principal, Rev. T. B. Macaulay; his grandfather was Bishop S. Crowther. He trained as a land surveyor and civil engineer in Plymouth England, returned to Nigeria in 1893, worked with the colonial government, and later resigned to establish a private practice in Lagos. In 1922, he founded the Nigeria National Democratic Party (NNDP), and later became the first president of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC). Macauley’s portrait appears on the one Naira (N1) coin. See accessed 2011-09-28, http://www.banknoteden.com/TMFOM%20 Nigeria%201.htm. For more on Macaulay, see Iweriebor, “Nationalism,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 89-90. 120 Azikiwe (1904-1996), dubbed “the Great Zik,” was the son of a Nigerian civil servant. He was educated in mission schools and travelled in the United States where he earned two degrees. He worked in the Gold Coast (Ghana) as a journalist, and later founded his own newspaper in Nigeria, The West African Pilot. By the outbreak of the Second World War Azikiwe’s publications and leadership skills had made him the most revered nationalist in Nigeria. See Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 144-45. Before independence “Zik” advocated the creation of eight states, not three, with a strong central government capable of maintaining national unity. See ibid, 149-50. 121 Awolowo (1909-1987), a wealthy cocoa farmer, advocated Yoruba nationalism and sought control of southwestern politics in his effort to promote Yoruba progress. He studied law in London shortly before the Second World War. See ibid, 150-51.

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Christian, led the Action Group (AG) party,122 formed in 1947, shortly before the ratification of the 1951 MacPherson Constitution. And Alhaji123 Sir Ahmadu Bello (1910- 1966), the great, great grandson of Usman dan Fodio and the ruling Sardauna (war leader124) of the Sokoto Caliphate, led the Muslim dominated Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), established in 1949.125 Despite their drive to nationalism, ethnically based politics dominated each party’s agenda. “The NPC was the Hausa/Fulani shield against Southern brashness and domination; the AG was the Yoruba answer to NCNC (read Igbo) hegemony.”126 But for all of the parties in each of the regions, the primary impulse was to become the sole political contender in their home region. The 1951 Macpherson Constitution collapsed in 1953127 and the 1954 Lyttleton Constitution was developed and put into effect in 1955. By the early 1950s, however, it

122 Originally Awolowo and Azikiwe were part of the Lagos Youth Movement (LYM) formed in 1934 to demand improvements in higher education. In 1936 the LYM became a nationalist organization and changed its name to the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM). When Azikiwe split from the NYM in 1941 over an ethnically motivated controversy to form the NCNC, Awolowo, a strong proponent of Yoruba interests assumed leadership. Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 141 and 150. In 1945 while in London Awolowo founded the cultural organization called the Egbe Omo Oduduwa [EOO] – literally, the Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa, Oduduwa being the mythical founder of the Yoruba people. Ibid., 151. The EOO was established in Nigeria in 1947; its name was later changed to form the ethnically oriented political party, the Action Group (AG). Awolowo assumed leadership in 1951. See R. C. Njoku, “The ‘Colonial Hangovers’ and the Collapse of Nigeria’s First Republic, 1960-1966,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 509. For an interesting study on Yoruba ethnic politics see O. Vaughn, “Political Ethnicity in Western Nigeria: Chieftaincy, Communal Identities, and Party Politics,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 435-62. 123 Alhaji is an Hausa-Arabic title designating men who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca; Hajiya is the corresponding title used for women. 124 P. E. Lovejoy, “Historical Setting,” in H. C. Metz, ed., “Country Profile: Nigeria, July 2008.” 5th ed. (Washington: Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, 1992), accessed 2011-10-25, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/ngtoc.html. Bello aspired to, but never was the Sultan of Sokoto. 125 Originally formed in 1943 and called the Bauchi General Improvement Union, the BGIU was renamed the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) in 1949. “Its founders sought primarily to promote northern unity in the fight to maintain regional autonomy for the north in the face of what seemed like impending southern domination.” Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 151. For the first general election in Nigerian history, called in 1951 under the MacPherson Constitution, “the NPC transformed itself from a cultural organization into a political party as well [just like Awolowo’s AG].” Ibid., 152. 126 Nwaubani, “Constitution-Making,” in Transformation, ed., A. Oyebade,95. 127 See Iweriebor, “Nationalism,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 101.

300 was becoming clear that Nigeria was forming into three distinct zones based on the regional divisions of the country.128 When Awolowo campaigned in the north in May 1953 – after the furor that caused the constitutional crisis in Lagos earlier that year during which the Northern representatives were humiliated for not supporting a motion for accelerated independence129 – there were riots in Kano. Fifty people died, more than two hundred others were wounded, and property was destroyed on a widespread basis.130 Politics, religion, ethnicity, and regionalism all united to make a volatile, murderous mix. “Delightfully, unlike most countries in Africa, Nigeria obtained independence without bloodshed.”131 But regional biases would tear at the fabric of the nation for decades. Today (2013) Nigeria is comprised of thirty-six states, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, and 774 local government areas (LGAs). Regional tensions continue to frustrate national integration.132

Since Independence Since 1960 things in Nigeria have not gone well. The transition itself, from

British rule to independence, went smooth enough. October 1, 1960 was a day of celebration, high expectation, and buoyant hope. It was generally thought that Nigeria would assume a prominent place on the continent.133 But something went wrong. In Chinua Achebe’s words,134 “This house has fallen.”135 His diagnosis in 1968 was that

128 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 152. 129 Iweriebor, “Nationalism,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 101. 130 Nwaubani, “Constitution-Making,” in Transformation, ed., A. Oyebade,100. 131 An ironic assessment by Onwuekwe, “Constitutional Development,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 174. 132 See fig. 2 → on page xv. 133 Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, 158. 134 Achebe is one of Nigeria’s premier writers, and a fierce critic of his country’s woes. For a brief biography on Achebe, see accessed 2012-01-18, http://kirjasto.sci.fi/achebe.htm.

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“The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”136 Uzoigwe offers a different perspective. He suggests that the real issue is in the political confusion that is part of Nigeria and he points to the fact that there are four different political systems operating in Nigeria simultaneously: monarchism, republicanism, federalism, and centralism. “The result is chaos and instability.”137 The most convicting assessment, perhaps, comes from Crowder. He argues that Nigeria was not ready for independence, nor was it fully invested in the idea of democracy. Crowder’s thought is that much of what has transpired in the country since 1960 has actually been a reflection of the example set by the colonial rulers.138 Regardless, in Nigeria’s five decades old history (1960-2012), nearly three of them (twenty-nine years) have been lived under eight military led dictatorships; Alhaji Shehu Shagari (1979-1983) was the nation’s only elected executive President before 1999.139 Over the years, corruption and inept leadership were typically cited as the reasons for each military intervention. But unfortunately each successive regime proved to be no better than its predecessor. Difficulties only deepened with the emergence of a rapacious class of politicians and politically connected ethnic élite who perceived state offices as contested means which, once secured, could be exploited to support themselves

135 “This is an example of a country that has fallen down; it has collapsed. This house has fallen.” C. Achebe, quoted in Maier, n. p., frontmatter. Maier used the last sentence as the title for his book, This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis. 136 C. Achebe, The Trouble with Nigeria (Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1968), 1. 137 Uzoigwe, “Federalism Versus Centralism,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 182. 138 M. Crowder, “Whose Dream was It Anyway? Twenty-Five Years of African Independence,” African Affairs 86 (1987): 7-24. 139 See E. O. Ojo, “Guarding the ‘Guardians’: A Prognosis of Panacea for Evolving Stable Civil– Military Relations in Nigeria,” Armed Forces & Society 35 (2009): 689-91. There were six successful coups and two failed coups between 1966 and 1993: 1966-01, 1966-07, 1975-07, 1976-02 (failed), 1983- 12, 1985-08, 1990-04 (failed), and 1993-11. Democracy was restored in 1999. For other W. African coups see P. J. McGowan, “Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part II, Empirical Findings,” Armed Forces & Society 32 (2006): 234-53.

302 and their patrons in shameless displays of affluence and privilege.140 The gap between those in power and those without power widened; and the political situation and social conditions grew steadily worse. The two regions of Nigeria, the north and the south, have come to suspect the agendas of the other and numerous events over the last 50 years have provided both fuel and substantiation to those suspicions.

Ethnic Division Ethnicity and the long-standing rivalries amongst tribal groups play a large part in this. With three dominant groups and over 250 culturally aware ethnic entities, some of which are larger than independent states in Africa, unity is a problem.141 Beginning in the 1950s, shortly after regional autonomy, minorities expressed concerns about the preservation of their languages and cultures, inequities in resource allocation, and widespread discrimination in favour of the dominant groups in each of the Regions. In the Middle Belt,142 central Nigeria, Christian minorities feared the continuation of autocratic rule by the Hausa/Fulani. They were particularly concerned that the Islamic religion would be imposed on the region.143 Minorities demanded that separate states be created in the east and the north. The Willink Commission investigated the complaints in 1957, and while acknowledging the legitimacy of some of the concerns, recommended against creating states, suggesting instead that human rights be specifically protected in the Nigerian Constitution.144

140 See R. A. Joseph, “Class, State, and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria,” in Africa: Dilemmas of Development and Change, edited by P. Lewis (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998), 44-63. 141 Ojo, “Guarding the ‘Guardians,’” 697. 142 The Middle Belt is identifiable with Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Adamawa, Taraba, Niger, Kaduna, Kwara, and Kogi states. 143 O. Akinwumi, “The Colonial Government and the Minority Question,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 569. 144 See R. T. Akinyele, “States Creation in Nigeria: The Willink Report in Retrospect,” African Studies Review 39 (1996): 71-94; and Akinwumi, “The Colonial Government,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 561.

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Since 1962, thirty-six states have been created for various reasons,145 but their formation has not brought greater peace or ethnic security. Minority issues continue unabated. Less than a decade after independence, the horrific Nigerian Civil War (1967- 1970) erupted, laying bare longstanding ethnic antagonisms.146 And in the Niger Delta, violence firmly fixed in the continuing struggle for minority rights and recognition escalates year by year.147 According to Oyo,

The complex nature of Nigeria’s citizenship compounds the problem. It is difficult for Nigerians to move outside their subnational state of origin because there is a type of dual citizenship status … people who seek work outside their local state run the risk of being tagged “non-indigene.” … Skilled workers from [other] states … are seen as “colonizers.” … there is a conscious notion of “my state” or “my home,” … people are mandated for example, to go “home” to build a home, marry, and even vote. … Even the dead are rarely buried outside their state of origin.148

Religious Division Intimately related to Nigeria’s ethnically based divisions are divisions that arise from religious belief and affiliation. The north is predominantly Muslim; the southeast is mainly Christian; and the southwestern Yoruba are almost equally divided between the two faiths.149 Indigenous religion accounts for 1.4% or 2.17 million people,150 but 8% of

145 In 1967 six states were created in an attempt to weaken support for Biafria and prevent civil war. Since then other states have been created in efforts to balance political and economic power, and to provide centers of power, or ‘empires,’ over which the élite dominate. See A. G. Adebayo, “The Collapse of Nigeria’s Federal System of Government,” in Foundations, edited by A. Oyebade, 127. 146 A. Oyebade, “Reluctant Democracy: The State, the Opposition, and the Crisis of Political Transition, 1985-1993,” in Transformation, ed., A. Oyebade,149. 147 See C. I. Obi, “Oil Extraction,” 219-36; and A. Oyebade, “Reluctant Democracy,” in Transformation, ed., A. Oyebade,150-51. 148 Ojo, “Guarding the ‘Guardians,’” 697. 149 P. Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, 2nd ed. (NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 201. 150 R. Ruby, sr. ed., Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals, A Project of the Pew Research Center in collaboration with Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2007): 85.

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Nigerians, including both Christians and Muslims, hold traditional religious beliefs and participate in traditional religious practices.151 Strikingly, unlike every other country in the world except India, Nigeria ranks as both a top ten Christian (ninth) and a top ten Muslim (eight) nation. By 2050 it is projected that Christians and Muslims in Nigeria will each more than double, from 61 to 130 million and from 55 to 111 million, respectively. If so, then Nigeria will have moved to the fifth largest Muslim country, surpassing Egypt, Iran, and Turkey, and the seventh largest Christian nation in the world.152 What is not seen in these figures, but which is clearly perceived by Muslims in

Nigeria, is the massive “tipping of the balance” that started in the twentieth century,153 accelerated after independence in 1960, and exploded during the charismatic revivals of the 1970s.154 After a century of hegemony (1804-1904), in the 100 years since 1900 Muslims have gone from 28% of Nigeria’s population to 45%. But during that same period the shift in Christianity has gone from 1% to 45%. It is this expansion that concerns Muslims. More and more, despite the conflicting accounts of competing statistics, the political reality in Nigeria seems to be clear: Muslims are not the majority, and their political hegemony is in danger. This has exacerbated tensions and helps to explain the frantic concern of some Muslims.155 As Jenkins says: “If you extrapolate

151 T. Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, A Project of the Pew Research Center in collaboration with Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2010), 34. 152 T. M. Johnson, “Christianity in Global Context: Trends and Statistics,” Paper prepared for Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 1-3, accessed 2010-07-23. These figures represent 2005; in 2010 there were 72.3 million Christians in Nigeria. See T. M. Johnson and K. R. Ross, “The Atlas of Global Christianity: Its Findings,” Paper presented at the Edinburgh 2010 Conference, Edinburgh, UK, June 5, 2010, 2, accessed 2010-11-13, s.vv. >Resources >2010 Conference >(under Saturday 5 June) The Atlas of Global Christianity: Its Findings, http://www.edinburgh2010.org/. 153 See Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, chap. 5. 154 See M. A. Ojo, The End-Time Army: Charismatic Movements in Modern Nigeria, ed. J. L. Cox and G. ter Haar (Trenton: AWP, 2006), esp. chaps. 2-3. 155 See J. Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity in Nigeria: Islam and a ‘Secular’ State,” JRA 26 (1996): 360. J. Kenny, O.P., PhD, was a Dominican priest who was also a professor and the Head of the Religious

305 recent Christian growth into the near future, no Muslim majority seems safe … Even nonpolitical Muslims worry: might their grandchildren be kaffirs [infidels]?”156 To add to the threat, Nigerian Christians are not quiet about their faith, not even in the North.157 The situation is tricky and increasingly volatile. ꜛNigerians are on a religious fault line that runs across Africa at the tenth parallel line of latitude (10o N).158 It roughly marks the meeting of Islam and Christianity, two exclusivist world religions, each rivaling the other for peoples’ allegiances. In Nigeria the dichotomy between Muslim and Christian worldviews coalesces around the role that religion plays in the state.159

Theocracy, or Secular State The fundamental question is whether Nigeria is a theocracy or secular state. On the face of it, one would think that the issue could be readily resolved. Section 10 of the Nigerian constitution reads: “The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.”160 The logical conclusion, by definition, is that since Nigeria has no officially declared religion, it is not a theocracy; it is a secular state.

Studies department at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He died recently, on 2013-01-28. See “Fr Joseph Kenny, OP RIP (1936-2013),” accessed 2013-08-01, http://www.op.org/en/content/fr-joseph-kenny-op-rip- 1936-2013. 156 P. Jenkins, “Third World War,” The American Conservative, 2010-04-01, para. 13, accessed 2011-10-07, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/third-world-war/. 157 See Ojo, The End-Time Army, 63-69; and O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 240-41. See also J. K. Asamoah-Gyadu, “‘Born of Water and the Spirit’: Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity in Africa,” in African Christianity: An African Story, ed. O. Kalu (Trenton: AWP, 2007), 339-57; and O. U. Kalu, “Beauty for Ashes: Pentecostalism, Power, and Poverty, 1970-1996,” in Power, Poverty and Prayer: The Challenges of Poverty and Pluralism in African Christianity, 1960-1996 (NJ: AWP, 2006), 133-69. 158 See Jenkins, The Next Christendom, esp. chap. 8; Jenkins, “Third World War”; E. Griswold, The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam (NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010); and R. Khan, “Riz Khan - Religious fault lines,” Al Jazeera English, Video interview with E. Griswold aired on 2011-01-27, accessed 2011-10-9, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/rizkhan/ 2011/01/2011127144427729398.html. See also Preface in Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension, ii. 159 See Figure 3 → on page xvi, as found, Preface in Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension, i. 160 Constitution of the Fed. Republic of Nigeria 1999, accessed 2011-10-10, http://www.nigeria- law.org/ConstitutionOfTheFederalRepublicOfNigeria.htm.

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The Constitution reflects both the fact of Nigeria’s historical plurality of religions – Islam, Christianity, and traditional religions – and the hope inherent in the idea of a secular society: the yearning for a community in which there is peaceful coexistence between differing religions and worldviews, governance based on common beliefs shared by “enlightened” people, and charitable toleration that allows people to profess and practice any, all, or even no religious view at all.161 It is not that religion is unimportant in a secular state. On the contrary, it is highly valued. But the notion of non-preferential treatment is intended to ensure the freedom of personal belief and guarantee that no one religion governs national policy or has a privileged place in education.162 For Christians, commonly, state and religion are held to be separate based on such texts as Matthew 22:21163 and John 18:36.164 It is purported that “Christianity makes a clear theological distinction between the domain of religion and that of state power.”165 At times Muslims seem to confuse secularism as an anti-religious movement and secularity as government neutrality,166 but they are aware of the Christian position and object to it on an ideological basis.

161 See L. Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989), 215. 162 See Newbigin, “The Myth of the Secular Society,” in The Gospel, esp. 212. Newbigin argues persuasively that “the belief in a secular society is an unproven belief accepted uncritically to justify a social institution [and therefore, technically, a ‘myth’], and also that the belief is mistaken [and thus, is in the popular sense, a ‘myth,’ or ‘falsehood.’]” Ibid., 211. He advocates a Christian society based on profound discipleship. Ibid., 220-21. See also N. Sithole, “African Nationalism and Christianity,” Transition 10 (1963): 37-9. Written in 1963, Sithole argues, “The task of Christianity is primarily a religous (sic) and moral one. … but the task of African nationalism is fundamentally a political one. The two have separate roles which are not necessarily at variance with each other. … Christianity has nothing, or should have nothing, to do with African nationalism.” Ibid., 37-38. 163 “Then [Jesus] said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” 164 “Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.’” 165 J. Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria: The Parameters of the 1987 Crisis in Kaduna State,” Review of African Political Economy 45/46 (1989): 74. 166 According to Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 355.

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It is the view of the Muslims that no government worth its salt will ignore the religions of its peoples. If a government agrees to leave the religious affairs of its subjects out of its domains while knowing fully well that religion, especially the spiritual aspect of it, is potent in the lives of the peoples, such a government will certainly be neglecting its responsibility and such an action can lead to its loss of control of the people entirely … (sic) It is the view of the Muslims that the Federal and State governments must create an avenue of involving itself with the religions of its people without discrimination.167 In Islam, there is no separation between the secular and the religious, between Islam and the state. The Qur’an is the rule book and guide for life, law, and legislation.168

In the Christian south the issue of the relationship of faith and the state is older than Nigeria itself. During the colonial period American Baptists, for example, struggled with taking grants-in-aid from the colonial government to fund part of the operation of their schools. Anglicans, being accustomed to their historical position as the Established Church, had less of an issue. But in 1951 the American Baptists reviewed the problem and decided that Baptist-training institutions, at least, should be wholly funded out of religious funds by the American Baptist Mission Board. For its part, the Nigerian Baptist Convention – considering that the practice had been in place since 1926 – elected to continue taking government support for Baptist run schools rather than to have them shut down for lack of funding.169 In the North, education and grants-in-aid were not an issue. Neither was the fact that Nigeria was an avowed secular state. Long before Lugard, northern states functioned

167 “Remarks from the council of ulama, national headquarters, zaria,” New Nigerian, 1986-03-17, quoted in Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 355. 168 See G. W. Braswell, Jr., Islam: Its Prophet, Peoples, Politics and Power (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1966), 287. 169 M. M. Ogbeidi, “American Missionaries and Educational Development in Colonial Nigeria,” in Religion, History, and Politics, edited by C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, 103ff.

308 as theocracies. During colonial rule, and after independence, Islam was the unofficial state religion of the North.170

The Imperative of Islamic Expansion Out of these competing visions of the Nigerian state flows another issue: can Nigeria remain a secular state or must it become Muslim. For Christians, secularity is a desirable necessity. But Muslims might want to transform Nigeria into an Islamic state for a number of reasons: concern over the encroachment of Christianity and the shrinking majority of Muslims in Nigeria; the fear of losing power and influence, especially in the north and among the non-Muslim, former animist peoples of the Middle Belt border states;171 the need among northern politicians and élite to establish political legitimacy;172 and the inability to accept a secular mindset, viewing it as “godless” and the cause of slackening morals.173 Sanneh highlights the last fear in a comment shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 Al- Qaeda terrorist attacks in New York City. He refers specifically to the United States, but his analysis is relevant for Nigeria as well. He says:

Oddly enough, what most inflames anti-American passion among fundamentalist Muslims may be the American government's lack of religious zeal. By separating church and state, the West — and America in particular — has effectively privatized belief, making religion a matter of individual faith. This is an affront to the certainty of fundamentalist Muslims, who are confident that they possess the infallible truth. For them, this truth is not a private revelation but a public imperative, and states, like people, are either Muslim or infidel. America's government is not anti-

170 See H. Bienen, “Religion, Legitimacy, and Conflict in Nigeria,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 483 (1986): 60. 171 See Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria,” esp. 77-79; and J. I. Elaigwu and H. Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a over Nigerian Federalism,” Publius 333 (2003): 128. 172 See Bienen’s essay on this, H. Bienen, “Religion, Legitimacy, and Conflict in Nigeria,” 50-60; and Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria,” 81. 173 Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 347.

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Muslim, but it is among the most secular. For fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden, that amounts to more or less the same thing.

This religious certainty is at odds with the very idea of the nation-state, as has been apparent from the earliest days of the modern Muslim fundamentalist movement. When he met with students from Saudi Arabia in November 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini explained that the demands of Islam went beyond — and often against — the demands of nationalism. He declared that Islam appealed to all mankind, not only to Iranians, and not only to Muslims. And he argued that secular states drained Islam of its vitality. Western governments “have completely separated [Islam] from politics,” he said. “They have cut off its head and [given] the rest to us.”174 From a Muslim perspective, secular states are a dangerous oxymoron. They are an affront to Islam – an affront, which they are obligated, according to the basic tenets of the faith to repel and replace. As Braswell explains,

Between A.D. 622 and A.D. 632, Muhammud established the Islamic community, the umma. It was an Islamic state. … Paganism, polytheism, and atheism were intolerable to the Islamic community. Peoples of these beliefs were considered the Dar al-Harb, the land of the ignorant or of unbelief. They were realms and peoples to be brought under the authority of Islam through jihad. Thus, from the beginnings of Islam, the community and the caliphates could not exist side by side with idolatry.175 For traditional Muslim believers, this is a very serious issue. For the dar al-Harb it is a serious issue too. The consequences are dire. According to Islam, the world is divided into two parts: the world of Islam and the world of ignorance. The world of Islam must overtake and either convert or subsume the world of ignorance.176 Jihad is one of the means whereby peace is obtained in the world as people come under the protection of Islam. Unbelievers are given a choice: convert or die.177 Other less obtrusive means are used too. Over the centuries Islamists have influenced societies by acquiring key

174 L. Sanneh, “Faith and the secular state,” New York Times OpEd 17, 2001-09-23, accessed 2011-10-10, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/opinion/23SANN.html?ex=1002283001&ei=1&en. The square brackets are original to the article. 175 G. Braswell, Islam, 252. 176 Ibid., 288. 177 Ibid., 71-74.

310 positions of authority as political advisors, by trading and intermarriage, and by seeking direct conversion. Usman dan Fodio’s jihad among the northern Hausa states was preceded by shrewd diplomacy and political acumen;178 Fulani were advisors to the courts of the traditional kings for years before the jihadist military flags were awarded. And when Islam was introduced into Yorubaland, Muslims were first allies, and only later conquerors at Ilorin.179 Christians and Jews are accorded special status and treatment under Muslim rule. They are “People of the Book,” and as such are protected minorities, the dhimmis. But as non-Muslims they are subjected to high state taxes, expected to acknowledge the ultimate truth of Islam, and prohibited from seeking converts outside their own families. The protected status of Christians and Jews has been an enduring part of shari’a wherever Islam has been the dominant political power.180 For generations Christians have lived in places such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Turkey, and Iran, both as minorities and as subjugated majorities. Depending upon the place and time, they have experienced significant maltreatment. Not all have remained Christian. Some have converted voluntarily; others have accepted Islam to escape economic hardship and persecution.181 In Nigeria the Yoruba are both Muslim and Christian. During colonialism, many of the chiefs declared themselves Islamists and continued to practise traditional religion. Islam became a means of protecting Yoruba identity and opposing British cultural intrusion. For the same reasons, Muslim Yoruba did not as readily embrace western education as Christian Yoruba. And yet, they are progressive, industrious, and socially

178 Nwabara, “The Fulani Conquest,” 236. 179 See ibid., 232-36. 180 Braswell, Islam, 252. 181 For a fuller description see P. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died (NY: HarperOne, 2008), esp. chap. 4, “The Great Tribulation,” 97-138.

311 conscious. Since the government plays a lesser role in organizing Islam in the south as compared to the north, Yoruba Muslims have founded a number of distinctive Muslim communities.182 They are not as firmly reformist and separatist183 as northern Muslims, nor are they as prone to vote solely along religious lines. “The Yoruba people are first of all Yoruba, secondly Muslim or Christian and lastly Nigerian, so that in one family you can find both Muslims and Christians and some involvement in the traditional religion.”184 The average Yoruba family is an example of ecumenicalism.185 But in a country where feelings run high and there is a history of jihad, for the moderate Muslim accommodation can be a precarious path to walk. As noted earlier, the Boko Haram is contemplating two jihads. The first one would be waged against the infidelities of the compromised Muslim believer. Presumably, the second would come later and be directed against non-Muslims in the rest of the country.186 The climate of tolerance is far from assured. As Hunwick warns: “It should not be assumed that this situation is incapable of change. Indeed, there are signs that change is occurring.”187

Shari’a Law All of this might seem alarmist if it were not for two disputes that are ongoing in Nigeria. The first began in 1978 at the transition from military to civilian democratic

182 J. Kenny, “The Spread of Islam in Nigeria: A Historical Survey,” Paper delivered at the Conference on Sharî`a in Nigeria, at the Spiritan Institute of Theology, Enugu, Nigeria, 2001-03-22/24, n.d., n.p., accessed 2013-09-21, http://www.dhspriory.org/kenny/Sist.htm. 183 Ibid., 9. 184 Ibid. 185 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 29. See S. A. Fatokun, “Christian Missions in Southwestern Nigeria, and the Response of African Traditional Religion,” International Review of Mission 96 (2007): esp. 106ff; and J. F A. Ajayi, “Religious Pluralism And Tolerance Among The Yorubas,” Africa Styles, Clothing, and Accessories, n.d., n.p., accessed 2012-02-26. http://www.africa styles.com/culture/religious_tolerance.html. 186 See → on page 290. 187 J. Hunwick, “An African Case Study of Political Islam: Nigeria,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 524 (1992): 155.

312 government. In the drafting of the new constitution for the Second Republic (1979-1983), Muslims raised the issue of Islamic shari’a law.188 In addition to the existing Federal Court of Appeal, they wanted to establish a separate Federal Shari’a Court of Appeal specifically to hear matters of Islamic law.189 The departure was in the implied acknowledgment of shari’a as an alternate legal system.190 Under British rule, shari’a law had been maintained in the Muslim north as part of the “native courts” system. It was not distinguished separately from traditional African laws and customs and each was applied within their respective jurisdictions,191 except where it had been altered or replaced by colonial legislation or where it was deemed to be “barbarous.”192 Criminal law was applied to all of Nigeria through a British based Criminal Code. This policy was maintained in the 1960 independence Constitution, except that in addition a Penal Code, which amalgamated British and shari’a criminal laws, was incorporated into the document for use in the north.193 Shari’a, though, was still defined essentially in terms of Islamic personal law, such as marriage, family relationships, and divorce.194 It soon became evident that the contest between Christianity and Islam, with their divergent ideas

188 See Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” esp. 347-49. Also Hunwick, “An African Case Study,” 149. For a number of additional readings regarding shari’a law, see the Conference Proceedings publication B. Krawietz and H. Reifeld, Islam and the Rule of Law: Between Shari’a and Secularization (Sankt Augustin/Berlin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2008), accessed 2011-10-29. http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas _13008-544-2-30.pdf 189 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 130. 190 See V. O. O. Nmehielle, “Shari’a Law in the Northern States of Nigeria: To Implement or Not to Implement, the Constitutionality is the Question,” Human Rights Quarterly 26 (2004): 730-59. 191 Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 340-41. See Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 126. 192 Nmehielle, “Shari’a Law,” 735. 193 See ibid., 735-37. 194 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 134.

313 of the role that religion plays in relation to the state, was focused on the struggle concerning the role of Islamic law in Nigeria.”195 A compromise was finally struck. States were free to establish their own shari’a courts of appeal and any cases referred to the Federal Court of Appeal would be tried by judges, three of whom would be specially trained in shari’a law.196 But, as in the 1960 Constitution, shari’a state courts would render judgment using shari’a law that was essentially defined in terms of Islamic personal laws.197 The issue was broached again shortly after the latest return to democracy in 1999.

For sixteen years under the military governments of Muslim leaders Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (1984-1985), Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (1985-1993), Gen. Sani Abacha (1993-1998), and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (1998-1999), the Islamization of Nigeria had progressed apace.198 Four months after the civilian government of Olusegun Obasanjo, a born-again Christian, took power from the military on May 29, 1999 – either possibly as a result of the loss of Muslim control, or perhaps in reaction to the feeling that Obasanjo was not concerned enough for the North,199 – Alhaji Ahmed Sani, the governor of Zamfara state, signed two bills which unilaterally adopted full shari’a law as the official law of the state.200 The bills took effect on January 27, 2000. Zamfara’s law adopted traditional shari’a in its entirety, in both personal and criminal matters, with the exception of apostasy, which was not criminalized.201 In making this declaration Sani effectively proclaimed Zamfara as an Islamic umma (community) with Islam as its

195 H. Bienen, “Religion, Legitimacy, and Conflict in Nigeria,” 60. 196 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 130. 197 Ibid., 134. 198 Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,,” 342. 199 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 135. 200 Ibid., 136. 201 Ibid.

314 religion and shari’a law as its jurisprudence – including the shari’a mandated punishments of flogging, stoning, amputation, exile, or execution for such infractions as adultery, theft, robbery, and drinking alcohol.202 The Nigerian government met this challenge with a variety of responses. First, Obasanjo declared the move unconstitutional; then he dismissed the matter as a political ploy, hoping that it would “soon fizzle out.” Ultimately he accepted the constitutional right of states to implement shari’a and left the matter uncontested. But shari’a did not fizzle out; it only grew larger. Since 2000 eleven more states have adopted full shari’a law. Elaigwu and Galadima point out: “[It] is unusual [to expand Shari’a law to include criminal matters] because only a few nation-states, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia (and Afghanistan under the Taliban), implement Shari’a law to the extent it is now operable in Nigeria's 12 northern states.”203 Even though shari’a law applies ostensibly only to Muslims, the fear for Christians living in the northern states of Nigeria is that it will ultimately be made to apply to non-Muslims too. For them shari’a law is not only inconvenient with its segregated transportation system and ban on alcohol; it severely restricts their rights and freedoms.204 As Kenny points out:

The proponents of Sharîà in the north are loud in emphasising that Sharîà is only for Muslims. They cannot be sincere, because it is well known that the Sharîà which they propose contains many provisions discriminatory against Christians. Harassment of Christians in the North has been on the increase. Christians are fully sensitized to the danger Sharîà poses for

202 “Peters is right that ‘[t]he introduction of [Sharia] criminal law necessitates an extensive involvement of the state and could be regarded as the adoption of Islam as a state religion.’” R. Peters and M. Barends, Islamic Criminal Law in Nigeria (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2003), 34, quoted in Nmehielle, “Shari’a Law,” 746. 203 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 137. See further, ibid., 136-38; Nmehielle, “Shari’a Law,” 754-56. 204 See ibid., 743 and 749-53.

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them, since full Sharî`a puts them firmly in a second-class status in society.205 Nmehielle argues forcefully that shari’a law is both insensitive and unconstitutional206 and that the federal government needs to uphold the supremacy of the constitution by subjecting the state’s law to constitutional review in the Supreme Court.207 Achebe cautions that it is too early to suggest that Nigeria should divide over the matter,

but if it should turn out that there are in fact whole sections of the country which believe that it is legitimate to chop off people’s hands because they stole a hen - if that should really turn out to be the genuine belief of responsible, educated people in the North then I would say there is no hope. But I do not believe that is the case. … [However, it] is one area to watch very carefully.208 Since the implementation of shari’a, several people have suffered amputations and two women were condemned to death by stoning for adultery. Their convictions were overturned on appeal. At the time, President Obasanjo said: “We have never entertained doubts that whatever verdict a lower court may give, the appellate courts will ensure that justice is done … we cannot imagine or envision a Nigerian being stoned to death. It has never happened. And may it never happen.”209 But commentators use these examples as opportunities for sobering pause. They contend that shari’a as it is used in northern Nigeria shows partiality to the rich, prejudice to the poor, and discrimination to women. Commoner Alhaji Buba Bello Jengebe had his hand cut off for stealing a cow, but little

205 Kenny, “The Spread of Islam in Nigeria.” 206 Nmehielle, “Shari’a Law,” 740 and 749. 207 Ibid., 756-57. 208 As quoted in H. Ehling, “No Condition is Permanent: An Interview with Chinua Achebe,” Publishing Research Quarterly 19 (2003): 58. 209 O. Obasanjo quoted in Reuters, “World Briefing | Africa: Nigeria: President Says Stoning Won’t Happen,” New York Times, 2002-10-02, accessed 2011-10-14, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/02/ world/world-briefing-africa-nigeria-president-says-stoning-won-t-happen.html, quoted in Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 125.

316 progress has been made in bringing Alhaji Zubairu Nasarawa, the council chairman of Birnin Magaji Local Government Area to judgment for embezzling 44 million naira.210 In both of the adultery cases, the women were condemned while their partners’ lawsuits were dismissed for lack of evidence: “According to the classical shari’a, stoning for adultery … cannot be imposed unless four male Muslim eyewitnesses with a good reputation give a detailed account of the act of penetration.”211 For women, being divorced and pregnant is evidence enough for an adultery conviction.212 Under shari’a rules of evidence, the testimony of two women is equal to that of one male, the testimony of a non-Muslim is inadmissible against a Muslim, and the evidence of two pious Muslims can lead to a conviction without the accused being heard despite his or her desire to take the stand to give evidence in his or her defense.213 The debate over religious law has its roots in the vision of the state; and adopting full shari’a is tantamount to proclaiming that, if not in the country, at least in the state, theocratic rule is recognized and followed. This powerful political statement has unmistakable religious overtones and reveals the milieu in which Nigerian politicians function. Both Muslim and Christian politicians use religion to their advantage, exploiting and inflating ethnic, religious, and hegemonic concerns,214 but in the north Muslim politicians who have received western education or who have been trained in the West are especially militant. Rather than using their experience to help bridge the gap

210 These examples are from Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 139-44. 211 H. Bielefeldt, “Muslim Voices in the Human Rights Debate,” Human Rights Quarterly 17 (1995): 613. 212 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 139. 213 K. S. Chukkol, “The Application of Islamic Criminal Justice in Zamfara State: Problems and Constitutional Implications,” in Essays In Honour Of Professor C.O. Okonkwo, edited by E. S. Nwauche & F. I. Asogwah (Port Harcourt: Jite Books, 2000), 77-78, quoted in Nmehielle, “Shari’a Law,” 744. 214 See A. Adogame, “Politicization of Religion and the Religionization of Politics in Nigeria,” in Religion, History, and Politics, edited by C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, 126-39.

317 between Christians and Muslims, they have been champions of Islamic values in politics and society, working through a variety of means – government institutions, schools, media, community organizations, and public discourse – to press Islamic issues.215 Western educated Muslim politicians were the first to insist on full shari’a law in northern Nigeria, not traditional ‘ulamā’ and Izala Islamic modernists.216 The latter groups quickly espoused the idea, but initially they were “caught unawares” by the suggestion. Umar suggests that the reason why western educated political élites took the initiative was precisely because they were western educated: since they lack a

“traditional” Islamic education, advocating overtly Islamic causes helps to legitimize their Islamic roots.217 One of the characteristics of the new Islamic fundamentalism, however, is that it is intolerant towards non-Muslims.218 Full shari’a law was announced around the end of military rule and the beginning of the new democratization of Nigeria in 1999. In that period of diminishing Muslim control, Islam became more politicized and violent, and a populist type of Islam emerged that sought to control the élite, even as the élite were pretending to hold the reins of power. As a result, for politicians, prominently displaying Islamic fervour for Islamic causes became as much about securing fragile power as it was

215 M. S. Umar, “Education and Islamic Trends in Northern Nigeria: 1970s-1990s,” Africa Today 48 (2001): 138. 216 Umar, “Education and Islamic Trends,” 145. “Nigerian ‘ulamā’ (Islamic religious scholars) represent an Islamic trend that can be termed “Islamic traditionalism” … identical with the “great tradition” of Islam … //As in other Islamic societies, Nigerian ‘ulamā’ have also been part of the ruling élite, serving as judges, ministers, scribes, and counselors to rulers.” Ibid., 127-28; see further, 127-32. “Islamic modernism [may be identified] with a Wahhabi/Salafi revival that emerged in Nigeria in the 1960s. This trend defines itself by uncompromising opposition to Sufi orders … In 1977 … [modernists] formed a populist association named Jamāʻatu Izālat al-Bidʻah wa Iqāmat al-Sunna (Izala for short). It has since spread widely in Nigeria.” Ibid., 132-33; see further, 132-38. Unlike Umar, a Muslim, Kenny, a Roman Catholic priest and Islamic expert, describes Izala not as “modernists,” but as “extreme and anti-Christian Islam.” See Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 343. 217 Umar, “Ed. and Islamic Trends,” 144. 218 See Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria,” 71.

318 about either elevating Allah or representing people. In Kalu’s assessment, this “new breed” of politicians lacked restraint, discipline, and redemptive social goals.219

Islamization in Nigeria The second ongoing dispute in Nigeria arising out of the clash between Muslim and Christian worldviews has to do with Islamization. Shari’a relates directly to the role of religion in the state. It is contentious, but it is hardly disguised in its pretentions. By comparison, Islamization pertains to the extension of Islam and is much more subtle for it takes on many forms. In a secular state, it is aided by tolerance and the sense that religious issues ought not to be contended, especially if they involve what appears to be individual expression and choice. But this process might be compared to the slippery slope, or more appropriately, “the camel’s nose.” As a Middle Eastern metaphor warns, if the camel gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.220 Over time religious consciousness becomes identified with a dominant religious tradition and appointments are made based on religion. Community coalesces around the shared values and commitments of the dominant religion. “Others” are stigmatized as aliens and the allowances made for alternate faith expressions diminish. Resentment builds, and the “others” are ostracized, segregated, and eventually victimized in acts of random or coordinated violence. All of this has taken place in Nigeria in recent years.221 While Islam has always been dominant in the north, the “creeping”222 advocating of Islam in Nigeria as a whole can be traced to just before independence. In the late

219 O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 231. 220 A metaphor for a situation where: if once one permits some small undesirable situation, then almost inevitably it will allow for a gradual and unavoidable worsening. For the Bedouin story see accessed 2011-10-30, http://camelphotos.com/tales_nose.html. 221 See J. Kenny, “The Challenge of Islam in Nigeria,” n.d., n.p., accessed 2013-09-21, http://www.dhspriory.org/kenny/Challenge.htm. 222 Hunwick uses the phrase “the creeping Islamization of the Nigerian state” in his discussion of the shari’a debate. See Hunwick, “An African Case Study,” 149.

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1950s, Sir Ahmadu Bello – the Sardauna of Sokoto, leader of the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), and third generation descendent from Usman dan Fodio – with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the vice president of the NPC, organized government sponsored hajj, pilgrimages to Mecca.223 At independence in 1960 Bello remained as the premier of the Northern region and Balewa was elected head of the Nigerian state.224 Shortly afterward Balewa began to redress the regional imbalance in the federal civil service by appointing to government positions northern Muslims who were less qualified than southern candidates.225 Meanwhile, in 1963-1964,226 the Sardauna conducted conversion campaigns – “a new form of jihad using political clout”227 – starting from the predominantly Muslim parts of Niger, Kano, Katsina, and Sokoto provinces, and moving into the predominantly Christian areas of the middle belt.228 Not averse to using the government treasury as if it was his own,229 Bello also had access to money from Saudi Arabia.230 Using both political and material incentives, supposedly over 60,000 people were converted in one five-month period.231 Given Bello’s aim to ensure numerical dominance over Christians in the north,232 the conversions were not deep: many of the

223 O. E. Tangban, “The Hajj and the Nigerian Economy: 1960-1981,” JRA 21 (1991): 242-43. 224 “Although his own ambitions were limited to the Northern Region, Bello backed the NPC’s [Northern People’s Congress] successful efforts to mobilize the north’s large voting strength so as to win control of the national government.” Lovejoy, “Historical Setting,” n.p. 225 Hunwick, “An African Case Study,” 147. 226 Ibid., 148. 227 O. U. Kalu, “Violent Faces of Religion: The Dilemma of Pluralism in Nigeria,” in Power, Poverty and Prayer, 181. 228 Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria,” 78. 229 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 129. 230 O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 229. As well, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey contributed cash and other forms of aid. O. Kalu, “Violent Faces,” 181. For more detail on Bello’s initiatives and the reaction of non-muslims, see ibid., 180-82. 231 Ibid., 181. 232 Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria,” 71.

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‘converted’ joined either the political north, or Islam, or both for political and economic gains rather than because they wanted to become practising Muslims.233 Significantly Bello234 wrote in his autobiography:

I have never sought the political limelight of a leading position in my country. But I could not avoid the obligation of my birth and destiny. My great-great-grandfather built an Empire in the Western Sudan. It has fallen to my lot to play a not inconsiderable part in building a new nation. My ancestor was chosen to lead a Holy War which set up his empire. I have been chosen by a free electorate to help build a modern state.235 On January 15, 1966, Bello, President Balewa, and several others were killed in

Nigeria’s maiden military coup lead by mostly Ibo Christian officers.236 The “coup of the five majors,”237 as it later came to be known, was meant to end the tribalism and corruption rampant in the government. But increasingly the intervention was interpreted as being more about religion and ethnic control than about politics.238 The resulting backlash ushered the country into Civil War (1967-1970).239

233 Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria,” 71. 234 Kenny calls Bello a “megalomaniac.” See Kenny, “The Challenge of Islam in Nigeria,” n.p. 235 Sir Bello, My Life, viii. 236 In a well-coordinated action, the conspirators, most of whom were Igbo, assassinated Balewa in Lagos, Akintola in Ibadan, and Bello in Kaduna, as well as senior officers born in the North. Lovejoy, “Historical Setting,” n.p. The principal leaders of the maiden coup were Majors K. C. Nzeoguwu, A. Ademoyega, E. Ifeajuna, D. Okafor, and C. Anuforo. Ojo, “Guarding the ‘Guardians,’” 704n12. For a detailed account of the Nigerian Army’s “descent into the abyss,” see E. O. Ojo, “Taming the Monster: Demilitarization and Democratization in Nigeria,” Armed Forces & Society 32 (2006): 254-72. 237 Ojo, “Guarding the ‘Guardians,’” 689. 238 See Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 172-75. See also P. J. Yancho, “Catholic Humanitarian Aid and the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War,” in Religion, History, and Politics, edited by C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, 158-71. 239 See Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 175-80. Also see M. Perham, “Reflections on the Nigerian Civil War,” Intl. Affairs 46 (1970): 231-46; and Adogame, “Politicization of Religion,” in Religion, History, and Politics, edited by C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, 126-28. For a gripping and provocative depiction of the Biafra War see the novel, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun (NY: A.A. Knopf, 2006).

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Under Nigeria’s march of mostly military governments,240 Islam held a favoured position. Except for Ironsi, Gowan, and Obasanjo, all of the dictators were Muslim, and each of them encouraged the dominance of Islam. Even under democratic rule, Islam was promoted. Bello and Shagari supported the hajj to such an extent that Christians were convinced they were creating an Islamic state. Under Babangida and Abacha the situation became so politically sensitive that they sought to appease irate Christians by sponsoring Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem.241 Government sponsored hajj has continued uninterrupted since the 1950s and has been a significant drain on Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings.242 In the first two decades of nationhood, hajj peaked during Shagari’s presidency at 100,000 pilgrimages in 1981; the cost to the republic was over

240 ꜛAfter Nigeria’s maiden coup on 1966-01-15, General J. Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Ibo Christian from Abia State, assumed command of Nigeria. He was killed on 1966-07-29, terminating six months of rule, and succeeded by Lieutenant Colonel [General] Y. (Jack) Gowon, a Christian from Plateau State. Gowan was toppled in a palace coup on 1975-07-30. Brigadier [General] M. R. Muhammad, a Muslim from Kano seized power, only to be killed seven months later in an aborted coup on 1976-02-13. Muhammad’s deputy, Lieutenant General O. Obasanjo, a Yoruba Christian from Abeokuta, took over and passed power to President A. S. Shagari, a Fulani Muslim from Kaduna, on 1979-10-01. This was the first peaceful transfer of power since independence. Major General M. Buhari, a Hausa Muslim from Kaduna State deposed Shagari, in a coup on 1983-12-31. Buhari was dictator until 1985-08-27 when Major General I. Babangida, a Muslim from Niger State removed him from power. On 1993-08-27, after the 1993-06-12 election results were annulled, Chief E. Shonekan, a Christian business leader from Lagos formed an Interim National Government. Three months later on 1993-11-17, General S. Abacha, a Muslim from Kano, seized control and served as military dictator until his death on 1998-06-08. Power was transferred to Major General A. Abubakar, a Muslim from Niger State, and the government transitioned to civilian control on 1999-02-27. Obasanjo, who had become a born-again Christian while in prison [from 1995-1998, see E. Obadare, “Pentecostal Presidency? The Lagos-Ibadan ‘Theocratic Class’ & the Muslim ‘Other’,” Review of African Political Economy 33 (2006): 669] was elected as President in the new democratic era and served until 2007-05-29 when he was succeeded by U. M. Yar’Adua, a Fulani Muslim from Katsina State. Yar’Adua died in office on 2010-05-05 after a lengthy illness. G. E. Jonathan, an Ijaw Christian from Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta served as acting president from Yar’Adua’s death until he was elected president on 2010- 02-09. He continues in power as of this writing, 2013-06. See Ojo, “Guarding the ‘Guardians,’” 689-91; H. C. Metz, ed., 4-7; Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, xvi-xviii; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa- 12192152; and http://youth1960.com/data bank.html, all websites accessed 2011-10-29. Some of these sources differ in ethnic details and state origins. 241 R. R. Bianchi, Introduction to Guests of God: Pilgrimage and Politics in the Islamic World, (NY: Oxford University Press, 2004), 6. See also R. R. Bianchi, “Nigeria: ‘One Nation, Under God’,” in Guests of God, 211-53. 242 See Tangban, “The Hajj and the Nigerian Economy,” 246ff.

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₦80 million (naira243), or US$133.6 million.244 In 2008, the government spent ₦34 billion on both Muslim and Christian pilgrimages.245 Hajj pilgrimages in 2009 exceeded 90,000 people.246 In 2010 about 95,000 Muslims, and another 25,000 Christian pilgrims, depended on sponsorship.247 With the naira trading at 268 times less than in 1981, Nigeria’s expenditure on hajj and Christian pilgrimage must be onerous. In a country where 64.4% of the population lives on less than US$1.25 (₦200) a day,248 various attempts have been made to discontinue the practice.249 But the real problem is that pilgrimage is blatantly used for political, not spiritual, ends. The embattled governor of

Oyo State, Alao Akala, is reported to have said in 2011 at a hajj send-off of pilgrims, of which over 1,000 of the 1,500 were sponsored by the state: “If these 1,500 and another 1,500 that will be going to Jerusalem bring along 10 persons each to vote for us, then we will be here again next year to do this kind of programme for set. Pray for us to return to

243 Nigeria’s currency, the naira (₦), is subdivided into 100 kobo per ₦1. On 2012-04-30, $1USD traded for ₦157.23, and $1CDN traded for ₦160.28 according to Enclick, Foreign Exchange rate services, accessed 2012-04-30, http://fx-rate.net/NGN/. 244 In 1981 ₦1 traded at US$1.67 (US$1 was worth ₦0.60). ₦80 million was worth US$133.6 million. For more information see http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Africa/Nigeria- MONEY.html (accessed 2011-10-27) For historical exchange rates comparing US dollars to ninety-five different countries starting since 1970, see “Real Annual Country Exchange Rates (local currency per $US),” s.v. >Data, accessed 2012-08-14, http://www.ers.usda.gov/. 245 J. Uzondu, “Ending a corrupt practice,” Nigerian Newsworld, 2011-10-24, accessed 2011- 10-29, http://www.nigeriannewsworld.com/content/ending-corrupt-practice. 246 A. Umar, “Pilgrims’ return trip begins tomorrow,” Daily Trust, 2009-11-29, accessed 2011-10- 29, http://allafrica.com/stories/200911300409.html. The number of pilgrimages might have been over 95,000. See T. Rahman, “1994, 2009 - a tale of two hajj,” This Day, 2009-12-30, accessed 2011-10-29, http://allafrica.com/stories/200912310311.html. 247 J. Uzondu, “Ending a corrupt practice.” It seems that the entire pilgrimage program in Nigeria was subsidized in 2010. Uzondu reports that there were a total of 110,000 or 120,000 on pilgrimage. The 10,000 person difference is apparently due to unclear reporting, for according to the records there were “about 85,000 or 95,000” Muslim pilgrims in 2010. 248 This is for 2004, the most recent data at the World Bank. See accessed 2011-10-29, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY/countries/NG?page=1&display=default. Nigerian info., based on the same material and the same year, has 51.5% of the population living on less than $1 a day. See NMDG: Report 2010, 13, Table “Target 1.A.” 249 See Uzondu, “Ending a corrupt practice.”

323 power in the next election.”250 Akala lost the contest. Apparently, neither the prayers nor the voter turnout worked. In some areas Muslim military government largess to Islamic projects bordered on the ludicrous. Buhari air freighted imported rams for the Muslim festival of Idd el Hajj. When Christians criticized him, he resolved the issue by importing turkeys for Christmas.251 But other issues seem more serious and the Islamic signals are both supercilious and audacious. For example, the plans initiated by Muhammad in 1975 to move the federal capital from Lagos to Abuja were completed in December 1991.252 On the face of it, the move seemed reasonable enough: Abuja is in the center of the country, in a Federal Capital Territory. But it is also 300 kilometers (185 miles) further north and all but surrounded by Muslim dominated states. The impact of Islam is clearly seen at Aso Rock, the place where Nigeria’s presidents live and work. The Muslim military built the complex and it appears as if they hardly anticipated that anyone other than a Muslim would ever live there. Inside Aso Rock there were three mosques but no church. The layout of the president’s residence assumed that there would be at least four wives.253

One of the first things that Obasanjo did when he took office in 1999 was to organise

250 Quoted in Uzondu, “Ending a corrupt practice.” For more information on hajj see the travel guide and tips written by a Canadian Muslim: S. Pardhan (Daya), “Hajj Guide and Packing List – July 2010,” Hajj Assistance Services, last updated July 2010, 1-16, accessed 2011-10-29, http://www.hajjguide. org/hacs/2010_Hajj_write-up_July_2010.pdf. For more on Nigerian hajj see, I. O. Oloyede, “Challenges of Hajj Operation in Nigeria,” A keynote address presented at the Second National Conference on Hajj organized by WAFF Road Mosque Forum (WRMF), Kaduna, Nigeria, 2009-07-24/ 26, accessed 2011-10- 26, http://www.docstoc.com/docs/105472918/Challenges-of-Hajj-Operation-in-Nigeria---University-of- Ilorin. In 2009, Oloyede was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. He continues in that post currently (2012-08). See also, O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 242. 251 Quoted from an article in the British weekly magazine, West Africa, written at the time of Nigerian’s entry into the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 1985-12, no further reference given, in A. A. Mazrui, “African Islam and Competitive Religion: Between Revivalism and Expansion,” Third World Quarterly 10 (1988): 514. 252 Falola and Heaton, A Hist. Nigeria, 190. 253 O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 231.

324 regular Christian services to pray for Nigeria. He also built a Christian chapel and appointed Aliyu Yusuf Obaje, a Baptist pastor, as chaplain.254 The most controversial and provocative event, though, in Nigeria’s Islamization occurred on January 9, 1986 when Babangida secretly enrolled Nigeria as a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation255 (OIC).256 Buhari’s regime had initiated the application, but Babangida had allowed it to stand257 as part of the many generous gestures that he used to placate Muslims.258 But few were impressed. The shari’a debate of 1977 had highlighted Muslim-Christian antagonism and had brought it first into sharp focus. In 1986, OIC membership made it crystal clear to many Nigerian Christians that the Republic’s Muslim leadership had a definite, and not all that well hidden, agenda to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state.259 For seventeen years, beginning after the Civil War, Nigeria had been an observer at OIC meetings. Given Nigeria’s multi-religious nature,

254 Obadare, “Pentecostal Presidency?” 672. 255 The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation was first formed in 1969 in Fez, Morocco. Originally named the Organization of the Islamic Conference, it adopted a new name and logo on 2011-06-28, the opening day of the 38th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers held in Astana, capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan. See I. S. Shanti, “OIC Continues Its Remaking in Astana,” OIC Jour. 18 (2011): 8. See also ITAR-TASS News Agency, “OIC changes name for organisation of islamic cooperation,” ASTANA, 2011- 06-28. And also: P. Goodenough, “New name, same old focus for islamic bloc,” CNSNews.com, 2011-06- 30, accessed 2012-01-18, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/new-name-same-old-focus-islamic-bloc. Note that the new name, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, is used throughout this paper. “Organization of the Islamic Conference” is used only in either a direct quotation or the title of a cited source. 256 “The arrival of Nigeria's delegation in the presidential jet, after a seventy-two hour delay, sent the anxiously awaiting assembly of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) at Fez into a delirious enthusiasm. The hall shook with a roaring standing ovation when Nigeria was formally admitted to full membership the next day, 1986-01-09. Before then Nigeria had only observer status.” Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 350. For an Islamic perspective on the OIC see Ahmad Murad Merican. The Ummah at the Crossroads: The Role of the OIC: Proceedings International Conference, Shah Alam, Selangor: Institute of Knowledge Advancement (InKA), Universiti Teknologi MARA and Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations Malaysia (IDFR), 2005, accessed 2011-10-25. The article, “Constitutional Law, the Rule of Law and Systems of Governance in Islam,” by S. S. Faruqi, Professor of Law, at Universiti Teknologi, Mara, is available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/7929528/Constitutional-Law-in-Islam, accessed 2011-10-29. 257 Lovejoy, “Historical Setting” 258 See Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 346. 259 Hunwick, “An African Case Study,” 150.

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Christians had assumed that it would go no further.260 When Nigeria’s OIC membership became known, Nigerian Christians were shocked and outraged at the news. Many objected to the stealthy manner in which the country had joined the OIC: it was first disclosed by a French news agency261 and membership had not been discussed prior.262 But the greatest issue concerned the implied status of Nigeria as a member of the Cooperation. The OIC is composed of Islamic states only; it is dedicated to promoting Islam. Presumably, the matter should have been axiomatic: membership in the OIC is reserved exclusively for Islamic states; Nigeria is not an Islamic state, it is a secular state; ergo, Nigeria cannot and should not be admitted into the OIC as a member.263 But the issue apparently was not as clear as that. And Muslims expressed surprise that Christians would regard Nigeria’s membership in the OIC as a sign that the country was being gradually Islamized.264 The divide in the country only widened as Islamization appeared to creep perceptively forward. Hostility increased between Islam and Christianity, and religious debates were upgraded to a critical level in the issue of nationhood.265 A variety of arguments, counterarguments, objections, and protests were offered266 and membership in the OIC may have been withdrawn.267 If it was, Nigeria has since renewed interest in the Organization. On April 11, 2009, Abdullahi M. Garba

260 See Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 131. 261 Mazrui, “African Islam,” 510; Elaigwu and Galadima say it was the British Broadcasting Corporation that first broke the news. See Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 131. 262 Kenny, “The Challenge of Islam in Nigeria,” n.p.; Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 131. 263 L. Adamolekun and J. Kincaid, “The Federal Solution: Assessment and Prognosis for Nigeria and Africa,” Publius 21 (1991): 186n18. 264 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 131. 265 See ibid., 132. 266 See Mazrui, “African Islam,” 511-14. 267 Kalu says that Nigeria has withdrawn membership. See O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 246. In support, Kalu cites New Nigerian Newspaper, 1986-02-6; see O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 315n40.

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Aminchi, Nigeria’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, visited the OIC’s headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and signed the new OIC Charter.268 The event was published in the media throughout the Middle East, but it was not mentioned in Nigeria.269 According to the OIC’s official website, Nigeria has been a member of the OIC since 1986.270

Religious Violence Out of this testy mix of regional, ethnic, religious, and political divisions flows violence of a distressing magnitude. Sometimes politics and ethnicity are the dominant features: the oil crisis in the Niger delta and the communal violence in Modakeke271 are classic examples of this. At other times religion is definitely the key issue: the intra- Islamic Maitatsine riots that continued intermittently over a five-year period (1980- 1985)272 and the violent inter-faith protests in 2000 after shari’a law was imposed273

268 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation News, “The Federal Republic of Nigeria Signs the OIC Charter,” 2009-11-04, accessed 2012-01-18, s.vv. >English >News >2009 >[p]22 http://www.oic- oci.org/oicv2/. As part of its remodeling effort, the OIC adopted the new Charter during the eleventh Session of the Islamic Summit Conference held in Dakar, Senegal, March 13-14, 2008. At the time, forty of the fifty-six member states signed the document. See Shanti, “OIC Continues Its Remaking,” 8. For comment on the new Charter, see G. Cavalli, “The New Organization of the Islamic Conference Charter,” Perspectives on Federalism 1 (2009). On the reaction of Christians to the signing see, Daily Champion, “Nigeria: we’ll resist membership in OIC–CAN [Christian Association of Nigerian],” 2008-04-02, accessed 2012-01-18, http://wwrn.org/articles/28186/?&place=eastern-africa. 269 NEXT, “Nigeria rejoins OIC,” 2009-05-14, accessed 2012-01-18, http://www.elombah.com/ index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=786:nigeria-rejoins-oic&catid=25:politics&Itemid=92. 270 See the list of OIC Member States, accessed 2012-01-18, http://www.oicun.org/3/28/. 271 See O. A. Mayowa, “State and Ethno-Communal Violence in Nigeria: The Case of Ife- Modakeke,” Africa Development 26 (2001): 195-223; and also A. Ahonsi-Yakubu, “Political Transitions, Crime and Insecurity in Nigeria,” Africa Development 26 (2001): 73-98. Ahonsi-Yakubu explores the connection between Nigeria’s military-supervised political transitions between 1987 and 2001 and the concurrent rise of illegal and criminal activity and pervasive violence and insecurity in Nigerian society. See also, D. Oluyemi-Kusa, “Regional Peace within the Context of Cooperation and Integration in Africa,” Paper presented at the 11th General Assembly of CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa), 2005-12-6/10. This paper touches on the Ife-Modakeke War. 272 See Hunwick, “An African Case Study,” 154. The first Maitatsine riot occurred in Kano in December 1980 when the governor told the group to relocate. Maitatsine’s 10,000 followers were defeated by the army and Maitatsine was killed. His followers regrouped and rioted again in Kaduna in 1982. In February 1984 they struck again at Jimeta, outside Yola. On 1985-04-26 during another violent outbreak at Gombe in Bauchi State, 100 were killed. The movement has since gone underground. See Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 357.

327 exemplify this. But numerous other confrontations combine religion with ethnic or political factors, and Christians are both the targets and the aggressors. Unfortunately religious based violence in Nigeria is not something new. Clashes between Christians and Muslims go back at least as far as the time of independence, always in the north. The riots that preceded the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) targeted churches. In the years following, churches were vandalized or bulldozed; frequently newspapers did not even report the events. After 1997 the situation began to worsen.274 Excluding the civil war aggression, Nigeria’s religious violence can be broken into two periods: from 1980 to 1998; and from 1999 to the present, 2013. The brackets for these time periods are defined by the transition from military government to civilian rule. The initial movement away from democracy was accomplished in 1966 with the coup of the five majors. The resultant political, ethnic, and religious tension ultimately led to the Nigerian civil war in 1967. Then in October 1979 the first transition back to democracy occurred when the military government led by Olusegun Obasanjo transferred power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari. Twenty years later in 1999, after four years of democracy and sixteen years of military dictatorships, Obasanjo once again assumed leadership of Nigeria. This time he was elected President after General Sani Abacha’s death. Before 1980, in the years prior to 1960 and immediately after independence, religious tensions had started to rise, aggravated by a variety of socio-economic and political factors.275 The civil war, which dominated the latter half of the first decade of independence, inflamed religious discord and exacerbated ethnic divisions. With the oil

273 Metz, “Country Profile: Nigeria, July 2008,” 6. 274 See Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 357. The Roman Catholic Church played a prominent and controversial role in supplying aid to Biafra during the Civil War and in bringing the conflict to the world’s attention. See Yancho, “Catholic Humanitarian Aid,” in Religion, History, and Politics, edited by C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, 158-71. 275 For a discussion of these antecedents see O. Kalu, “Violent Faces,” 184-90.

328 prosperity in the 1970s, morals eroded, and civil violence and criminality increased. People became less secure as they became more impoverished and the oil boom gave way to oil doom. It was during the transitional period of the first transfer of power from the military to civilians at the end of the 1970s that violent religious clashes began. They would continue, primarily in the north and mostly under military rule,276 for the next twenty years, from 1980 to 1998. Muslims fought Muslims in an effort to gain sectarian dominance, purify and promote Islam, protest corrupt élite power, and redress social conditions. But after two decades of intra-religious strife among Muslims, and again at the transition from Muslim-led military juntas to democratic government, inter-religious strife became more common. Muslims and Christians fought each other openly. Before 1999, from 1980 to 1998, religious clashes had been deadly, but they were relatively infrequent. Starting in 1999, conflict in Nigeria became more of everything – more frequent, more destructive, more widespread, and more violent. Also after 1999, religious violence moved south in sympathy with the conflict in the north, and, as a result of the hostility surrounding the imposition of shari’a law in 2000, violence was more and more directed towards Christians.277 Disturbances arose in the middle belt states – Kaduna, Plateau, and Taraba – where dan Fodio’s jihad had been incomplete and the British had imposed Muslim hegemony on the non-Muslim population;278 and where, since independence, the non-Muslim population had increasingly turned to Christianity as “a veritable religion of the oppressed.”279 But by far the majority of the religious clashes that

276 O. Kalu, “Violent Faces,” 190. 277 Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,,” 343. 278 J. N. Jennings, “Christian Mission and ‘Glocal’ Violence in 2006 A.D./1427 H.,” in Missions in Contexts of Violence, edited by K. E. Eitel (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2008), 26. 279 O. Kalu, “Violent Faces,” 187.

329 occurred between 1999 and 2002280 occurred in the south between Hausa/Fulani Muslims and Yoruba Christians. In the last thirteen years (1999-2012), at least 13,000 Nigerians have been killed in Muslim – Christian religiously related violence.281

Examples of Religious Violence282 During the first period, 1980-1998, students played a leading role in the riots. After the civil war’s “calabash of blood”283 had burst on the head of the nation, during the 1970s churches experienced revival and Islamic revivalism spread throughout the north.

Thus, at the same time as the young charismatic Christians were rejecting the passive approach of the older churches in evangelizing Muslims,284 the Muslims Students Society (MSS) – originally a Yoruba Muslim student organization started by Babs Fafunwa in Lagos in 1954 – was being radicalized.285 The harvest of this youthful zeal started in Kano in November 1982 when the MSS burned down eight churches and a bookshop after protesting the rebuilding of an Anglican church too close to a mosque.286 Later on March 6, 1987, at Kafanchan, Kaduna

State, Abubakar Bako, a converted Muslim and the guest speaker at a revival meeting at

280 Twenty-three out of a list of thirty-eight occurrences. See S. A. Owoeye, “Harvest of Religious Conflicts in Post-Independent Nigeria, 1980-2002,” Voices from the Third World 26 (2003): 107-09. Owoeye catalogues five other clashes, but these are primarily ethnic disputes. 281 Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, 2011-05 (Covering 2010-04-1 to 2011-03-31), Washington, DC: US Commission on International Religious Freedom (2011): 98, accessed 2011-11-02, [CIRF website] http://www.uscirf.gov, [report] http://www. uscirf.gov/images/book%20with%20cover%20for%20web.pdf. 282 The instances of religious violence cited in this section are not meant to be exhaustive. They are representative examples of the escalating religious confrontations in Nigeria from 1980 forward. 283 O. Kalu, “Violent Faces,” 182; see also ibid., 178-84. 284 Ibid., 187. 285 Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,,” 344. See also O. Kalu, “Pentecostalism and Mission in Africa, 1970-2000,” Mission Studies 24 (2007): 9-45 for an excellent description of the revivals that occurred in Nigeria during and after the 1970’s, rooting the Pentecostal movement in the youth-led renewal of Christianity. 286 Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 358. The church was replacing one that had been on the site since 1932. The mosque was built in the late 1970s.

330 the College of Education, was accused of demeaning the Prophet and misinterpreting the Koran. The MSS intervened and the ensuing riot spread to the town; Muslims and mosques suffered the most. Subsequently, Zaria, Kaduna, Funtua, and Katsina erupted, inflamed by lurid reporting in the print media and a call-to-arms by the state run radio.287 By the end of a week, 158 churches were burned and twenty-five people had died.288 On June 13, 1988, an election was held for student president at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State. When Muslim students heard that a Christian might be winning, they attacked the place where the votes were being counting. The riot lasted about 10 hours, and some students were killed.289 Other quarrels resulted from different causes. In Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi State, Fulani Muslims and Sayawa Christians clashed on April 20, 1991 over the Christian’s use of the slaughterhouse. After days of bloodletting, 1,563 houses, churches, and mosques were burned and unofficial estimates reported that as many as 2,000 people were killed, most of them Muslim.290 On October 14, 1991 Muslim protests and Christian reprisals over a revival crusade by German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke resulted in killing, looting, and burning of churches, mosques, and Muslim businesses. Another 2,000 people died.291 Between 1999 and 2002 forty-five religious and ethnic clashes took place.292 They show a marked increase in fanaticism, national scope, and interest in international issues.293 On February 21, 2000 after the introduction of the shari’a in Kaduna State there

287 Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria,” 68. See Ibrahim’s entire article for details. 288 See O. Kalu, “Violent Faces,” 191; Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 358; Owoeye, “Harvest of Religious Conflicts,” 111. 289 Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,,” 358. 290 Ibid., 358-59. 291 Ibid., 359. For more on Bonnke, see P. Gifford, “‘Africa Shall Be Saved’. An Appraisal of Reinhard Bonnke’s Pan-African Crusade,” JRA 17 (1987): 63-92. Gifford’s article is written five years before Bonnke’s 1991 crusade in Nigeria. 292 See Owoeye, “Harvest of Religious Conflicts,” 107-09. 293 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 238.

331 was gross communal violence and a number of people died. The killing of Ibos and others in Kaduna resulted in reciprocal killings of Hausa-Fulani Muslims in Abia and Imo.294 On November 29, 2001 violent riots were sparked in Kaduna when Muslims protested against the Miss World Beauty pageant, which was scheduled that year in Abuja during the month of Ramadan. They were incensed when a newspaper article remarked, “If Mohammad were to be alive, he would probably have preferred to marry one of the beauty contestants.”295 Over 200 people died, churches, cars, and buildings were destroyed, and the pageant was moved to London. The violence spread to Abuja and

Bauchi.296 In 2006, when the Islamic world protested a Danish cartoon that lampooned Mohammed, in Nigeria the demonstrations turned deadly. Dozens were killed in riots in Maiduguri, Katsina, Bauchi, and Onitsha.297 Religious violence in the twentieth century seems to be akin to ‘categorical violence’ or scapegoating, where attacks in one country prompt reprisals in other regions. “Thus, if America attacks Iraq, a Muslim in northern Nigeria could sacrifice a southern Christian as a scapegoat to restore purity and exact revenge for the Muslim blood being shed in Iraq.”298 The combinations and permutations of violence of this kind are as varied as there are religious fanatics. Underlying all of this hostility are larger social issues.299 First, the hegemony that Muslims had long-enjoyed since before independence is no longer secure. With the move to democracy away from Muslim led military dictatorships a little over a decade ago, the domination of national politics by northern Muslims is uncertain. When Yar’Adua died on May 5, 2010, without completing his term as president, Muslims were not pleased that

294 Elaigwu and Galadima, “The Shadow of Shari’a,” 138. 295 This Day, 2002-11-16, quoted in Owoeye, “Harvest of Religious Conflicts,” 115. 296 Ibid. 297 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 239. 298 O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 234-35. 299 The following points are based on Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,,” 360-61.

332 a non-Muslim replaced him. They expressed their frustration in violence.300 Second, with the strengthening of Christianity in the north, especially in the middle belt, it is likely that Muslims no longer comprise a majority of the population in Nigeria, and ascendency at the polls is no longer assured. Third, many northern tribes, which had long been ruled by Hausa-Fulani emirs, have insisted on political autonomy. Many of the populations in southern Kaduna State and Bauchi State have inherited an animosity towards Muslims dating as far back as the nineteenth century Fulani jihads when they were used as “slave- fodder” for the emirs. Now as educated Christians, they are organizing themselves to gain political freedom.301 And fourth, politicians use religion as a means to rouse Islamic support. They deliberately cultivate the expectation that in exchange for the Muslim vote, their region will gain “a generous share of the national cake.”302 There are other, more forthright explanations.303 Owoeye suggests, “Religious crises [are] essentially caused by fanaticism, intolerance, ignorance, lack of regard for other religious groups etc.”304 Preachers disparage each other’s religions in their sermons. Riots are fueled by mass unemployment and hijacked by “fanatics and hoodlums” who take the opportunity to loot and destroy. The government’s obvious bias toward one religion over another exacerbates animosities. Issues such as Nigeria’s enrolment in OIC

300 See the following articles: The New York Times, Times Topics: “Umaru Yar’Adua,” accessed 2013-09-22, http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/Umaru+Yar%E2%80%99Adua/; The Associated Press, “Nigeria: Election Set for April,” 2010-11-23, accessed 2011-11-03, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/ 11/24/world/africa/24webbriefs-NigeriaBrf.html?ref=umaruyaradua; Reuters, “Nigerian Villages and Churches Are Struck in Deadly Attacks,” 2010-12-25, accessed 2011-11-03, http://www.nytimes.com/2010 /12/26/world/africa/26nigeria.html?ref=umaruyaradua; D. Olojede, “Fair vote, fragile future,” The New York Times, 2011-04-21, accessed 2011-11-03, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/opinion/22olojede. html?_r=1&ref=Umaru%20yaradua. 301 Kenny, “Sharīa and Christianity,” 361. 302 Ibid. 303 See Owoeye, “Harvest of Religious Conflicts,” 113-15. 304 Ibid., 110.

333 and the imposition of shari’a law inevitably heighten conflict. And biased news reporting and ill-advised, insulting articles have increased the likelihood of deadly responses.305 Unfortunately, this is not history. It is current events. And religious violence in Nigeria seems only to be getting worse. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has Nigeria, with thirteen other countries, on its highest watchlist: “Countries of Particular Concern.” It faults years of government inaction in the face of increasingly systematic religious violence, an enduring climate of impunity for those who propagate religiously based atrocities, the expansion of shari’a law into the area of criminal code, and ongoing discrimination of minority Christians and Muslims for over 13,000 violent deaths since 1999. What is perhaps most troubling for Nigeria’s future is that in the year from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011, violence and tension increased along Nigeria’s religious fault line, the Middle Belt states and in and around Jos, Plateau state.306 Reports of religiously related communal violence can be readily found at a number of websites.307

305 For an analytical discussion describing Christianity and Islam both grappling with how to live peaceably in a pluralistic society, see O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman.” 306 Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, 2011-05, 98. Regarding the number of deaths attributable to religious violence in Nigeria, the USCIRF report says, “13,000 Nigerians, if not more.” The question is, how many more is “more”? Philip Jenkins in 2005 commented, “Vast numbers are dead: 53,000 killed in one Nigerian province since 2001.” He added, “Think of that number; that is almost equivalent to the number of Americans who died in Vietnam.” See P. Jenkins’ comments in, “The Coming Religious Wars? Demographics and Conflict in Islam and Christianity,” Event Transcript of a Roundtable co-hosted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C., 2005-05-18. 307 The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) maintains a website that contains an extensive list of recent articles on Nigerian violence from a variety of credible sources. See Nigeria’s Internal Displacement Profile, http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/httpCountry_ Documents?ReadForm&country=Nigeria&count=10000. For a list, and profiles, of various Nigerian media see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13949549. Other valuable sources of Nigerian news reports may be found at The Christian Science Monitor (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa); Aljazeera English (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/); the British Broadcasting Corporation (http://www.bbc.co. uk/news/world/africa/ [See the “Nigerian profile” link]); and the NY Times Global edition (http://www.ny times.com/pages/world/africa/index.html). All sites accessed 2011-11-3.

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The Boko Haram Without question the most serious, ongoing, and escalating threat to religious freedom and social stability in Nigeria currently is the Boko Haram.308 This group has as its settled aim the banning of western education and the establishment of shari’a law across the country.309 But the real result is nationwide destabilization that is ultimately designed to tear the republic apart leaving a terrorized Christian south and a shari’a- dominated Muslim North. At the dawning of 2012 it is hardly possible to stay current with the latest Boko Haram havoc.310 They are a growing and potent threat.

In August 2009, Boko Haram made its first real appearance in Nigeria311 killing 700 people in riots in Maiduguri, the sect’s spiritual home.312 At the time they were

308 If there is one article in this entire chapter that is a “must-read,” it is W. Soyinka, “The butchers of Nigeria: How a corrupt nation bred Boko Haram, the Islamic sect terrorizing the country’s Christians,” Newsweek, 2012-01-16, accessed 2012-01-21, http://www.the dailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/wole- soyinka-on-nigeria-s-anti-christian-terror-sect-boko-haram. html. Soyinka, born at Abeokuta in 1934, is a giant of Nigerian literature: playwright, poet, novelist, and critic, and the first black African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. Soyinka has been imprisoned several times for his criticism of the government, and from the 1970s he has lived long periods in exile. In this essay he traces the Boko Haram back to the deliberate cultivation of violence and impunity by some of the most powerful of Nigeria’s Muslim élite, and their longing for the favoured days of military hegemony under which Islam made its greatest advances. His revelations of the intimate corruption of key players in the fatwa against the female reporter who suggested that Mohammed would select a beauty contestant as his bride, and the introduction of shari’a law are startling and sobering at the same time. It reveals the complexity and disheartening reality of Nigerian political malfeasance. See “Wole Soyinka – Biography,” Nobelprize.org. accessed 2012-01-22. A brief biography of Soyinka is also available at http:// kirjasto.sci.fi/soyinka.htm, accessed 2012-01-22. 309 S. Johnson, “The Islamists’ rebellion in Nigeria isn’t the latest front in the global war on terror,” Newsweek, Money Talks, 2009-08-02, accessed 2012-01-21, http://www.thedailybeast.com/news week/2009/08/02/money-talks.html. 310 See D. Hinshaw, “Attacks in Nigeria kill at least 143,” Wall Street Journal Online, 2012-01- 22, accessed 2012-01-21, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020430140457717460110395082 4.html; The Associated Press, “Recent attacks by radical Islamist sect in Nigeria,” 2012-01-21, accessed 2012-01-21, http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/recent-attacks-by-radical-islamist-sect-in-nigeria/ Content?oid=2190642; and M. Petrou, “‘We hardly touch anybody, except …’ Extremists spread panic in Africa’s most populous nation,” MacLean’s 125:6, 2012-02-20. 311 The group apparently had existed since 1995, under different names. See I. G. Ringim, “Boko Haram import militias from Somalia, vows fiercier attacks,” accessed 2011-09-19, http://www.thenigerian voice.com/nvnews/54024/1/boko-haram-import-militias-from-somalia-vows-fierc.html. 312 The Associated Press, “Recent attacks.”

335 called “just a blip in the overall scheme of things.” But the warning was given that they could play a significant role in creating havoc – not because of any link to global terrorism and the Taliban, but because they represented a reaction against the poverty and corruption endemic in Nigeria, especially in the North.313 When US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, visited Nigeria later that year, again the roots of Boko Haram were traced to the dire socio-political conditions in the Muslim north. But it was noted that the “few hundred northern Nigerian devotees” of Mohammed Yusuf (“Think gang leader, not religious scholar”) while calling themselves “African Taliban,” did so not so much because of any actual al-Qaeda linkage, but in an effort to gain a sense of belonging to a larger order that stands up to the West.314 They were seen as lethal, but primarily a social problem. The following year, 2010, the Boko Haram claimed responsibility for three attacks that claimed 84 lives and freed 700 inmates from a Bauchi federal prison.315 Apparently the organization matured in 2011. In that year they killed 510 people,316 the violence escalating from shooting local northern politicians; to detonating a bomb at the federal police headquarters in Abuja; to blowing up the United Nations headquarters in Abuja, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100 others; to bombing government buildings and shooting their way through the city of Damaturu, killing more than 100 people; to fighting with police and military forces around the city of Damaturu, leaving at least 61 people dead; to ending the year with an anniversary Christmas attack on a Catholic church in Madalla near Abuja that killed at least 42 people.317 An assault in

313 Johnson, “The Islamists’ rebellion.” 314 E. Griswold, “African Taliban terrorizes Nigeria,” Newsweek, 2009-08-11, accessed 2012-01- 21, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/08/11/hillary-and-the-african-taliban.html. 315 See The Associated Press, “Recent attacks.” 316 See Hinshaw, “Attacks in Nigeria.” 317 See The Associated Press, “Recent attacks.” The first Christmas attack was in 2010 in Jos when as many as eighty people were killed.

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Kano on January 20, 2012 targeted police stations, immigration offices, and the local headquarters of Nigeria’s secret police. Over 200 people were killed, including a number of police and security officers and 2 journalists. Many of the dead were Muslim.318 The government’s response has been harsh but futile. A state of emergency was declared in the north, but Boko Haram merely stuck outside of the cordoned area.319 Goodluck Jonathan has vowed that the perpetrators will “face the full wrath of the law,”320 but security forces and police appear frustrated and helpless in face of the onslaught and Jonathan has admitted that his security and other powerful positions in government may have been infiltrated by Boko Haram members.321 Christians meanwhile, in light of Boko Haram’s announcement that it would specifically target Christians living in Nigeria’s north,322 are vowing to defend themselves.323 The archbishop of Abuja, John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, has declared that Catholics in the country will not be intimidated and the Nigerian Episcopal Conference has issued a statement saying that while the Nigerian government “must meet the needs of legitimate and peaceful demands … one cannot talk about dialogue with criminals and murderers.”324 It has been suggested that a violent response to Boko Haram, including the government’s recent crackdown, may prove counter effective for two reasons. There is a

318 I. Garba and J. Gambrell, “Coordinated sect attack kills 143 in north Nigeria,” Associated Press, 2012-01-21, accessed 2012-01-21, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/21/least-143- killed-north-nigeria-sect-attacks/?page=all. 319 See Hinshaw, “Attacks in Nigeria.” 320 Gambrell and Garba, “Coordinated sect attack kills 143.” 321 See Hinshaw, “Attacks in Nigeria.” 322 Gambrell and Garba, “Coordinated sect attack kills 143.” 323 The Associated Press, “Nigerian Christians to ‘protect’ against attacks: Violence in 2 states in the northeast kills 15,” 2012-01-07, accessed 2012-01-21, http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/01/07/ nigeria-attacks.html. 324 See The Christian Telegraph, “NIGERIA: We will not be Intimidated, says Archbishop,” n.d., accessed 2012-01-21, http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue14054.html.

337 very real danger that security forces may use the new emergency measures to exact indiscriminate revenge on the populous; and force does not address the underlying problems of social disadvantage and poverty fuelling the Boko Haram. As long as the appalling disparity between the hopelessly wealthy and the helplessly poor remains unaddressed, it is argued, the discontent of disaffected peoples is a breeding ground for violence, and repression only becomes a powerful recruiting tool.325

The Response of the Church

All of this presents an unparalleled opportunity for the church, even in the face of Muslim opposition. Joseph Kenny, who has been cited throughout this appendix, is a Dominican priest, an Islamic expert, and a lecturer and Head of the Religious Studies department at the University of Ibadan. He has dedicated his life to Christian-Islam dialogue and puts the threat of Islam to the church in Nigeria in perspective.

A prominent Catholic layman was once talking about the threat of Islam to the Church in Nigeria. After a while he looked at me and said: “But you don’t regard it as a threat.” He was implying that, as a scholar of Islam, I take a friendly, sympathetic approach and don’t give proper attention to the danger of Islam. I was trying to answer in some nuanced way, showing that we have to try to be as positive as we can about Islam while at the same time be completely aware of in what ways it is contrary to Christian faith and ideals.

Afterwards I thought of a better answer: Is the devil a stronger enemy to the Church than Islam? Of course! Is the devil a threat? Not at all!—if we remain united with Jesus who overcame the “Prince of this world” (Jn 12:31; 16:11, 33) and prayed the Father to protect us from the “Evil One” (Jn 17:15). Then how can Islam be a threat, even if it pitches all its forces against us? With faith in the Lord our own success is guaranteed, and we have no justification for panicking.326

325 See J. Bavier, “Nigeria: Why Boko Haram terrorists bombed churches on Christmas,” Newsweek Magazine, 2012-01-02, accessed 2012-01-21, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01 /01/nigeria-why-boko-haramterrorists-bombed-churches-on-christmas.html. 326 Kenny, “The Challenge of Islam in Nigeria” n.p.

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But violence hurts; and at times it can be deadly. Fear, intimidation, persecution, and the loss of possessions inevitably draw out, even from the meekest people, a desire to protect and avenge themselves. In Nigeria, Christians have become just as violent as Muslims in conflict. In light of escalating religious tension, some have promulgated a “third slap doctrine.”327 They argue seriously that when the Bible tells Christians to turn the other cheek, it provides for only two slaps. After the second slap, the Word of God is silent, and based on that silence believers are allowed to defend themselves when under attack. Religious fanaticism is scary, but faulty exegesis can be equally so!

Crowther’s diplomatic and seasoned approach to Muslim relations could be very instructive for the church today.328 Having tried confrontation earlier in his ministry while in Sierra Leone and having found it ineffective, later in life he used respectful dialogue with Muslim believers; and he always responded to questions using God’s own words from the Bible.329 At times, when one is fearful, it is difficult to recall that just as Christians have concerns about life lived in a pluralistic world, so too, Muslims are confronted with fears. As Mazrui admits, “Underlying both forms of Islamic revivalism

[revivalism based on oil wealth or dire poverty] is the constant threat of Western cultural hegemony. The fear of Western imperialism is one of the resilient inspirations behind Islamic fundamentalism.”330 It is important to recognize that Muslims speak of dialogue, common humanity, and joint objectives too.331 Christians need to be as simple as doves

327 See O. Kalu, “Child of the Bondwoman,” 242. 328 On Crowther’s work among Muslims, see F. J. Kolapo, “‘Making Favorable Impressions’: Bishop Crowther’s C.M.S. Niger Mission in Jihadist Nupe Emirate, 1859-1879,” in Religion, History, and Politics, edited by C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji, 29-51. 329 A. F. Walls, “Africa as the Theatre,” 160-64, esp. 163. See also Ajayi, “Religious Pluralism And Tolerance,” 3. 330 Mazrui, “African Islam,” 516. 331 See R. Ammah, “Christian-Muslim Relations in Contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 18 (2007): 139-53. Some writers are less convincing in their attempt at dialogue. See M. O. Opeloye, “Religious Factor in Nigerian Politics: Implications for Christian-Muslim Relations in Nigeria,” Jour. of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 10 (1989): 351-60. This is an

339 and as wise as serpents,332 while at the same time choosing to believe that these assurances are sincere and welcoming. In addition, as Christians, it is helpful to take note of Islam’s assessment of how well the church has met challenges in the past. In a stunning appraisal Mazrui makes the troubling observation that the growth of Christianity has slowed down since after independence, partly because there has been a shift in post-colonial Christian missions from saving souls to saving lives, and partly because the oil-rich Arab countries are now supplying Islam with the resources needed for missionary work in Africa. If he is correct, he defines Christianity’s future ministry and its most compelling concern.333 The following illustration from Knoll uses Nairobi, Kenya as an example – but it could just as easily be about Lagos, Nigeria:

To greatly over-simplify the situation that now exists in the world with respect to ‘Christian civilization,’ if on a Sunday you want to attend a lively, jammed full, fervent, and life-changing service of Christian worship, you want to be in Nairobi, not in Stockholm. But if you want to walk home safely late at night, you want to be in Stockholm, not Nairobi.334 Currently, global Christianity, especially in the global south, is characterized by a faith that is surprisingly conservative, regardless of whether it is robed in Catholic or

interesting article, written from a Muslim perspective. But it does not seem to understand adequately the background issues or the Christian position. At the same time Opeloye asks Christians to more fully accommodate Muslims. Some of the arguments are quite revealing; most are not convincing. 332 This is Kenny’s advice. See Kenny, “The Challenge of Islam in Nigeria” n.p. 333 Mazrui, “African Islam,” 505. Mazrui identifies four other factors: a decline in Nigerians’ fascination with Western culture, a decline in missionary influence and missions’ role in education, the likelihood that atheists in Africa tend to be former Christians rather than former Muslims, and that Christian élites have smaller families than Muslim élites. 334 M. Knoll, moderator, “Faith and Conflict: The Global Rise of Christianity,” event transcript for a luncheon roundtable co-hosted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Council on Foreign Relations held 2005-03-02 at the Council on Foreign Relations in NY, accessed 2010-07-23, http:// pewforum.org/Christian/Faith-and-Conflict-The-Global-Rise-of-Christianity.aspx.

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Protestant forms.335 But for it to have its greatest effect as it emanates from places like Nigeria, Christians need to know that morality must start at home and it is equally about the heart, the head, and the hands. If honesty about who and what we are as believers in Christ is what is required in the future as Nigeria moves forward, Oloyede’s comment is refreshing in its candor: “For us Nigeria, (sic) there is a culture of religion, yet we have not attained religious culture. Though in its study of “What TheWorld (sic) Thinks of God” a couple of years ago, the BBC found that we are the ‘world’s most religious people’, we are still lagging behind in terms of the real religious culture. Most of us are hypocrites and we only pay lip service to God.”336 This remarkably candid comment comes from a follower of Islam. At the risk of being simplistic, social ills impact Christian behaviour, and Christian behaviour impacts social ills. If corruption is moral failure writ large, the fruit of a lack of compassion for people and a lack of concern for God;337 and if personal Christian morality is the fruit of a life of discipleship – lived in obedience to Christ,338 according to the principles of God’s kingdom,339 accruing honour to him340 and attracting people to Jesus341 – then in Nigeria, the church and every believer has a significant role to

335 See Knoll, “Faith and Conflict,” n.p.; Jenkins, The Next Christendom; and L. Sanneh and J. A. Carpenter, eds., The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World (NY: Oxford University Press, 2005). 336 I. O. Oloyede, “MGDS: With God, All Things are Possible,” text of the address delivered on the occasion of the Formal Opening Ceremony of the 29th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Association for the Study of Religions (NASR), at the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria, 2008-09-3: 5, accessed 2011-10-29, http://unilorin.edu. ng/vc-seminars/MGDs-With-God-all-things-are-possible.pdf. 337 “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8 338 “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” John 14:15 339 Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5-7. 340 “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16 341 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Matthew 5:14

341 play, impacting both individual lives and society, as a holy and redemptive community is built up and displayed. In the Nigerian future that may be necessary, but it is not easy.

Summary In this chapter we have looked at the current economic, political, and religious conditions in Nigeria. In the first section, it was seen that practically every area of the Republic’s expansion has stalled. After more than fifty years of independence, the economy is weak, narrow, and underdeveloped. Oil revenues, the boon of the 1970s, have superseded all other sources of income and an over-reliance on this single industry has caused other vital sectors in the economy, such as agriculture and manufacturing, to atrophy. Internal resources are underutilized and poverty, unemployment, and social unrest are endemic. While some promising developments have taken place in recent years in debt reduction, it is difficult to see how specific targets set either in the UN Millennium Development Goals or the government’s Vision 20:2020 can be reached. But Nigerians are innovative and the country possesses abundant natural and human resources. Potential has not diminished. Rather, necessity has increased and courageous, selfless leadership is required. In the second section of this chapter, some of the complicating factors that have exacerbated Nigeria’s problems were delineated. The expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate under Usman dan Fodio, the establishment of the British overlordship under Sir Frederick Lugard, and the subsequent developments that ushered Nigeria into independence in 1960 were all seen as contributing to many of the intractable issues that continue to plague Nigeria today. Several factors – including regionalism, the differential in education between the Christian south and the Islamic north, the lack of a decisive plan for national integration and amalgamation, and support for Islamic Fulani hegemony – were all considered to show the depth and extent of the concerns with which Nigeria wrestles.

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In the third section many of the historical antecedents were explicated to show that religious, ethnic, political, and regional divisions have flowed from these features, inflating debate and confrontation as Muslims and Christians clash in a confluence of divergent worldviews. The introduction of shari’a law in northern Nigeria, the creeping Islamization of Nigeria, and the escalation of religious violence may all be traced to debates regarding the nature of the state in relation to God, the role of religion in politics, and the use of force to accomplish politico-religious ends. The fact that this all is conducted in the midst of rapacious greed, corruption, and fragile power brokering only makes things worse for the majority of impoverished and poorly led Nigerians. The church’s response to Nigeria’s predicament must be one of hope, inspiration, and charity. And while Christianity must remain vigilant, it must at the same time engage in open-handed dialogue with those who genuinely believe differently, supposing that they are equally as concerned as Christian believers and looking, too, for national and individual peace, progress, and prosperity. Rather than being a cause for despair, currently the opportunity is great for leaders of national influence and spiritual integrity to effect lasting and corrective change in Nigeria.

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Appendix B: The Church in West Africa and Nigeria Prior to 1792

The first few centuries of the spread of the gospel was a period of great ferment. Despite being a minority sect initially confused with Judaism and often misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented, Christianity accomplished a remarkable feat. While reaching out through missions and defending itself against official and pagan attack, it debated, defined, and refined the understanding of many of the Christian doctrines that we take for granted today. What is interesting from a Western perspective is that the expansion and theological reflection that we see in Africa now is not new. It is actually the renewal of a much older and equally as powerful interplay between African believers and their faith in Christ. And while it would be wrong to claim too much, it is not that great of an exaggeration to say that Christianity, going back to the beginning, was originally formulated in Africa by some of the greatest intellects of the time. It experienced its greatest growth first in North Africa, was all but extinguished in the seventh century, recovered more than a millennium later, and today is expressed in a faith that is more alive and more vital than on any other continent on earth.1 This appendix will trace the first two movements of the threefold advent of Christianity in Africa. Initially, the Gospel came to Africa from Jerusalem in the east during the formative years of the church and then, later, the message of Christ came from

Portugal in the north during the Age of Discovery2 as priests and traders took the gospel

1 T. C. Oden, “A Libyan History Awaiting Discovery,” Bibliotheca Sacra 167 (2010): 4. 2 The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration or the Great Navigations, spanned from the early fifteenth century into the early seventeenth century. Beginning with Spain and Portugal, Europeans explored the world, mapped the globe, and established contact with Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania. For more information, see: “The Age of Exploration,” accessed 2012-01-31, http://www.eliza bethan-era.org.uk/the-age-of-exploration.htm; “The Age of Discovery,” Lect. 2, Florida Atlantic Uni., Boca Raton FL, and Meredith Col., Raleigh, NC, last revised on 2011-05-02. s.vv. >Lects. on Early Mod. Eur. Hist. >Lect. 2, accessed 2012-01-31, http://www.historyguide.org/.

344 southward along the African coast. The final movement from the west during the modern mission era of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is dealt with in Chapter 1 of this thesis: “The Church in West Africa and Nigeria after 1792.” As the narrative in this appendix unfolds it will be seen that the tale of Christianity on the “Dark Continent”3 is a powerful story. Africa was first the home and then the target of Christianity. Today the influence of the gospel is the result of the persistence and passion of godly men and women from around the world and from Africa too. The first and most basic intention of the following essay is to acquaint those unfamiliar with the rich history of Christian mission to Africa with the often ignored existence of Christianity in Africa prior to the ministry of David Livingstone in the nineteenth century. The fact is: Christianity has been in Africa for a very long time; it is truly an “African” religion. Matured in the cauldron of Roman persecution, North African scholars and martyrs helped define the substance and spirit of the Christian faith. Despite being stalemated by Islam in the Maghreb by the seventh century, their contribution to Christianity has been vital and enduring. The recent role of white missionaries in African

Christianity, as inspiring as it may be, is only part of a long-continuing story. The second purpose of this appendix is to trace the broad outlines of the first two advents of Christianity in Africa and to uncover their predominant features.4 Islam barred the way of Christianity in the north. Almost a millennium later, scores of Portuguese and others offered their lives in the frustrated effort to reintroduce Africa to Christ. The Iberian mission was hampered by cultural myopia, indigenous opposition, and serious strategic failure. But it will be argued that of all the faults, the greatest weakness of

Christian missions during this period was the ignominy of the African slave trade. The

3 See → on page 6. 4 A helpful essay of a similar theme is O. U. Kalu, “The Changing Faces of Christianity in Africa,” in Power, Poverty and Prayer: The Challenges of Poverty and Pluralism in African Christianity, 1960- 1996 (Trenton: AWP, 2006), 3-46.

345 traffic in human souls invalidated much of the heroic efforts and sacrifice of early Christian missions. However, as unlikely as it may seem, slavery and slaving also laid the foundation for the final and most effective assault on the African continent for Jesus. Again, that story is told in Chapter 1 and it relates the power of Christianity lived out and presented in indigenous form.

First Movement: A Fragile Faith, the Biblical Narrative The story of Christianity in Africa begins with Matthew’s report that within two years of the nativity Joseph fled to Egypt with Mary and Jesus to escape Herod’s slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem.5 Apart from that one comment, little is said about their sojourn and it is not until shortly before the death of Christ that Africa again enters the narrative. Simon, the man who carried the cross for Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem, was a pilgrim from the Roman city of Cyrene in present-day Libya.6 In Acts, Luke tells us that fifty days after the crucifixion, on the Day of Pentecost, people from “Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene”7 were among those gathered to hear Peter’s sermon and that after the martyrdom of Stephen, Jewish Christians from Cyprus and Cyrene first preached Christ to the Gentiles at Antioch in Syria.8 Antioch was a key cosmopolitan city in the Roman Empire9 and it soon became the hub of missionary outreach as well as the home of a vibrant mixed Jewish-Gentile church. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch10 and many prominent

5 Matthew 2:13-18. See M. C. Tenney, New Testament Times (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 53-66, for a description of Herod. 6 Matthew 27:32 7 Acts 2:5-13 8 Acts 11:20 9 Antioch was second only to Rome and to Alexandria in Egypt in terms of size and influence. See B. M. Metzger, “Antioch-on-the-Orontes,” Biblical Archaeologist 11 (1948): 69-88; and also S. E. Johnson, “Antioch, the Base of Operations,” Lexington Theo. Quarterly 18 (1983): 64-73. 10 Acts 11:26

346 teachers and prophets ministered there. Two were from Africa: Lucius from Cyrene, and Simeon called Niger, (the Black), a reference most likely to his “black” skin.11 Apollos, a particularly effective preacher, proclaimed Christ in Ephesus and the Roman province of Achaia. He was a Jew from Alexandria, in Egypt.12 And finally, in thirty-four A.D., a high-ranking official in Candice’s court, a eunuch, was converted in a remarkable encounter with Phillip the evangelist. The official returned home to Ethiopia and today the Ethiopian Orthodox Church traces its Christian roots, in part, to him.13

Favourable Conditions Within a few hundred years of the resurrection, there was no Roman province that did not have a Christian witness.14 Paul’s missionary journeys throughout Asia may have occupied Luke’s travelogue in Acts, but in fact the gospel spread in every direction throughout the entire Empire and beyond, carried by any number of believers in Christ. Various factors contributed to the rapid spread of Christianity.15 First, there was a remarkable network of safe roads maintained under the authority of Rome which enabled widespread travel to the farthest corners of the Empire.16 Second, Greek was the

11 Acts 13:1 12 Acts 18:24-28 13 Acts 8:26-40. Actually, the eunuch likely came from the ancient kingdom of Meroe, south of Egypt, in present-day Sudan, rather than from present-day Ethiopia. In the first century A.D. “Ethiopia” referred to the Nubian area south of Egypt, biblical Cush. Present-day Ethiopia was part of the Aksumite kingdom centered at Aksum on the Horn of Africa which rose to power in the third century A.D. See E. M. Yamauchi, “Why the Ethiopian Eunuch Was Not from Ethiopia,” in Africa and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 161-81. For the Ethiopian Orthodox Church tradition, see, accessed 2010-11-17, http://www.ethiopianorthodoxchurch.info/ChurchHistory.html. On the kingdom of Meroe, see S. M. Burstein, “The Kingdom of Meroe,” in Africa and Africans in Antiquity, ed. E. M.Yamauchi (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001), 132-58; and on the eunuch, see F. F. Bruce, “Philip and the Ethiopian,” Jour. of Semitic Studies 34 (1989): 377-86. 14 See, S. Neill, A History of Christian Missions, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 38ff. 15 In addition to these from Neill, Latourette points up the Pax Romana, moral hunger, and personal insecurity. See K. S. Latourette, A History of Christianity, I: to A.D. 1500, 2nd ed. (NY: Harper & Row, 1975), 20-23. 16 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 26; see also, J. Murphy-O’Connor, “Traveling Conditions in the First Century: On the Road and on the Sea with St Paul,” Bible Review 1 (1985): 38-47.

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Empire’s common language for trade and familiar discourse.17 And most importantly, there were Jews in large numbers in every part of the Roman world.18 The Jews in the Diaspora established synagogues in most of the major centers in the Empire and a number of believing Gentiles were associated with these congregations, attracted to Jewish monotheism and Hebrew wisdom. Some non-Jews were circumcised and became full members of the Jewish people, but most were not and remained as “God- fearing” Gentiles.19 It was in these Jewish synagogues, to both Jews and Gentiles that the Christian message was first preached. Some Jews responded, but the most enthusiastic audience was the God-fearing Gentiles, relieved to understand that they could now be accepted as part of God’s people without circumcision or needing to become Jews.20 These scattered communities of Hebrew faith provided both the target of Christians’ initial evangelistic thrust and the means of almost immediate dispersal.21

Personal Witness Of course, there were other, more personal reasons for the rapid spread of

Christianity in the ancient world. Missionaries who were especially marked out by God and the church were very effective.22 And, too, the lay witness of ordinary believers played an invaluable role in spreading the message of Christ. The passion of the early believers was evident and undeniable. Wherever they went, “common” believers spoke of the Way, initially to fellow Jews, but increasingly to their Gentile neighbours. The sense that every believer was an essential witness to faith in Christ and that this witness was to

17 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 26. 18 On the Jewish Diaspora see Tenney, NT Times, 88-91. 19 For example, see Matthew 8:5-13, Acts 10:2, 13:16, and 17:4. 20 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 27-28; see also A. F. Walls, “Converts or Proselytes? The Crisis over Conversion in the Early Church,” IBMR 28 (2004): 2-6. 21 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 28. 22 Paul and Barnabas, for example, in Acts 13:2-3.

348 be a natural part of one’s life can be clearly seen in the New Testament letters.23 It is the basis of Paul’s missionary journeys, the impetus in the beginning of the church in Antioch, and the undocumented story underlying the entire history of the early church.24 This theme of an “unnamed number” bringing the gospel forward would be repeated over and over again in many places and times in the expansion of Christianity.25 It lends an element of mystery and awe to the Christian story and highlights the persistent mission of Christian believers to the world. It should be noted too that state-sponsored persecution of Christians was frequent in the Roman Empire and this elicited a special sort of witness for Christ – not only in obligatory suffering but in the actual desire to die for one’s faith.26 Origen wished for martyrdom; Tertullian praised it;27 and many received it at the hands of their persecutors.28 As Christianity spread, local and national leaders singled out Christians for, at times, fierce persecution. But remarkably, often the effect was not as they might have wished. For even in the periods of deepest persecution, persecutors themselves, moved by the courage of the Christians, came to believe in Christ and then went on to share their

23 I Peter 3:15. 24 See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 23-24; and also Latourette, Hist. of Christianity, I, 66. 25 See for example, E. Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 26 (Egypt), 31 (Nubia); T. Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2007), esp. 23; L. Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983), xv. The itinerate witness of ordinary African Christians was critical in establishing Christianity in W. Africa, especially in Yorubaland in southwestern Nigeria. See A. F. Walls, “Missionary Vocation and the Ministry: The First Generation,” in The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1996), 105. 26 Martyrs were revered in the early church, but martyrdom which was the result of fanaticism or needlessly getting arrested was discouraged. See Latourette, Hist. of Christianity, I, 81-91; and Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 43. 27 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 22 and 35 respectively. 28 The account of these sufferings is famously presented in W. B. Forbush, ed., Fox’s Book of Martyrs: A History of the Lives, Sufferings and Triumphant Deaths of the Early Christian and the Protestant Martyrs (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967); see esp. “The Ten Primitive Persecutions,” in Fox’s Book of Martyrs, ed. W. B. Forbush, 5-33.

349 fate.29 The church, rather than being erased, was actually strengthened, inspired by the faithful witness of those who confirmed their trust in Christ with their blood.30 Not all stood unyielding, however. Some recanted and saved their lives. And in doing so, they helped plant a seed of discord that would trouble the church considerably once the persecution had abated. The issue was not so much their recanting. The critical question was on what basis they should be readmitted to the church, if at all.

A Survey of Northern Africa

The gospel came early to Africa, most likely to Alexandria in Egypt first.31 Tradition holds that the church there was established by Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, the writer of the gospel.32 Already a renowned locus of learning, Alexandria was the home of Gnostics33 who sought to wed Christianity to Greek thought and lost much of the physical reality of Christ in the process. The Alexandrian school was started, likely, in response to this heresy. One of its first teachers, Clement of Alexandria, wrestled to interpret Christianity more adequately in light of Greek philosophy. His student, Origen

(185-253), provided a systematic theology of the nature of God, salvation, and Christ. They both wrote in Greek, but following in the tradition of translation established in the production of the Septuagint,34 the scriptures were translated into Coptic not later than the

29 In North Africa, for example, Basilides, a Roman officer, became a convert after attending the martyrdom of Potainiena. She had boiled pitch poured over her head and was burnt; he was beheaded. Forbush, ed., Fox’s Book of Martyrs, 12. 30 Classic in this is the story of Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, c. 162, who when he was urged by the proconsul to reproach Christ and be released, said: “Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never once wronged me; how then shall I blaspheme my King, Who hath saved me?” He was burned at the stake shortly afterward. Ibid., 9. 31 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 35. 32 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 17. 33 Ibid., 18-20. 34 The Septuagint, the Greek language translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, was produced under Ptolemy II in Alexandria between 275 and 250 B.C. See Tenney, NT Times, 29-30.

350 middle of the third century35 – around the time when the Copts and most of the rest of Egypt were converted to Christianity. The Copts themselves were the original inhabitants of Egypt, and their language is descended from that of the pyramid builders.36 The Coptic Orthodox Church has had a continuous witness for Christ for over 1,700 years. Today there are ten million Coptic Christians living in Egypt.37 Following common travel and trade routes of the day, Christianity spread up the Nile. Nubia is located south of Egypt as far as the northern highlands of Ethiopia. It contained the ancient kingdom of Meroe and adopted Christianity in the third century.

Nubia flourished for several more centuries after that, but eventually it was conquered by Islam in 1012 and most of the Christians there either were dispersed or absorbed into the Muslim population. Apart from ruins, Christianity was effectively lost to this region. Ethiopia was one of the first kingdoms to adopt Christianity as its national religion.38 Two brothers from Syria, who had been shipwrecked on the Horn of Africa in the third century, brought Christianity to the Kingdom of Aksum. The church in Ethiopia has strong ties both to Judaism and to the Coptic Church. It is an ancient Christian witness which, like the Coptic Church, has maintained a continuous testimony for over 1,700 years.39 It alone in North Africa was able to withstand the spread of Islam during the seventh century, halting its progress in 686 at its borders near Aswan. Through time, however, Ethiopia became an increasingly isolated kingdom surrounded by a Muslim sea.

Under peace, Islam was introduced to Ethiopia by traders and merchants so that today

35 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 36. 36 P. Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, 2nd ed. (NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 26. 37 Ibid., 25. 38The first was Osrhoene in Mesopotamia (Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 48-49); the other was Armenia converted by Gregory the Enlightener and King Tiridates around 300 A.D. (see Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 23; Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 53-55). 39 Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 23.

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Muslims make up the majority of the population. Despite being poor, Christian witness remains constant up to the present. The church claims twenty-five million members.40 The Maghreb, an Arabic term which means “the West,” refers to the north coast of Africa from Libya to Morocco.41 Little is known about the establishment of the churches here,42 but Christianity in the Maghreb was characterized by several features. This was the first area in which Latin was used by the church. Greek was the language of the lower classes of Roman society; and Coptic and Berber, for example, were the local dialects of the indigenous poor; but Latin was the language used by the élite of the

Empire. Cyprian from Cyrene, a former lawyer, wrote extensively in Latin. Further west along the coast in Carthage, Tertullian, also a former lawyer, defended Christianity against pagan affront, coined the term Trinity, and defined the nature of the Godhead in the manner in which orthodox Christianity has known it ever since. Towards the end of the Roman Empire, Augustine of Hippo, in present-day Tunisia, wrote the City of God and helped to assure his generation that despite the Fall of Rome to the barbarians in 410, God was still firmly in control. Not long after that, though, in much the same manner as its “sudden appearance,” the church in the Maghreb disappeared completely from history,43 “crushed in a welter of [Islamic] warfare and persecution.”44 Once the initial Islamic crusades of expansion ended in the early eighth century, the church made numerous fruitless attempts to convert the Muslims of northern Africa.45 A second

40 Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 24. 41 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 43. 42 See ibid., 34. 43 See L. Brine, “Past and Present Inhabitants of the Cyrenaica,” Transactions of the Ethnological Soc. of London 7 (1869): 327-28. 44 P. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia – and How It Died (NY: HarperOne, 2008), 100. 45 Saint Francis of Assisi went to Morocco in 1212 and Spain in 1214. After several attempts, finally, he was able to preach to the Sultan of Egypt in 1219 during the Fifth Crusade. See Neill, Hist. of

352 coming of Christianity to Africa would only occur much later, in the fifteenth century, on the west coast, in the vicinity of present-day Nigeria.

Second Movement: Expanding Horizons, the Intervening Years Christianity did not do so well in the thousand years between 500 and 1500 A.D.46 At one point it ranged from Africa and Asia into Europe and Scandinavia, Persia, India, and China. But then it was beaten back almost to its original footprint. In around 1500, after a millennium of witness and work, there was very little progress to show for all the dedicated and dangerous effort of its priests and missionaries. Territorial gains were meagre, and spiritual conviction and vitality were at a low point in the church. One of the chief reasons for the circumscription of the Christian empire was the aggressive and remarkable spread of Islam.47 In 610 a prosperous but relatively unknown forty year old trader named Muhammad purportedly was visited by the angel Gabriel while on spiritual retreat in a cave during the month of Ramadan.48 By the time he died in 632, he had emerged as the undisputed religious and political leader in the Arabian

Peninsula. The world was divided into two realms: the world that existed under Allah, living according to the teachings of the Qur’an and the traditions of Muhammad; and everyone else who was to be brought to submission under Islam.49 By 650 Persia was destroyed and within the first one hundred years Damascus, Syria, Jerusalem, Alexandria,

Christian Missions, 116. Ramón Loll made four visits to North Africa. He was martyred there in 1315. See ibid., 137 and Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 16-17. 46 Latourette called this period, “The Thousand Years of Uncertainty,” and made this the title of the 2nd volume of his seven vol. series on church history; thus, K. S. Latourette, History of the Expansion of Christianity: Thousand Years of Uncertainty, 500-1500 A.D 2 (NY: Harper Brothers, 1938). 47 Other factors could be named as well: the harsh living conditions at the time, high missionary mortality rates, violence, and “one overmastering cause … the recurrent calamities caused by one invasion of the barbarians after another.” See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 132-33. 48 G. W. Braswell, Islam: Its Prophet, Peoples, Politics and Power (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1966), 12. 49 Quote and paragraph content, ibid., 19.

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Carthage, and Spain were taken.50 Rome was plundered in 846, followed by Sicily in 902 and Constantinople in 1453.51 Between the Muslims and the Mongols, who themselves would eventually adopt the faith of Islam,52 Christianity was devastated. Except for Europe, it had nearly all been swept away.53

“God and the King, and Riches”54 Muslim hegemony split the known world in half and cut the West off from the East. Mediterranean sea-travel was unsafe for Christian traffic, and Islamic control of the overland trade routes to the spice and riches of the Orient made commerce both costly and hazardous.55 For Portugal and Spain, the great sea-going nations of the fifteenth century, finding a route around the Muslim monopoly became a priority. Prince Henry of Portugal (1394-1460) sponsored voyages of discovery southward along the coast of Africa.56 Other Portuguese kings copied his example57 and the Spanish followed suit. But as important as breaking the Muslim monopoly on Oriental trade was for Europe, religious rivalry between Christianity and Islam was perhaps more important.

The regression of Christianity inflamed the pious desires of men and women such as

50 P. Jenkins, The Lost Hist. of Christianity, 101-02. 51 See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 62. 52 See the remarkable story of the near Christianization of the Mongols and their eventual adoption of Islam in ibid., 118-29, especially 125-26. 53 See ibid., 132-33. 54 This phrase is taken from a quote attributed to Bernal Diaz, a companion of Hernan Cortés during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. It captures the three-fold impetus behind the new surge in exploration at the end of the fifteenth century. See B. Diaz, in B. Gascoigne, A Brief History of Christianity, rev. ed. (London: Robinson, 2003), 129, quoted from J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaisance (sic): Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement, 1450-1650 (Berkeley: University of California, 1982), 35. 55 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 94. 56 The Prince offered to “furnish any one with a ship and everything save cargo, the profits to be equally divided, and loss, if loss there were, to be wholly borne by himself.” See, “Prince Henry the Navigator,” Geographical Jour. 3 (1894): 400-401. 57 See E. Axelson, “Prince Henry the Navigator and the Discovery of the Sea Route to India,” Geographical Jour. 127 (1961): esp. 149-50.

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Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella of Spain, Christopher Columbus, Magellan, Cortés, Vasco de Gama and the many religious who accompanied the explorers on their voyages of discovery.58 Persistent tales of gold and riches in faraway places drew out the wanderlust equally in freelance adventurers, commercial enterprises, and representatives of the crown. But the records are clear. Early on at least, the purpose was two-fold: to take the gospel to unknown lands and to bring the power of the Muslims to the ground.59 The world changed irrevocably in 1488 when Bartolomeu Dias sailed round the southern tip of Africa in a Portuguese ship. Four years later, the Italian, Christopher Columbus, sailing on a Spanish carrack,60 found America to the west.61 For the next century Portugal would go east, and Spain would go west. Both of them would offload priests and return laden with spices and gold.62

Marks of Mission in the New World With the discovery of new lands, as both Spain and Portugal energetically pursued commercial and territorial expansion, the question of who should benefit from and be responsible for conquest and Christianization needed to be determined.63 In 1493, the year in which Columbus returned from America, Pope Alexander VI issued three Bulls recognizing the exclusive rights of Spain to trade in the lands to the west of the Atlantic. From a vertical line drawn 100 leagues to the left of the Azores, he granted Spain everything to the west of the mark; Portugal was responsible for everything to the

58 See K. S. Latourette, A History of Christianity, II: A.D. 1500 to A.D. 1975, rev. ed. (Peabody: Prince Press, 1975): 693-94. 59 See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 140. 60 A carrack is 3-masted merchant sailing ship. The Santa Maria, captained by Columbus, was a carrack. See accessed 2012-01-27, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/96864/carrack. 61 See “Christopher Columbus,” accessed 2010-11-20, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/ topic/127070/Christopher-Columbus. 62 See Gascoigne, A Brief Hist., 123. 63 See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 141.

355 east.64 This arrangement, known as the padroado, or patronage,65 came to define the Christian mission to the New World. In West Africa the progress of Christianity under the Portuguese was slow. Since the authority of the priests came from the crown, their mandate worked against them. Frequently, they functioned more as chaplains to the traders and their families than as evangelists to the Africans. They seldom ventured more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) inland.66 And since the Portuguese insisted on their rights under the padroado, they protected their territory and thwarted the efforts of other Catholic groups interested in missions.67 Later when other, non-Catholic nations began trading in Africa, the papal Bulls became meaningless.68 The Protestant traders, especially, cared little for Portuguese commercial rights, or for that matter, about spreading the gospel. Unfortunately, the “lewd lives” of most European traders, regardless of their nationality or background, did little to recommend Christianity to the local population.69 If the padroado defined who provided early missions in West Africa, the missionaries and the countries they served defined how that mission was done. The conversion of Europe had only recently been accomplished, towards the end of the fourteenth century, in large part due to royal favour, martyrdom, and monasticism.70 So

64 A. Davies, “Columbus Divides the World,” Geographical Jour. 133 (1967): 339. A year later the boundary line was moved 270 leagues further westward (Davies 340), thereby inadvertently ensuring that Brazil would be Portugal’s only holding in South America – once it was discovered in 1500 by Cabral. See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 141-42; and also Gascoigne, A Brief Hist., 126. Note: A league is approximately 5.15 kilometers (or 3.2 miles); 370 leagues, the position of the final demarcation, are equal to about 1,910 km (or 1,185 mi.). For the responsibilities and benefits of the papal decision, see V. H. Cummins, “Imperial Policy and Church Income: The Sixteenth Century Mexican Church,” The Americas 43 (1986): esp. 88-89. 65 Latourette, A Hist. of Christianity, II, 932. 66 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 20-21ff. 67 Davies, “Columbus Divides the World,” 342-43; and Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 178. 68 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 204. 69 See Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 54. 70 See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 66.

356 in 1481 when King João II of Portugal made it official policy to use African rulers as agents of Christianization,71 he no doubt was expecting the same result in Africa as on the Continent.72 There the martyrdom or death of the first missionaries became the seed of the church, and eventually, under the aegis of a deeply converted ruler, the faith was made part of the inheritance of the people.73 It was a proven approach in Europe where the conversion of kings was critical to the planting and subsequent spread of the Christian faith.74 Granted, Protestants in Europe, Scotland, England, and the New English colonies were doing things differently, appealing more directly to the masses. But for Roman

Catholic missions in West Africa, Roman Catholic priests – under the direction of Roman Catholic kings and queens in Spain and Portugal – continued to visit the courts of Benin City and Warri in Nigeria at the same time as Nobili was appealing to the Brahmins of India, Xavier and others were missionizing the élite of Japan, and Ricci was cultivating imperial favour in China.75 Unfortunately, in West Africa, even when missionaries did make contact with African kings, their approach had very little impact.

71 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 36. 72 Sanneh makes this point in his essay, “‘A Plantation of Religion’ and the Enterprise Culture in Africa: History, Ex-Slaves and Religious Inevitability,” JRA 27 (1997): 15-16. 73 See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 90. 74 The first Christian country was Armenia brought to Christ as a result of the conversion of Tiridates in 301 (see Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 53); or possibly, according to early Christian legend, Osrhoene in northern Mesopotamia under King Abgar during the life of Jesus (see ibid., 48). Other kings and kingdoms followed: Clovis, king of the Franks (converted 496); Ethelbert of Kent, (converted 597); Oswald, king of Northumbria (converted 634); Charlemagne, king of the Franks (reigned 771-814); Vladimir of Russia (reigned 980-1015); Mieszka of Poland (baptized 967) and his son, Boleslav (reigned 992-1025); Geisa of Hungary (baptized 973) and his son, Stephen (reigned 975-1038); Canute of Denmark (reigned 1018-35); and Olaf Tryggvessӧn (b. 969, reigned 995-1000) and O. Haraldssӧn of Norway (reigned 1015–28). See Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 53-105. 75 For Germany, England, and Scotland, see Gascoigne, A Brief Hist., esp. 112-24; for W. Africa, see Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 35-52; for Xavier, see Latourette, A Hist. of Christianity, II, 928-30, 936-38 (Japan) and Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions,148-51, 153-57; for Ricci (China), see Latourette, A History of Christianity, II, 939-41 and Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 163-65; and for Nobili (India), see Latourette, A History of Christianity, II, 931 and Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 183-87.

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Mission to “Nigeria’s” Southern Kingdoms The kingdom of Benin, east of Yorubaland in southwestern Nigeria, was a kingdom of considerable size and power by the early fifteenth century. The Portuguese made first contact with it sometime after 1486. And while Oba (king) Ozolua appeared interested in Christianity, it was not until 1516 that he sent one of his sons to be baptized by missionaries and to be taught how to read. When this son became the new oba, he was openly hostile to Christianity.76 Subsequent missions were sent to Benin, the last one in 1748, but they, too, made little headway. Scores of priests died in the effort, and after three centuries of vain attempts, there was very little to show for the work.77 Nearly a generation after approaching Benin, in 1571, Augustinian monks brought Christianity to the Kingdom of Itsekiri (Warri) in the Niger Delta. Despite explicit royal support,78 however, little was accomplished in the following centuries. Few priests wanted to serve in the inhospitable region and the kingdom itself was isolated and irrelevant. Finally, in 1732, a new olu (king) withdrew support from local Christians. Church services ceased, a statue of Christ was destroyed after it failed to bring rain in the midst of a drought, and the church building came to be used as a barn for animals.79 By 1807 Christianity had declined alarmingly and by 1840 it had all but disappeared.80

76 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 37-38. 77 See ibid., 51. 78 The olu and his son, Sebastian, were baptized. Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 39. According to Isichei, Sebastian only was baptized. See Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 61. 79 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 42. 80 Ibid., 43 (regarding 1807); and Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 62 (regarding 1840).

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Reasons for Failure During the three hundred years between 1492 and 1792,81 Roman Catholic missions struggled to plant Christianity in West Africa. The lack of any long-term success in the area can be attributed to a number of factors. Among the most evident are the harshness of the African climate, the critical shortage of missionary priests, the high death rate among religious workers, and Portugal’s insistence on its rights under padroado. A serious misstep occurred with the Euro-inspired policy of focusing on African royal courts in an effort to win whole kingdoms for Christ. This approach failed to discern the thorny religious and political issues that surrounded native monarchies. Other, larger social and cultural concerns obstructed the return of Christianity to West Africa, too. For indigenous leaders, meeting Europeans for the first time in their own lands, Christianity could hardly have been viewed as a new religion. For them, the Church and Christ’s representatives were a foreign authority that was closely identified with European commercial interests. Largely because of this imperial connection, both African social convention and local African traditional religions opposed Christianity as an alien worldview. Given the relative peace and stability of the time, other societal factors that generally support significant personal and social changes were not present.82 Underlying all of this was the failure of Roman Catholic missions to take seriously the contextual issues that are involved in approaching culturally different peoples.83 It is negatively significant that most of the Roman Catholic missionaries in West Africa during this period were foreigners, not indigenous priests. Also, in the polygamous, non-European societies of the Atlantic African coast, the Roman Church

81 These dates represent the two brackets of this age: 1492, the year in which Columbus discovered America, and 1792, the year in which William Carey published his mission treatise, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians. 82 See Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 47-48 and 51-52. 83 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 199-00.

359 insisted both on a celibate clergy and the sole use of Latin for the liturgy. And unlike Protestants, Catholics made no attempt to translate the Bible into indigenous languages.84

The Greatest Weakness But all of this skirts what was arguably the greatest weakness of Christian work in Africa during this time – its close association with the slave trade.85 The first shipload of 201 slaves left from São Tomé for Santo Domingo and San Juan in November, 1532,86 and over the 400 year history of slaving in Africa (1450-1867),87 the West Coast of

Africa became the focus of a trafficking in human cargo that fuelled the economic development of the New World colonies and laid waste to the region. Ships lay at anchor in the bights and bays off the coast for months waiting to be filled by either “fort” or “boat” trade.88 An estimated 11.1 million people were transported to Brazil, Spanish America, and North America by way of the infamous Middle Passage across the Atlantic – stowed between the decks of French, Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, and American ships. Of these, nearly 1.5 million (or 13%) died during transport.89 Another

84 Neill, Hist. of Christian Missions, 208-09. 85 See Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 71-72. 86 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 36. 87 These are the dates used by P. E. Lovejoy, “The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Synthesis,” JAH 23 (1982): 473-501. 1450 is the approximate beginning of the commercial slave trade in Africa. Initially the destination for slaves was Europe, not the Americas. See I. Elbl, “The Volume of the Early Atlantic Slave Trade, 1450-1521,” JAH 38 (1997): 35n6. The probable date of the first transatlantic slave voyage directly from Africa (to Puerto Rico) was 1519; the last was in 1867. See D. Eltis, “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment,” The William and Mary Quarterly 58 (2001): 17n2. 88 M. Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (NY: Viking, 2007), 78 and 206-09. European forts along the African coast were called “factories.” “Fort trade” was slave trading based on land conducted from these factories. “Boat trade” operated without a land base. Slaves were brought from shore by canoes and taken to slave ships waiting in bights (bays) along coast. Negotiations between the ship’s captain and the slavers were conducted onboard. 89 See, D. Eltis, “The Vol. and Struct. of the Slave Trade,” 43, 46. Mortality during early voyages ranged as high as 25-30%. Motivated to increase profitability, later handling techniques became more efficient and losses diminished but were never wholly eliminated.

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1.5 million died within one year of slavery. And an estimated 1.8 million never even left Africa; they died in transit to the coast or while waiting to be loaded onto slave ships.90 In the history of human migrations, the Atlantic slave trade was almost certainly the largest human oceanic migration prior to the great European migration when, between about 1815 and 1914, fifty million people emigrated to the Americas.91 It was not until John Wesley, Wilberforce, and a number of others rightly divined that slaves were sinners who needed to be converted and that slavery was a sin that had to be abolished that the tide began to turn.92 Eventually, when humanitarian concern and business interests combined, the movement to abolish slavery became an irresistible force.93 And still it took nearly thirty years of legislation94 and enforcement before the last slaving ship on Africa’s west coast was condemned95 in 1867 by the British at Freetown, Sierra Leone.96 Six years later, in 1873, the last public slave market in the world was closed in Muslim-run Zanzibar. An Anglican church now stands where the market once was. The land was bought and given to the church as a gift by a wealthy Hindu merchant.97 Today it seems self-evident that there is a basic contradiction between converting

Africans and purchasing them as slaves. But in the Kongo during this time some priests

90 Rediker, The Slave Ship, 5. 91 J.D. Fage, “African Societies and the Atlantic Slave Trade,” Past & Present 125 (1989): 100-01. 92 See J. F. A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841-1891: The Making of a New Élite, ed. K. O. Dike, 2nd ed. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 9. 93 M. Crowder, The Story of Nigeria, rev. ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1966), 124-33. 94 The 1807 Act (Slave Trade Abolition Bill) ended the transatlantic slave trade, making slave trading illegal in the British Empire. But slavery itself was not ended until the Emancipation Act of 1833 when the act of owning slaves was abolished throughout the British Empire. Slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865; and in Brazil in 1888. See “Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807-2007 - Official Magazine,” Ref. No.: 06REU04476, published by the Department for Communities and Local Government, London (2007-03-22): 4, 20, accessed May 5, 2011, http://webarchive.nationalarc hives.gov.uk/20120919132719/http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/322014.pdf. 95 See n44 → on page 29. 96 “Bicentenary of Abolition,” 21. 97 Gascoigne, A Brief Hist., 81-83.

361 traded in slaves.98 Slaves were given to the church as alms.99 Exported slaves were branded as proof of both ownership and baptism. And in a peculiar irony, only Christian slaves could be sold, and then only to Christians.100 It is probable that when slaves were first imported into the American colonies in 1619 to Virginia, they were baptized Catholics from longstanding Catholic families in the Kongo.101 Perhaps, as can only be seen sincerely through the eyes of faith, in the providence of God this “greatest weakness” became the means for Africa’s redemption. A third coming of Christianity to Africa would occur in the eighteenth century at the place of its greatest disservice102 – again on the West Coast, but this time 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the northwest of present-day Nigeria. It would not only have a profound effect upon Nigeria; it would change Africa’s religious makeup and transform the very nature of Christianity in the world.

98 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 71. 99 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 38. 100 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 71. 101 Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 37. 102 In a disadvantaged continent, it is difficult to decide whether slavery is, in fact, Africa’s greatest disservice. Rivals might include the Scramble for Africa (and King Leopold’s “reign of terror” in the Kongo), the whole colonial enterprise, the fifteen or eighteen centuries of Christianity’s tardiness in sharing the gospel, or, more recently, global neglect in the face of apartheid, famine, genocide, and rapacious tyranny.

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Appendix C: Nigerian Christianity (1890-2013)

The purpose of this appendix is threefold: to describe the growth of Christianity in Africa in the twentieth century, to offer an historical a guide to modern-day Nigerian Christianity, and to sketch the Christian religious context of CINDICO and UNIDICO. Since this essay picks up the narrative of divine missions in Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, it serves as a companion to Chapter 1 and continues the discussion of

Christianity in Nigeria from 1890 up to today, 2013. To begin, the numerical description of African Christianity in the twentieth century, which follows immediately after this introduction, informs the Western reader of the power, place, and influence of the Nigerian church in global Christianity. From there, Nigerian Christianity is set in its background context of missions Christianity. And finally, as an introduction to the appendix’s main study of indigenous Christianity, the categories used to describe the evolution of Nigerian Christianity from Mission churches to African Churches to AICs and Nigerian Pentecostalism are described. With this orientation the rationale behind the progression of faith in Nigeria and the events that helped channel Nigerians’ responses to the gospel ought to become clearer, the unfamiliar assemblage of denominations in the Nigerian republic should be more readily understood, and for Western readers particularly, there ought to be an increased appreciation of the rich and varied religious context in which CINDICO and UNIDICO operate. The time period covered in this appendix starts immediately after CMS authorities forced Samuel Crowther, the first indigenous Anglican bishop, to resign from the Niger Mission (1857-1890) in 1890.1 The discussion will focus on the African response to white missionary censure and the subsequent exponential increase of the church in

1 See → on page 44.

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Nigeria as a result of the ministry of local prophets and autonomous black church leaders beginning around 1918. The narrative will conclude by drawing some tentative application of the discussion to the ministries of CINDICO and UNIDICO today.

Explosive Growth: Remarkable Changes ꜛIn the hundred years from 1890 to just before the end of the twentieth century, the complexion of Christianity was altered by remarkable changes that took place throughout the developing world. In a little more than a generation, the locus of

Christianity shifted decidedly toward the global south. The worldwide representation of Christianity was relatively static during the entire hundred-year period: Christians made up one third of the world’s population. But whereas in 1910 over 80% of Christians lived in Europe and North America and less than 2% lived in Africa, by 2010 those figures would go, respectively, to under 40% and almost 22%.2 Globally, the most dramatic change took place in Africa. At the beginning of the 1900s, in the whole continent there were only ten million Christians. By the year 2000 the number of Christians living in Africa had risen to 360 million.3 In 1910 less than 10% of Africa was Christian. In 2010 it was nearly 50% Christian, with sub-Saharan Africa being well over 70% Christian (see fig. 3 → on page xvi).4 Nigeria alone was home to

2 See T. M. Johnson and K. R. Ross, “The Atlas of Global Christianity: Its Findings,” Paper presented at the Edinburgh 2010 Conference, Edinburgh, UK, June 5, 2010, 1, accessed 2010-11-13, http://www.edinburgh2010.org/. 3 P. Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, 2nd ed. (NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 4. “If that growth does not represent the largest quantitative change in the whole of religious history, I am at a loss to think of a rival.” Ibid., 4. Miller says that in sub-Saharan Africa in 1900 there were seven million Christians, and that by 2010 this number had grown to 470 million. By 2010, one- in-five, or 21% of all the Christians in the world lived in sub-Saharan Africa. See Preface in T. Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, A Project of the Pew Research Center in collaboration with Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2010), i. 4 See Johnson and Ross, “The Atlas of Global Christianity,” 1. Miller does not put the estimate for sub-Saharan Africa as high. He suggests that in 2010 there were 57% Christians between the Sahara Desert and the Cape of Good Hope. See Preface in Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension, i.

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72.3 million Christian believers in 2010.5 The country ranked seventh in the top ten Christian countries by population behind the United States, Brazil, Russia, China, Mexico, and the Philippines.6 Over the years the shift toward Christianity in Nigeria has been significant. In 1953, 45.3% of the population was Muslim, 21.4% Christian and 33.3% belonged to other religions. Fifty years later in 2003, the Muslim population had increased 5% to 50.5%, but Christians had more than doubled to 48.2%. Only 1.4% of Nigerians were associated with other religions.7 Of the 48.2% Christians in Nigeria, 60% of them were

Protestant, 37% were Catholic, and 4% were classified as “Other.” Taking the Protestants alone, 43% were Pentecostal, 15% Anglican, 13% African Independent Churches, 13% Baptist, 7% Methodist and 2% each were Lutheran and Presbyterian. Five percent were categorised as “Other, No response or Don’t know” (see fig. 4 → on page xvii).8

Christian Mission Churches Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, and others helped prepare for this increase. Mission stations provided the base for organized churches, and missionaries used a variety of means to promote Christianity. Starting in the early 1840’s slaves were redeemed and rehabilitated and social outcasts were given shelter. Whether formally trained or not, missionaries dispensed health services to

5 Johnson and Ross, “The Atlas of Global Christianity,” 2, Table 1. 6 Ibid. 7 R. Ruby, sr. ed., Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals, A Project of the Pew Research Center in collaboration with Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2007): 85. 8 See Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension, 20-23. To obtain the denominational percentages relative to other Protestants groups in Nigeria, the percentage of the denomination relative to all Christians in Nigeria, including Roman Catholics, was divided by the percentage of all Christians relative to the population of Nigeria.

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Africans.9 Mary Slessor,10 “the white queen of Okoyong” administered medicines on behalf of the Presbyterians in the Niger Delta region. In Onitsha in southeastern Nigeria, shortly after his arrival in 1885, Father Lutz of the French Holy Ghost Fathers was known as “the doctor of the whole town.” The first hospital in Nigeria was established in Warri by the Baptists in 1888. The first leper colony was organized in 1895 by Father Coquard in Abeokuta.11 The first printing press was set up by the Church of Scotland in Calabar in 1846. And in Abeokuta, on December 3, 1859, Townsend published, in Yoruba, the first newspaper in Nigeria, 12 Iwe Irohin fun Awon Ara Egba ati Yoruba.13

But of all the tools that the church used to promote Christ, education had the greatest “civilizing” effect and was the most ready means of Christian conversion.14ꜛ The

9 See Walls’s essay, “The Domestic Importance of the Nineteenth-Century Medical Missionary: ‘The Heavy Artillery of the Missionary Army,’” in The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith, 211-20 (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1996. 10 For a brief but interesting account of Slessor’s life see R. A. Tucker, “Mary Slessor,” in From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 170-75. 11 C. I. Ejizu, “Christian Evangelism in Nigeria: A Blueprint for the Future,” Mission Studies 5 (1988): 31. 12 M. A. Ojo, “Religion, Public Space, and the Press in Contemporary Nigeria,” in Christianity and Social Change in Africa: Essays in Honor of J. D. Y. Peel, ed. T. Falola (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2005), 235, quoted in A. Ukah, “African Christianities: Features, Promises and Problems,” Arbeitspapiere/Working Papers, 79, Institut f r Ethnologie und Afrikastudien/Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität (2007): 5. However, note that Adesoji quotes and agrees with Omu who says that the true beginning of the Nigerian press occurred with the founding of the indigenously owned Lagos Times and Gold Coast Advertiser on 1880-11-10. See A. O. Adesoji, “Old Wine in New Bottle: The Nigerian Press in the Era of Constitutional Democracy, 1999-2009,” Jour. of Intl. Soc. Research, 3 (2010): 23, quoting F. I. A. Omu, Press and Politics in Nigeria, 1880–1937 (London: Longman, 1978), 7 and 19-29. See also Abiodun Salawu, “The Yoruba and Their Language Newspapers: Origin, Nature, Problems and Prospects,” Studies of Tribes and Tribals 2 (2004): 97-104. 13 “Newspaper for the Egba and the Yoruba.” 14 See Ejizu, “Christian Evangelism,” 32. “Schools and teachers go with the gospel. You can’t have one without the other,” M. Slessor, quoted in J. B. Grimley and G. E. Robinson, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 276. See also E. H. Berman, “Christian Missions in Africa,” in African Reactions to Missionary Education, ed.,E. H. Berman (NY: Teachers College Press, 1975), 1-53; J. F. A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841-1891: The Making of a New Élite, ed. K. O. Dike, 2nd ed. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969), esp. chap. 5, “Civilization Around the Mission House;” L. Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983), chap. 6, “Christian Missions and African Education and Social Improvement;” and M. M. Ogbeidi, “American Missionaries and Educational Development in Colonial

366 first school in Nigeria was started by the Holy Ghost fathers in Warri in 1802; and for all mission denominations in Nigeria, schooling was used as a powerful tool for evangelism.15 For years the church held the monopoly on education. Religious organizations subsidized by the colonial government provided instruction in Western learning as part of their ministry. The standard text was the Scriptures. In 1942, 97% of Nigeria’s student population was enrolled in mission schools16 and throughout the continent many of the future leaders of independent Africa attended church-run schools.17 Christian-run boarding schools offered secondary education – away from family, often governed by strict discipline, and frequently including manual labour.18 Unlike the CMS that favoured teaching in the vernacular, the Catholics taught in English and gained a decided advantage in missions, especially among the Igbo in southeastern Nigeria.19 Africans, keen on advancement, wanted to learn the colonial tongue. Boys were most frequently sent to school; girls, even today, tend to acquire less education.20

Nigeria,” in Religion, History, and Politics in Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ogbu U. Kalu, ed.C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji (Lanham: UPA, 2005), 96-108. 15 Ejizu, “Christian Evangelism,” 31. 16 J. S. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkley: University of California Press 1958), 113, quoted in E. H. Berman, Introduction to African Reactions, xi. 17 Among others, K. Nkrumah (Gold Coast/Ghana) had once seriously considered becoming a Jesuit priest, [M. Meredith, The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence (NY: Public Affairs, Perseus Books Group, 2005), 23]; L. Senghor (French W. Africa/Senegal) was taught by Catholic missionaries, [ibid., 59]; H. Banda (Nyasaland/Malawi) was an elder in the Church of Scotland, [ibid., 88]; J. Kenyatta (British East Africa/Kenya) was educated by Church of Scotland missionaries, [ibid., 80]; J. Nkomo (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) was a lay preacher with the British Methodist Church, [ibid., 128]; N. Sithole and R. Mugabe (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) were both mission-educated teachers, and Sithole was also a minister, [ibid., 131]. See also T. Falola and M. M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008), xxi; and Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 169-70. 18 Berman, African Reactions, 72ff (discipline) and 11ff (labour). 19 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 271. 20 See T. Moja, “Nigeria Education Sector Analysis: an Analytical Synthesis of Performance and Main Issues,” report prepared for The World Bank, 2000-01, 13 and 40, accessed 2011-02-11, http://site resources.worldbank.org/NIGERIAEXTN/Resources/ed_sec_analysis.pdf.

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Even though the growth of indigenous Christian groups in Africa has been remarkable in the twentieth century,21 historic mission churches continue to represent the majority of Nigerian Christianity.22 Despite their imperialist proclivities and racial foibles, Nigeria owes a debt to the hundreds of expatriate missionaries who fought for the abolishment of slavery, the humane treatment of twins and the aged, and the expansion of the African spiritual world to include Christ as the Saviour. In many instances it was missionaries, aided by Africans, who provided the first written record of African history and culture, preserved native languages, and translated God’s word into the vernacular.23

Regardless of the woes that may legitimately be associated with colonialism, modern missionaries, accompanied by African partners, played a critical role in reintroducing Christianity to Africa. John Sentamu, a Ugandan, elected (Anglican) Archbishop of York in 2005, gives this tribute:

My late parents always said to me whenever you meet a group of people who may be interested in hearing what you have to say, always tell them how grateful we are for the missionaries who risked their lives to bring the good news of God’s salvation to Uganda. It is because of that missionary

21 See S. B. Mala, “African Instituted Churches in Nigeria: The Quest for Unity, Education and Identity,” in Ministry in Partnership with African Independent Churches, ed. D. A. Shank, papers presented at the Conference on Ministry Partnership with African Independent Churches, 1989-07, Kinshasa, Zaire (Elkhart, IN: Mennonite Board of Missions, 1991), 23. 22 Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 65ff. 23 See E. Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 267; and also L. Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, American Society of Missiology Series (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989), esp. chaps. 4-6. See also, J. N. K. Mugambi, “Christianity and the African Cultural Heritage,” in African Christianity: An African Story, ed. O. Kalu (Trenton: AWP, 2007), 167-88. Mugambi argues that the establishment of Independent African Churches during the colonial period was the expression of Africans’ need for cultural freedom and cultural identity. For Nigerian writers on Nigerian culture and history, see T. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); A. Ogundiran, ed., Pre-colonial Nigeria: Essays (Trenton: AWP, 2005); A. Oyebade, ed., The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola 1, 2 vols series (Trenton: AWP, 2002); and A. Oyebade ed., The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola 2, 2 vols. series (Trenton: AWP, 2003).

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endeavour that I am standing in front of you. A fruit of their risk-taking and love.24

African Indigenous Christianity The story of the expansive growth of Christianity in Nigeria from 1890 onward is described in the narrative below. The foundations for this great work were laid in the sacrificial efforts of white and indigenous missionaries in the nineteenth century. Chapter 1 tells that story: it describes and highlights the transformation that took place in Christian missions in Nigeria from 1792 to 1890 once the responsibility for the gospel was assumed by local workers and enfleshed in indigenous form.

There are three sections in the following discussion. The first two are introductory and include a brief description of the categories used to define African Christianity and an explanation of the three time periods that mark the evolution of Christian expression in Nigeria. The “classification” of indigenous churches in the mid-1900s was very important for African believers. For once African Christian experience could be described, ultimately, that led to its greater acceptance within the broader Christian community.

With this background of types and timeframes, the narrative will then relate the history of Christian mission in Nigeria after 1890 focusing on the ministry of Africans to Africans. One of the marvels of the story is that in the very heart of Africa’s former “slave coast,”25 Christianity flourished under Nigerian prophets, pastors, and pentecostals.

Typology

The variety among African indigenous churches can be confusing. When non- mission churches first appeared at the turn of the twentieth century, some questioned the

24 J. Sentamu quoted in S. Bates, “A Cleric’s Journey: from Idi Amin’s Uganda to York,” The Guardian (London), 2005-06-18, accessed 2010-05-28, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jun/18/reli gion.immigrationpolicy. 25 See Robin Law and Kristin Mann, “West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the Slave Coast,” William and Mary Quarterly 56 (1999): 307-34.

369 orthodoxy of their Christian faith.26 Others questioned their sanity.27 Finally, in 1948 Sundkler, working in South Africa, suggested a typology for the emerging churches. Up to that point they had been summarily labeled as “separatist,” “nativistic,” or more pejoratively, “heretical.”28 Viewing these churches as credible African responses to Christianity, Sundkler described two types of African churches that had either broken ties with mission churches or had been established independently by prophet leaders. The first he called Ethiopian;29 the other he called Zionist.30 It was an important step toward legitimizing African Christian independence and removing the stigma and suspicion of its

Christian character.31 In Nigeria, Ethiopian churches are known as “African churches.”32

26 For example see, D. S. Gilliland, “How ‘Christian’ Are African Independent Churches?” Missiology 14 (1986): 259-72. Gilliland attempts to be objective. His intention is to determine which African churches are “part of the true church and which are not.” And his goal is to be as helpful as possible in “our ministry to independent churches.” 27 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 299; also see ibid., 299-01. 28 See P. Kollman, “Classifying African Christianities: Past, Present, and Future: Part One,” JRA 40 (2010): 6-7. See also J. E. Tishken, “A Brief History and Typology of the African Reformation,” Nova Religio 13 (2009): 6. 29 This term was used by Ethiopian churches as a self-description. It was based on Psalm 68:32, “Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God.” See Kollman, “Classifying African Christianities, pt. 1,” 9. 30 Zionism developed in South Africa a decade after Ethiopianism, in the early 1900s. Whereas Ethiopian churches were largely copies of mission churches, independent of missionary oversight, Zionism developed outside of missionary efforts. Although “Zionists,” they are not related in any way to the Jewish Zionist movement. Instead, their origins can be traced to the influence of J. Dowie, a Scots preacher who taught divine healing, from Zion City, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Dowie did commission missionaries to South Africa but most South African Zionist churches are not the result of their efforts. They are instead founded by African prophets and visionaries who saw themselves establishing God’s new Israel. They adopted the name Zion using it in the names of their churches to describe this eschatological mandate. Zionist churches are distinguished by distinctly African features in their worship and belief. See C. H. Grundmann, “Heaven Below Here And Now! The Zionist Churches in Southern Africa,” Intl. Jour. for the Study of the Christian Ch. 6 (2006): 256-69; and “Did you know?” Christian Hist. 22 (2003): 2. See also V. S. Molobi, “Do Zionist Churches Still Matter When Envisioning a Rainbow Nation?” Mission Focus: Annual Review 17 (2009): 70-82. Molobi’s paper is also available as an iTunesU audio lecture, accessed 2011-05-22, https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/victor-s.-molobi-shenk-mission/id 392735645. Anderson traces the Pentecostal influence in Zionist churches. See A. Anderson, “Writing the Pentecostal History of Africa, Asia and Latin America,” Jour. of Beliefs & Values 25 (2004): 146. 31 Kollman, “Classifying African Christianities, pt. 1,” 7. For the full discussion, see also P. Kollman, “Classifying African Christianities, Part Two: The Anthropology of Christianity and Generations of African Christians,” JRA 40 (2010): 118-48. 32 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 179.

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In 1967 Harold Turner, building on the work of Sundkler and others, developed a new description for churches in Africa. He classified them as being either “Older [mission-based] Churches” or “Independent African churches.” The latter were marked by being “founded in Africa, by Africans, and primarily for Africans.”33 The acronym AIC is now normative for churches of this type, and depending upon the author and emphasis, the “I” variously stands for “independent,” “initiated,” “instituted,” or “indigenous.” The first AIC churches in Nigeria were known as “Aladura.” They appeared at roughly the same time as the Zionist churches in South Africa and are prophet-led expressions of African independent Christianity.

Three Fluid Time Frames The development of Nigerian AICs occurred over three fluid time frames marked by their beginnings more so than by being distinct epochs: starting during the 1918-19 (Spanish) influenza pandemic, starting in 1930, and starting from the 1970s onward. In the first period, prophets emerged – dynamic figures who were not directly connected to any church mission, nor commissioned by an ecclesiastical body.34 Two of the largest Aladura churches have their roots in this era.35 One of them, the CAC, is the church to which Abiara belongs and from which Odelami traces his church. In the second period, revival swept southwestern Nigeria bringing thousands of non-Christians into Aladura and mission churches.36 And in the last period, the pentecostalism that can be traced in

33 H. W. Turner, “A Typology for African Religious Movements,” JRA 1 (1967): 17-18. 34 A. F. Walls, “The Evangelical Revival, the Missionary Movement, and Africa,” in The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1996), 87. 35 The two churches were: the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S), founded in 1925 by M. Orimolade and C. A. Akinsowon; and the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC). The CAC was named and established in 1943, but it grew out of the Precious Stone Society, an Anglican prayer group organized in 1918. 36 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 281.

371 much of Nigerian Christianity from the beginning of the century was mixed with American style preaching and the use of media to emerge as Nigerian Pentecostalism, a potent third wave of indigenized Christianization. Each of these periods can be seen as part of the progressive development of Christianity as a Nigerian faith. Before the mid-nineteenth century, the question had been whether or not Christianity would take root in Nigerian soil. After the mid-century and around 1900, the question became what form it would assume. In one sense the African churches at the turn of the century were not African. They were led by Africans, populated by Africans, even supported by Africans. But their structure and liturgy were “white,” preserved from their mission heritages. Starting with the AICs, African-ness began truly to interact with Christianity and to address the felt-gap between faith and African culture. Since that time the result has been a dizzying proliferation of divisions and innovations that is bewildering in its variety. ꜛIn Aladura, African Christians reacted against the self-imposed spiritual silence of European Christianity in the face of the traumas of life. Through prayer and healing they took a major step backward to reach into their past. Sometimes this has been seen as a bridge back to traditional religion.37 But it has also been viewed as the point of Aladura’s greatest Christian achievement.38 Later in the revivals of the 1930s, African Christianity proclaimed the religious “old-world” safe through the new realities in Christ. Old signs and structures were redeemed for Christian use39 and new, more powerful forces were offered to guide and protect believers.

37 This is Sundkler’s phrase. See Kollman, “Classifying African Christianities, pt. 1,” 17. See also U. Etuk, “The Theology of Contextualization in Africa: A Cover for Traditional Cultural Revival,” Concordia Jour. 11 (1985): 214-22. 38 See T. Ranger, “Religion, Development and African Christian Identity,” in Religion, Development and African Identity, ed. K. H. Petersen (Uppsala, Sweden: Nordic Africa Institute, 1987), quoted in T. Ranger, “African Initiated Churches,” Transformation, 24 (2007): 68. 39 See for example, S. A. Fatokun, “Water and Its Cultic Use in African Initiated Churches in Yoruba-Land of South-Western Nigeria: An Issue in African Development Discourse,” Swedish Missiological Themes 96 (2008): 349-76.

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Recently, in the dynamic American-African Pentecostalism of the post-Civil War (1967- 1970) disruption, African Christians appear to break with the past completely. Their eyes are on the spiritual and temporal blessings available here, both now and in the future.

Independency and African Churches: (1888-1917) After the forced resignation of Crowther in 1890, many African Christians were incensed. There were calls for secession40 consistent with the proto-nationalist spirit of the time: educated Africans were disparaged and marginalized by whites, not just in the church, but in the society as a whole.41 But while some churches did separate from their parent denominations, ultimately the response to colonial discrimination was quite muted. The first African Church seceded from the Southern (American) Baptists in Lagos when the “Native” or Ebenezer Baptist Church was formed in 1888. Twenty-six years later, Mission and African Baptist churches would reunite and form the Yoruba Baptist Association.42 For Anglicans, independence often occurred after considerable rancor. Clergy were left outside of ecclesiastical support, and the children of independents were refused education in mission schools.43 Two Anglican churches seceded in Lagos: the United Native African Church in 1891 and the African Church (Bethel) in 1901.44 The United African Methodist Church, or Eleja (Fish Mongers),45 left the Methodist Mission

40 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 179. 41 Falola and Heaton, Hist. of Nigeria, 128-31. 42 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 290. The Yoruba Baptist Association became the Yoruba Baptist Convention in 1919. Ibid., 293. 43 S. B. Mala, “The Christ Apostolic Church – its History, Beliefs and Organization,” Ecumenical Review 28 (1976): 419. 44 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 179. For an interesting description of a church that seceded from the CMS in 1941 see F. K. Ekechi, “The Ordeal of an African Independent Church: The Nigerian Zion Methodist Mission, 1942-1970,” Intl. Jour. of African Historical Studies 20 (1987): 691-720. The first independent church movement in Nigeria started in 1905 when Rev. E. M. Lijadu broke with St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, Ondo. The Lijadu Movement emphasized evangelism, indigenous church leadership, and other issues congruent with the nationalist spirit of the time. See M. O. Owadayo, “The First Independent Church Movement in Nigeria,” Dialogue & Alliance 13 (1999): 40-49. 45 B. Mala, “AICs in Nigeria,” in Ministry in Partnership, 22.

373 in 1917. Largely, excepting that these African churches were more open to plural marriages, they differed little from the mission churches from which they had separated and they were not attractive to all Africans. The educated élite were loyal to the British Empire and appreciative of colonial rule. While they chafed under white domination, they were, all the same, attracted to the prestige and the international connections and schooling of the established mission churches.46 For the African poor, however, the situation was different. For them a need, deeply rooted in their religious worldview and social situation, was not being met. They sought physical and spiritual healing and protection from the multitude of spiritual forces that inhabited their world. When the prophets of the 1920s and 1930s began to preach, they attracted hundreds of thousands of converts.47 Today African Churches in Nigeria are either stable or in decline.

Prophets and AIC Churches: 1918 The emergence of African prophets in Nigeria at the time of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic was part of the indigenous reaction to Western Christian missions.

But the response of the people to their message signaled that something deeper than mere revolt against white hegemony was occurring. For the most part, for the early AICs secession from a mission church was not really an issue. Instead, the prophets offered direction for the other, larger concerns of the time: illness, social upheaval, spiritual warfare, mass movements, and the need for security in the midst of personal crisis. The ministries of the African prophets struck a deeply personal and relevant note among the people. Often these local, charismatic prophets were untrained and illiterate. They or their followers founded African Independent Churches which were at first influenced by

46 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 180. 47 Ibid., 181.

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European and American sects, but ultimately they were quite different in outlook from any outside agency or from the older Mission and African Churches.48 From the beginning colonial authorities were often uncertain as to how to react to these prophets and the movements they created. For the most part when a prophet ran afoul of the authorities it was as a result of their potential politics: they gathered large, restive crowds, and attacked witchcraft and traditional shrines.49 The mission churches understood less than the government how to respond to their ministry. For decades, prophet-led churches were maligned, persecuted, or merely ignored.50 However, as a collective group of thousands of organizations51 and hundreds of thousands of adherents, they could not be neglected forever. The AIC churches from this period have become increasingly popular, eventually gaining in social and political influence and winning converts from the élite.52 Despite, or perhaps because of a variety of handicaps, including a lack of education and training among the clergy, splits and dissension, and distrust among themselves and towards others,53 these prophet-led AIC churches desire the credibility that comes from being recognized as a “church” by other religious bodies.54

Even though many of the Nigerian prophets came from different backgrounds, their preaching and the movements they founded had common features. Most of them

48 B. Mala, “AICs in Nigeria,” in Ministry in Partnership, 23. 49 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 279. 50 See Ukah, “African Christianities,” 8-9. 51 Over six thousand such movements were identified throughout Africa in 1968. L. Sanneh, “Prelude to African Christian Independency: The Afro-American Factor in African Christianity,” Harvard Theological Review 77 (1984): 1. According to the World Council of Churches, there were 800 religious movements in Nigeria in 1971. In the mid 1980s, there were, perhaps, 1,500. Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 277-78. 52 See D. Ayegboyin, “Spirituality in the African Independent Churches,” n.d., 10-11. 53 B. Mala, “AICs in Nigeria,” in Ministry in Partnership, 30-31. 54 Ibid., 24-25. See also Turner, “A Typology,” 11; and Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 314.

375 started from within already established churches; they left and started their own churches after they were removed from fellowship or suppressed. They based their message on a literal interpretation of the Bible and accepted it as the only source of authority even when guided by visions and dreams. They borrowed symbols and practices from other faiths and integrated them into their worship. They emphasized divine healing and miracles and prayer.55 They preached a radical rejection of traditional African religion and its practices and called for a clear turning to God through Christ. They accepted the reality of witchcraft and offered protection from evil and its many manifestations.56 They provided a community in which spiritual security could be had. They were familiar with the Old Testament57 and emphasized both it and the power of the Holy Spirit to heal and protect.58 They prescribed concrete means whereby the everyday challenges and concerns of Nigerian life could be addressed – issues such as indebtedness, depression, insomnia, infertility, illness, poverty, child mortality, fear of death, and a loveless marriage.59 And finally, they appealed to those who were disenchanted with the spirituality and seeming irrelevancy of mission church religion. Many of their converts and most of the nucleus and later membership of Aladura came from mission churches.60 More prophets are appearing in Nigeria every year. It has been suggested that in a country where the church can often serve as a quick route to income, Nigeria’s business

55 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 314-15. 56 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 277-78. 57 See J. S. Mbiti, “The Role of the Jewish Bible in African Independent Churches,” Intl. Review of Mission 93 (2004): 219-37. 58 See D. I. Ayegboyin, “‘Heal the Sick and Cast Out Demons’: The Response of the Aladura,” Studies in World Christianity 10 (2004): 233-49. 59 Sanneh, “W. African Christianity,” 196; see also, Ranger, “AICs,” 69. 60 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 278. See also Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 301; and A. Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare: The Public Face of Aladura in Diaspora,” JRA 34 (2004): 494-95.

376 is religion.61 Unfortunately, too often success is seen as a mark of God’s blessing, raising issues of the biblical place and role of the poor in Nigerian society. And the healing ministries of the AICs62 and the prosperity gospel of the new Pentecostals63 have both been criticized. The plea has been made for the church to find her voice on behalf of the poor and in light of oppression and waste.64 While these critiques sound a needed cautionary note, all the same and when properly discharged, being recognized as a prophet in Nigeria is an honour, denoting someone specially called by God, usually through a life-altering vision or a special pronouncement and filled by His Spirit for use in His service.65 Modern day Nigerian Christian prophets stand in the tradition of the outstanding prophets of the 1930s and help unite the African past with the present: on the one hand proclaiming in true Old Testament prophetic form, judgment against sinners and society and calling people back to God, and on the other hand, acting in Yoruban tradition as a communicant and diviner of direction between God and the people.66

61 A. A. Ayuk, “The Pentecostal Transformation of Nigerian Church Life,” Asian Jour. of Pentecostal Studies 5 (2002): 202. “Olubunmi Cardinal Okogie, Archbishop of the Lagos Catholic Diocese reckons that the easiest way to make money in Nigeria is by using the Bible:” “Nigeria’s Three Richest Churches,” elifeonline, edition 7, 2006-07-08, accessed 2011-08-07, http://www.elifeonline.net/ elife7-july- august/richest-pastors.htm. 62 See Ayegboyin, “‘Heal the Sick,’” 233-49. 63 See D. I. Ayegboyin, “A Rethinking of Prosperity Teaching in the New Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria,” Black Theo. 4 (2006): 70-86. 64 G. K. Okeke, “Indigenization of Christianity in Africa: A Historical and Theological Examination from the Nigerian Background,” Communio viatorum 21 (1978): 55. 65 See A. O. Dada, “The Interaction of Prophecy and Yoruba Culture in Selected African Indigenous Churches,” Black Theo. 7 (2009): 167-81. 66 See Appendix E; and the role and place of the traditional babaláwo in ATR → on page 423.

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Aladura Churches: 191867 A large group of AICs in Nigeria is called “Aladura.” The name comes from two Yoruba words, al adua literally translated as “the praying people” or “owners of prayer.”68 They first emerged in Nigeria in response to the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. It is estimated that one third of the world’s population, or approximately 500 million persons, were infected by the virus at the time69 and that at least 21 million people died from the disease over a 12-month period. In Nigeria the flu was introduced by passengers and crews who arrived via ships from overseas. It spread unchecked, killing about

500,000 Nigerians, out of a population of 18 million, in less than 6 months. Between 50 and 80% of the Nigerian population was stricken.70 The first egbe aladura, or prayer band, was started at St. Saviour’s Anglican Church, Italupe, Ijebu-Ode. The sexton, Daddy Alli received a vision which indicated that the church was in two parts:71 “a small part who prayed constantly and a large part who remained in darkness and gave little thought to prayer.”72 Prayer bands were

67 G. S. Braide led a revival movement prior to the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, in 1915 in the Niger Delta (Anglican) Pastorate. He became known for healing and proclaimed himself the second Elijah of Mal. 4:5. He preached against white power, sin, idols, and drinking gin. In 1916 he was imprisoned on charges of sedition and extortion. His followers established two churches, the Garrick Braide Church and the Christ Army Church. Since Aladura is a distinctly Yoruban phenomenon, the Christ Army Church is not considered Aladura and is not considered here. See Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 301-04 for a description of Braide’s ministry. 68 Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 493. 69 D. C. Ohadike, “Diffusion and Physiological Responses to the Influenza Pandemic of 1918- 1919 in Nigeria,” Social Science & Medicine 32 (1982): 1393. In 1918 the world population was 1.8 billion people; in 2012 it was 7.006 billion. See population data, accessed 2012-01-29, http://www.census.gov/ population/international/data/idb/worldpopinfo.php. 70 See J. K. Taubenberger and D. M. Morens, “1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics Diffusion,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 12 (2006): 15-22. 71 C. O. Oshun, “The Aladura Movement and Their Impact on the Nigerian Society,” in The Gods in Retreat: Continuity and Change in African Religions: The Nigerian Experience, ed. E. I. Metuh (Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 2002), 197-98. 72 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 304.

378 organized within the church under the leadership of Joseph Bayo Shadare73 and named the Precious Stone Society.74 They emphasized prayer, enforced a very strong moral code, and were against the use of medicines. In 1919 D. O. Odubanjo, shared a pamphlet from Faith Tabernacle, Philadelphia, Sword of the Spirit,75 with the leaders, and the Precious Stone was led to reject infant baptism and place stress on healing by faith.76 In conflict with the Anglican Church, Bishop Meelivilled Jones of Lagos and his Nigerian assistant, Bishop Oluwole, intervened and advised Precious Stone members that they needed to abandon their views.77 Adamant, they were expelled, and in 1922 the Precious

Stone Church was formed in Lagos under Odubanjo and Shadare and affiliated with Faith Tabernacle in America.78 There likely were only a few thousand members in the group by 1929 when Joseph Babalola joined the society in Lagos after having received a call to ministry in October 1928.79 Then on Thursday, July 10, 1930, Babalola initiated the

73 S. A. Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God’ in an African Community: A Retrospect of the 1930s Indigenous Pentecostal Revival in Nigeria and its Impact on Nigerian Pentecostalism,” Exchange 38 (2009): 35. Shadare was also known as Esinsinade. See O. A. P. Alokan and C. B. Ogunyemi, “An Examination of the Politics of Schism and Secession Amongst Indigenous Pentecostal Groups in Nigeria: Trends and Prognosis in Church Literature,” Jour. of Ed. and Practice 2 (2011): 23. Olusheye refers to Shadare as “Esinsiade.” See E. H. L. Olusheye, The Story of My Life (Ibadan: Gideon Global Press, 2006), 37. 74 Oshun, “Aladura Movement,” in The Gods in Retreat, 198. 75 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 36. 76 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 304-05. 77 Oshun, “Aladura Movement,” in The Gods in Retreat, 198. 78 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 305. 79 Oshun, “Aladura Movement,” in The Gods in Retreat, 199. On 2012-05-27, Wooden and I, with Odelami, visited the site where Babalola received his call to ministry. It is located just outside the gates of JABU, the university built there by the CAC in 2006. Imevbore, retired professor of Ecology at OAU and the current (2013) Chair of CINDICO’s Board of Governors, was JABU’s founding Chancellor. According to Babalola, when God spoke to him he was attempting to fix a bulldozer. The machine has been preserved at the site behind a chain-link fence in front of a wall on which a depiction of Babalola’s call has been painted. Along the bank of the river that flows beside the shrine, a high plywood wall has been built to shield women who come there to bath in the sacred waters. On the importance of water in Aladura churches see Fatokun, “Water and Its Cultic Use,” 349-76.

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Great 1930 Revival80 in southwestern Nigeria. Hundreds of thousands of people came to Christ during the next twenty-nine years. Other charismatic, vision-led prophets would follow and eventually four other significant Aladura churches were established: the Cherubim and Seraphim Society (founded in Lagos on September 9, 1925), The Church of the Lord (Aladura) (founded on July 27, 1930 at Ogere, Ogun State), the Celestial Church of Christ (established in 1947), and the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star (founded in 1958).81 ꜛAladura churches were started by Nigerian élite and in some cases sponsored by wealthy patrons.82 And yet, because they reflected the dynamic Yoruba religious worldview,83 they were especially attractive to the poor. Today, Aladura remain antagonistic towards traditional African religion and its practices; they advocate a complete break from all other gods in favour of allegiance to God, Olorun,84 through Jesus Christ. They reject magic, spells, sacrifices, and oracles. In addition to their emphasis on prayer, Aladura churches have long, enthusiastic worship services that include many African-based features, having appropriated the strong ritual emphasis associated with Yoruban prayer, healing, prophesy, visions and dreams, and other

80 See Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 35. 81 See ibid.; and Ukah, “African Christianities,” 7-8. 82 Isichei, Hist. of Christianity in Africa, 279; See also E. Isichei, “Elder and Statesman [I. Akinyele],” Christian Hist. 22 (2003): 37; and E. Isichei, “Missionary Mother-Hen [Christianah Olatunrinle],” Christian Hist. 22 (2003): 38. 83 See B. C. Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” JRA 23 (1993): 266-91. 84 The early missionaries in southwestern Nigeria adopted “Olorun,” the Yoruba name for the Supreme God, for the Christian God, Jehovah. Other local names among other groups were used in the same manner. See Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 276. Walls points up the importance of this: unlike in Europe, African names of local deities were used as bridges to Christianity. See Walls, “The Evangelical Revival,” esp. 97; also see ibid., 94-97. African Creator gods – such as Olorun, Chineke and Oghene, each a supreme god above a host of lesser gods – connect “Jehovah” to African history and context. And as a result, in most of Africa, God has a personal name in the vernacular and he is seen as part of the African past. See Walls, “The Evangelical Revival,” 96. See also Sanneh, Translating the Message, 158-61, where Sanneh talks about the irony of this for Africans as missionaries engaged them in conversation: “The missionary, having learned from the people the true name for God, then turned around to announce that he was bringing them something new” (ibid., 161).

380 charismatic gifts and activities.85 They continue to have a vibrant presence in southwestern Nigeria with congregations also located in major centers around the world. Abiara’s church, Agbala Itura, while not strictly considered Aladura, includes many of the characteristics and emphases of Aladura in its worship.86 His network of churches outside of Nigeria includes a congregation in Toronto, Ontario.

Pentecostalism87 At the beginning of the twentieth century around the time when the African churches were being founded in Nigeria, a new Christian movement began that would have an unprecedented impact on world Christianity. Global Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity together have been described as the success story of the church.88 In a little over a century they claim 523 million followers.89 Some of the largest denominations in the world are Pentecostal: the Assemblies of God (USA) has over 66 million adherents worldwide90 and the Church of God in Christ, an Afro-American denomination, claims 6.5 million members in sixty nations.91 Where people have resisted joining Pentecostal

85 Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 494. 86 See A. O. Ogunrinade, “Predilection for African Indigenous Practices in the Pentecostal Tradition of African Indigenous Churches with Reference to Christ Apostolic Church Agbala Itura,” Cyberjournal for Pentecostal-Charismatic Research 18 (2009): n.p, accessed 2009-08-12, http://www.pctii. org/cyberj/cyberj18/adewale.html. 87 For an extensive recent (2006) survey of Pentecostalism, see R. Ruby, Spirit and Power, published on the centenary of the 1906 Azusa Street Revival. 88 A. Anderson, “The Origins of Pentecostalism and its Global Spread in the Early Twentieth Century,” Transformation 22 (2005): 175. “Pentecostals” are similar to but not the same as “Charismatics.” According to conventional use, “Pentecostal churches” and “Pentecostal denominations” claim the Biblical pentecostal heritage as found in John 3:5 and Acts 2:38, whereas “Charismatics” refers to pentecostal renewal movements that arose in the 1960s and operate within historic mission denominations or mainline churches. See J. K. Asamoah-Gyadu, “‘Born of Water and the Spirit’: Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity in Africa,” in African Christianity, ed. by O. Kalu, 340. 89 J. Robbins, “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity,” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004): 117. 90 “2012 Summary Statistical Report,” s.vv. >About Us >Statistics, accessed 2013-09-17, http://ag.org/top/index.cfm. 91 “About the Church of God in Christ,” accessed 2013-09-17, http://www.cogic.org/news/.

381 churches in favour of staying in their own denominations, Pentecostalism has altered the form and practice of worship and belief in most established churches, including the Roman Catholic Church. In 2006 in Nigeria, Pentecostals and charismatics – not counting AICs – accounted for approximately three-in-ten Nigerians. Roughly six-in-ten Protestants were either Pentecostal or charismatic, and three-in-ten Catholics surveyed were charismatic.92 Pentecostalism93 began almost simultaneously throughout the world, in Korea among missionaries in Wonsan in 1903, in the Mukti Mission girls’ school in India in

1905, and later in Brazil, Chile, South Africa, and Nigeria. But most historians mark the beginning of “classical” Pentecostalism from the 1906 Azusa Street Revival at the Apostolic Faith Mission in Azusa, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. John Seymour, a black preacher and former student of Charles Parham from Topeka, Kansas, presided over a three and half year revival marked by ecstatic religious worship, racial integration, and spontaneous speaking in tongues. The church and its leadership were predominantly black. And even though the revival was set in the early twentieth century, the church was rooted in the African American culture of the nineteenth century, which in turn was rooted in the African religious culture and spiritual worldview taken, in some instances, by slaves from the west coast of Africa.94 Observers came from all over the world to Azusa and many returned home to spread the Pentecostal message in their own countries.

92 R. Ruby, Spirit and Power, 86. 93 The following description of Pentecostalism is based on readings in Anderson, “The Origins of Pentecostalism,” 175-85; Robbins, “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity,” 117- 43; A. Anderson, “Writing Pentecostal History,” 139-51; A. Anderson, “Spreading Fires: The Globalization of Pentecostalism in the Twentieth Century,” IBMR 31 (2007): 8-14; and W. J. Hollenweger, “An Introduction to Pentecostalisms,” Jour. of Beliefs and Values 25 (2004): 125-37. For a paper on Pentecostalism in South Africa see D. Maxwell, “Historicizing Christian Independency: The Southern African Pentecostal Movement c. 1908-60,” JAH 40 (1999): 243-64. 94 Anderson, “Origins of Pentecostalism,” 180. See W. J. Hollenweger, “An Introduction,” 128ff.

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In addition to speaking in tongues and exuberant worship, Pentecostalism in its early form also emphasized the imminent return of Christ, divine healing, prophesy, visions and dreams, and salvation in the name of Jesus. The early Pentecostals viewed themselves as participating in the final outpouring of the Holy Spirit immediately prior to and in preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus. For them the critical task was to preach the gospel to all the nations. As a result, missionaries were sent throughout the world – many commissioned from Azusa Street and many, like missionaries at the beginning of the eighteenth century, untrained and unprepared for what they would find on the mission field.95 Their message was readily received by indigenous workers and caused a religious expansion unprecedented in the history of Christianity. Around 196096 the Pentecostal experience entered mainline churches. Prior to 1960, members who embraced the gospel of the Spirit’s outpouring were forced to leave their birth-churches to join a Pentecostal church. As part of the “charismatic movement,” now they stayed to revitalize their own churches from within. This charismatic, or “second wave,” pentecostalism differed from classical Pentecostalism in that speaking in tongues was no longer viewed as necessary for salvation and as evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit. The primary emphasis instead was on the gifts of the Spirit for ministry in the church. In 196797 the charismatic movement entered Catholicism. Roman Catholics who received the gifts of the Spirit, like their Protestant counterparts, stayed in their churches, calling themselves pentecostal or charismatic Catholics.98

95 See Anderson, “Spreading Fires,” 10ff; and Anderson, “Writing Pentecostal Hist.,” 147. 96 Robbins, “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity,” 121. 97 Ibid. 98 Hollenweger argues that Pentecostalism owes more to Aquinas than to the Reformation, and he claims that that is one reason why it has spread so quickly in Catholic countries such as Brazil, Italy and France. See W. J. Hollenweger, “An Introduction,” 128.

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Nigerian Pentecostalism Pentecostalism was evident early in indigenous Christianity in Nigeria.99 In the Niger Delta, Garrick Braide came out of the Anglican Church just as the First World War began. Even though his ministry was not called Pentecostal at the time, it had all of the hallmarks of Pentecostalism such as faith healing, prophecy, exorcism, speaking in tongues, spontaneous prayer, exuberant liturgical expression, and an emphasis on dreams and visions.100 And Braide was not the only one. For three decades, between 1910 and 1940, Pentecostal and Aladura spirituality “bubbled” throughout eastern and western

Nigeria.101 In 1927 it appeared in the Spirit Movement and Qua Ibo Mission in Ibibioland. In 1934, some young adherents of Faith Tabernacle, Umauahia in eastern Nigeria spoke in tongues. They were disowned by the Tabernacle and founded The Church of Jesus Christ. Other linkages established by Oshitelu (Church of the Lord [Aladura]) in 1929 with the Welsh Apostolic Church brought S. G. Elton to Nigeria in 1934. Elton laid the religious foundation at the Ile-Ifé mission which later produced the young university students who were instrumental in the advent of the modern 1970s

Pentecostal movement in Nigeria.102 The first Nigerian affiliation with an outside Pentecostal body was in 1931, when the leaders of the 1930 Aladura revival made contact with the British Apostolic

99 This topic has received extensive treatment by Nigerians. As an introduction, two books are of interest: O. Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction; and M. A. Ojo, The End-Time Army: Charismatic Movements in Modern Nigeria, ed. J. L Cox and G. ter Haar (Trenton: AWP, 2006). See also the study of Nigerian-founded Redeemed Christian Church of God: A. F. K. Ukah, A New Paradigm of Pentecostal Power: A Study of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Nigeria (Trenton: AWP, 2008). 100 Ukah, “African Christianities,” 8-9. 101 O. U. Kalu, “The Third Response: Pentecostalism and the Reconstruction of Christian Experience in Africa, 1970-1995,” Jour. of African Christian Thought 1 (1992): 7. See also Anderson’s remarks in Anderson, “Writing Pentecostal Hist.,” 145, where he argues that Pentecostal history needs to be rewritten to account for the spontaneous contextualization of the Pentecostal message by thousands of indigenous preachers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America who travelled their continents spreading the message of the Holy Spirit’s power, and healing the sick and casting out demons. 102 Kalu, “The Third Response,” 7.

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Church.103 The original distinctives of the Aladura – speaking in tongues, waiting on the Holy Spirit, prayer, visions, and spontaneous African worship – became part of a new Nigerian Pentecostal movement.104 It was increasingly influenced by Western magazines and contact with organizations outside of Nigeria.105 Later, other foreign Pentecostal missions were established in Nigeria: the Assemblies of God (1939), the Four Square Church (1941), and the Apostolic Faith Church (1941).106 Between 1920 and 1960 indigenous Pentecostal churches were founded by Africans without any relationship with mission Pentecostal churches: the CAC, formed in 1943;107 the Apostolic Faith Mission

(Nigeria), established by CAC evangelist, Timothy Gbadebo Oshokoya, in 1944; and the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), formed in 1952 as part of the Aladura movement. Subsequently the RCCG was pentecostalized as it adopted the Pentecostal form and beliefs that were transforming Nigeria at the time. From 1956 through 1960 the RCCG was affiliated with the South African Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM).108 Today it is considered to be the most popular and fastest growing Pentecostal church in Africa, with more than 10,000 congregations in more than 80 countries around the world.109

A third wave of Nigerian Pentecostalism, distinguished by an emphasis on prosperity, healing, and deliverance began in 1970. It had its origin in a youthful

103 See J. D. Y. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 314. 104 Ibid. 105 Kalu, “The Third Response” 7. 106 Ukah, “African Christianities,” 10. 107 The Christ Apostolic Church’s (CAC) roots go back to the Precious Stone Society, later the Faith Tabernacle Church, and their union with J. Babalola’s ministry in 1930. This was the group that contacted the British Apostolic Church in 1930 and later affiliated with them in 1931. After breaking the association, the CAC was formally established on 1943-05-4. See Mala, “The CAC,” 418-28; Olusheye, My Life, 91. 108 Ukah, “African Christianities,” 9-10. 109 See Ukah, A New Paradigm, 2.

385 charismatic movement that arose among mainline churches in the 1970s,110 and is more than a mere adaptation of older Pentecostal forms. It is, in fact, different enough to be substantively new, indicating a break with the past that reaches forward to a revisioned, international future.111 Even the external distinctions can be stark. In Nigeria, African prophets from Zionist, Nazarite, or Aladura churches, typically dress in white gowns, carry crosses, and go to pray in the bush. The leaders of the new mega-churches are quite modern. “[They] dress in the latest (African) (sic) fashion, drive nothing less than a Mercedez Benz, participate in the global Pentecostal jetset, broadcast the message through flashy TV and radio programs, and preach the Prosperity Gospel to their deprived and hitherto-hopeless born-again followers at home and in the diaspora.”112 Common to both modern Pentecostals and their precursors, the Aladura, is an emphasis on prophetism, healing, visions, and spirit baptism. But the two movements are not the same. Aladura was an indigenous movement. It was founded and led by Nigerians who lacked higher education but who were prominent in their towns. Aladura pastors still preach principally in indigenous languages; they use Christian forms of divination in their ministry; and itinerant prophets and evangelists spread the Christian message. By contrast Nigeria’s new Pentecostals are élites in Nigerian society. They emulate the ministries of North American or British pentecostal movements. They are highly educated, often with doctorates in non-theological disciplines. And they rely on literature, written mainly in

English, coupled with modern media and advertising campaigns to carry the message and reach people. Their churches are huge and vibrant.113 The CAC, the denomination most

110 O. U. Kalu, “Pentecostalism and Mission in Africa, 1970-2000,” Mission Studies 24 (2007): 1. 111 See B. Meyer, “Christianity in Africa: From African Independent to Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches,” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004): esp. 448. 112 Ibid., 448. See also “Nigeria’s Three Richest Churches,” elifeonline, edition 7, 2006-07-08, accessed 2011-08-07, http://www.elifeonline.net/ elife7-july-august/richest-pastors.htm. 113 See M. A. Ojo, “Deeper Christian Life Ministry: A Case Study of the Charismatic Movements in Western Nigeria,” JRA 18 (1988): esp. 142-43.

386 closely associated with Abiara and Odelami, is considered a classical Pentecostal church. However, in that Abiara’s network of CAC Agbala Itura churches also caters to the indigenous population and shares many features in common with Aladura, it could be considered as a bridge between the CAC’s Aladura roots and modern Pentecostalism. The power, effect, and influence of the charismatic movement cannot be denied. Aggressive evangelistic campaigns, advertised widely in the media, are conducted and many Nigerians are joining third-wave charismatic churches – especially the youth and others from mainline denominations. Centered to a great extent in large Nigerian urban centers, the charismatic churches draw from an educated and professional community. They are politically active, morally strict, upwardly mobile, and very dedicated. But some of the features of recent Nigerian Pentecostalism have been criticized sharply. The explosive growth of the modern charismatic churches has been at the expense of the mainline denominations and AIC churches. Many of the pastors of AICs have accepted training in charismatic schools – and joined the movement rather than going back to their churches. Others are attracted to the evident displays of wealth in international charismatic ministries and have sought to copy their success. In effect, though, what they do is set up churches in which they take advantage of naïve followers. And where there is a lack of biblical training, there has also been a lack of personal responsibility in Christian living and lifestyle. In some instances, inadequate biblical understanding has conjoined with the indigenous worldview and led to a rise in syncretistic, if not blatant occult practices. Finally there is always the problem that as a pastor’s church or denomination gains influence, politicians and others seek them out for their favour, and the church responds, not always in the most God-honouring manner.114

114 Ayuk, “The Pentecostal Transformation,” 198ff.

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Summary and Conclusions Regardless of any of these latter issues, the prominence of Christianity in Africa today is astounding compared to a century ago. The rich history of indigenous faith in Christ forms the religious context of CINDICO and UNIDICO and informs their affiliate relationship with AU through ADC. From the narrative, there are three things, perhaps, that might be of particular importance concerning the futures of these two Nigerian colleges. The first is the realization that Christians in Nigeria do not need to “prove” their competency to Western organizations. The church in Africa and Nigeria is unique and compelling in and of itself: a decidedly “Christian church” firmly and fully rooted in African soil.115 And as with the church, so it is with CINDICO and UNIDICO. God is clearly able to gift and guide African believers with about the same success rate – or better – as any other part of the world! As a second lesson, it is interesting to note the critical role that education played in the development of Christianity in Nigeria. For a century starting in 1802, educational missions was the church’s greatest tool for evangelism and Christian conversion. In subsequent years, Nigerians educated at church-run schools helped form and change the world around them. The Aladura movement indigenized Christ, but in the 1970s Babalola’s “Great Revival” was transformed into a nation-wide movement led by university graduates who, in the space of three decades, created in Nigeria some of the largest churches in the world. As concerning CINDICO and UNIDICO, the central role of education in positively shaping Nigeria cannot be overstated and ought not to be overlooked. Given the religious tensions that exist between Christianity and Islam in

115 Appendix D examines the Africanization of Christianity more closely and describes how Nigerian prophets at the turn of the twentieth century translated and applied the gospel in terms taken from Nigeria’s religious worldview. Appendix D also traces the historical roots of the CAC, Abiara’s denomination, and UNIGAC, Odelami’s religious group. The following appendix, Appendix E, looks at the African religious worldview, ATR, and the Christian response to these African beliefs and mindset.

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Nigeria today, the importance of these two institutions, as they provide theological education and potentially impact millions of people living in southwestern Nigeria, needs to be carefully considered. Currently, conditions in Nigeria would seem to make their place and contribution all the more valuable. The third and final lesson to be gleaned from the narrative is that Western institutions need to be very circumspect regarding their role in Nigeria. Today there are more than twice as many professing Christians in Nigeria as there are people in all of Canada. This expansive growth of the church in Nigeria was largely accomplished after

Nigerians broke from mission churches and expressed their faith in indigenous forms. To admit that Nigerians are the best suited and the most effective in the evangelization of their own country is not to suggest, however, that there is no place for the rest of the church, including ADC and AU, in the mission of God in Nigeria. Rather, it is to propose that whatever involvement Canadians have in the global missions of the church by “equipping Christian leaders for full-time and volunteer ministry,”116 that involvement needs to be about more than control, apprenticeship, or even oversight. Educational missions is still a valuable and useful tool at the disposal of the church. ADC has expertise that suits it for educational ministry. One cannot help but think that, surely, the affiliate relationship that CINDICO and UNIDICO enjoy with AU through ADC is a privilege that can be used to impact the people of Nigeria for good and the glory of God.

116 “Acadia Divinity College Mission Statement,” in “Introduction,” ADC Handbook, 2012-2013, 5, accessed 2013-02-28, http://divinity.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/adc/Admissions/ADC%20Calendar %2012- 13%20-%20FINAL.pdf.

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Appendix D: Denominational Roots of CAC and UNIGAC

Introduction Beginning early in the twentieth century, itinerate prophets deeply shaped the character and spread of Christianity along the West African coast. They were part of an indigenous Pentecostal movement that ably expressed the African religious worldview and which resulted in the founding of several important African Christian denominations.

In this appendix the roots of the two denominations which provide the background to CINDICO and UNIDICO will be traced. The object is both to gain some sense of the history of Christianity in southwestern Nigeria and to understand better the religious and denominational background of these two Acadia affiliated colleges in Nigeria. As the narrative progresses, it is important to keep in mind that the founders of CINDICO and UNIDICO, Drs. S. K. Abiara and M. O. Odelami, are Yoruba Christians and that their denominational credentials are rooted in the early traditions of Nigerian

Christianity. Abiara belongs to the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), a prophet-led Pentecostal denomination that emphasizes divine healing. The CAC is one of the largest indigenous Pentecostal churches in all Africa. In 2006 it had nearly ten million members with over 18,000 ministers in more than 10,000 assemblies. It is headquartered in Nigeria, with branches in West and South Africa, Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Australia.1 Odelami is the President and General Overseer of UNIGAC, a

ꜛ1 E. H. L. Olusheye, The Story of My Life (Ibadan: Gideon Global Press, 2006), 90. Although, the CAC has its roots in Aladura, an early indigenous Christian prayer movement, it is considered a classical Pentecostal church and not an African indigenous church. The historical impact of the AICs is unquestioned in African Christianity. But they are no longer seen as paradigmatic of contemporary Christianity on the continent. The newer African Pentecostal ministries and churches have eclipsed them. These more recent congregations, such as the CAC, owe a great deal to the AICs, however. They have retained in their healing and deliverance ministries the dual AIC emphasis on the African traditional worldview and spiritual causality. See J. K. Asamoah-Gyadu, “‘Born of Water and the Spirit’: Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity in Africa,” in African Christianity: An African Story, ed. O. U. Kalu (Trenton: AWP, 2007), 341-43. According to Sanneh the CAC may be considered among the élite of the

390 group that split from the CAC in 1947 as St. Paul’s Apostolic Church and which was renamed UNIGAC in 1986.2 UNIGAC shares many of the same features and doctrinal distinctives as the CAC, including its emphases on healing, prayer, and prophetism. Seen as being prophets in their own right, both Odelami and Abiara derive their credibility as church and denominational leaders from their personal histories and experiences.3 To understand better the impact and implications of this background, the rise of West African prophetism, the origin of the Aladura movement, and the founding of the CAC and UNIGAC will be examined in this essay. The following appendix on “African

Traditional Religion (ATR) and Christian Responses” is a companion piece to this essay.

West African Prophets ꜛ(51)ꜛ(57)Beginning in the late 1800’s, the establishment of independent African Churches formed the first wave of indigenous Africa’s response to Christianity. In Nigeria these new, non-mission dependent churches arose in reaction to the patent affront by the CMS to Bishop Crowther’s ministry and his ouster in 1890 from the Anglican

Niger Mission.4 But by the end of the nineteenth century these African Churches in Nigeria were largely a spent force,5 sustained in part by nationalistic interests but like the mission churches, spiritually European and largely out of touch with the essential issues with which Africans struggled on a daily basis: demons and witches, charms and spells, joblessness and poverty, social upheaval and illness, death and dying, bad weather, bad luck, bad marriages, and barrenness. charismatic churches. See, L. Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983), 194. 2 “Universal Gospel Apostolic Church of Nigeria,” pamphlet by M. O. Odelami, [1992-05?]. This brochure was written during Odelami’s sabb. yr. (1991-08 to 1992-08) as a Scholar in Residence at ADC. 3 In Chapter 2, regarding Odelami see → on page 52; regarding Abiara see → on page 57. 4 For details, see A. F. Walls, “The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther,” IBMR 16 (1992): 15-21. 5 E. Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842-1914 (London: Longman, 1966), 237, quoted in E. Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 179.

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Shortly into the twentieth century a second wave of African response to the gospel developed. It was led by prophets6 who worked outside of the church, neither commissioned nor sanctioned by an officially recognized ecclesiastical body.7 Typically these prophets were unschooled men and women, often called by God from secular employment through a vision or in a dream, and tasked to eradicate idolatry, to combat the powers of darkness, and to convince people to place their faith in the never changing Lord, Jesus Christ.8 Their ministry was characterized by a homespun African pentecostalism9 that emphasized the authority of the Bible, commitment to Jesus for salvation, and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit for holy living. Their calling was

6 For an excellent overview and discussion of the importance of prophets and prophetism in the African religious context see: C. N. Omenyo, “Man of God Prophesy unto Me: The Prophetic Phenomenon in African Christianity,” Studies in World Christianity 17 (2011): 30-49. See also J. B. Grimley and G. E. Robinson, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), chap. 4, “Prophetism and Church Growth;” A. O. Dada, “The Interaction of Prophecy and Yoruba Culture in Selected African Indigenous Churches,” Black Theo. 7 (2009): 167-81; O. Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), chap. 2, “Bakuzufu: Contested Realities and the Quest for Power in African Christianity;” and O. U. Kalu, “The Third Response: Pentecostalism and the Reconstruction of Christian Experience in Africa, 1970-1995,” Jour. of African Christian Thought 1 (1992): 3-16. Bakuzufu is a Luganda word meaning “reawakened, renewed, or resurrected.” It might be used to translate the English word “revival.” See Kalu, “Bakuzufu” in African Pentecostalism, 23. Kastfelt’s description of the 1926 Muslim-influenced healing prophet, Kulibwui, provides an interesting contrast to the prophet movement in southern Nigeria. See, N. Kastfelt, “African Prophetism and Christian Missionaries in Northeast Nigeria,” JRA 8 (1976): 175-88. Jenkins says that a common prophetic pattern has recurred frequently in Africa since the late nineteenth century (p 57) and that revival has swept Africa in one area or another continuously for more than a century now (p 61). See P. Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, 2nd ed. (NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 57 and 61. 7 See A. F. Walls, “The Evangelical Revival, the Missionary Movement, and Africa,” in The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1996), 87. Key among these leaders were W. W. Harris in Ghana, whose ministry started in 1910; S. Oppong, also in Ghana, who worked around the 1920s; G. Braide, who operated in the Delta Region in Nigeria between 1914 and 1918; J. Babalola, who ministered in southwest Nigeria starting around 1928; and S. Kimbangu whose ministry in Kongo lasted only one year in 1921. Omenyo, “Man of God Prophesy unto Me,” 34. 8 See Prophet J. A. Babalola, quoted in Olusheye, My Life, 90. God used Babalola to initiate the Great Revival in 1930 that swept Nigeria and resulted in the founding of the CAC. The message of the prophets was characterized by an emphatic twin theme: a diatribe against the indigenous worldview, and the acceptance of Christianity as the only satisfactory solution. See Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 29. 9 See Kalu, “The Third Response,” 7-8; and S. A. Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God’ in an African Community: A Retrospect of the 1930s Indigenous Pentecostal Revival in Nigeria and its Impact on Nigerian Pentecostalism,” Exchange 38 (2009): 34-57.

392 authenticated by miracles and divine healings, and they frequently engaged witches and demonic forces in power encounters. Sometimes styled after the prophets of the Old Testament,10 they sported a long beard and a flowing gown, and used identifiers such as a staff, a cross, a gourd, or a bell to mark their prophetic office.11 They were charismatic figures who aggressively confronted the inadequacies of both the traditional religions and the missionaries’ handling of the African worldview filled with its deep-rooted spiritual allegiances.12 As such they served as indigenous bridges to an indigenous Christian faith. The prophets were revered by the people because of their power and message.

They attracted and converted great crowds, drawing masses both from pagan beliefs to Christ and from less spiritually dynamic mission churches. But despite their Christian message, almost invariably the colonial authorities viewed them with suspicion, afraid of the crowds, the potential for nationalistic political power,13 and at times, upset at the loss of colonial revenue as a result of the drop in liquor sales.14 Frequently, the early West African prophets were thrown in jail.15 This was, perhaps, understandable, for at the turn

10 W. Harris (ca. 1865-1929) in Ghana styled himself as a combination of Elijah and John the Baptist. He adopted a distinctive dress and carried a Bible, cross, walking stick, a gourd rattle, and a bowl for baptism. Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 37. Garrick Sokari Braide (ca. 1885-1918) in the Niger Delta called himself the “Second Elijah” of Malachi 4:5, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 302. 11 Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 29. 12 Ibid., 36. 13 Ibid. 14 Braide railed against the European drink traffic, telling hearers that they should “leave off drinking gin,” according to J. H. Oldham, quoted in Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 302. See also Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 38, and Kalu, “Notes,” in African Pentecostalism, 297n16, referencing Braide’s impact on alcohol trade in the Delta region. See also Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 181. 15 Among prominent W. African prophets, W. Harris was arrested in Ivory Coast in 1914 and remained under house arrest until his death in 1929; G. Braide (Niger Delta) died in prison in 1918; and J. A. Babalola (Yorubaland) was imprisoned in 1932 in Benin and released when Welsh (British) Apostolic Church agents intervened on his behalf. In the Kongo, S. Kimbangu was condemned to death, but his sentenced was commuted to life imprisonment and exile at the intervention of two Baptist missionaries. Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 29-30 and 37; and I. O. Olofinjana, 20 Pentecostal Pioneers in Nigeria: Their Lives, Their Legacies, Vol. 1 (Bloomington: Xlibris, 2011), 21. Note: Olofinjana is

393 of the century this powerful Christian movement was a wholly unanticipated occurrence even by the brightest of church and mission leaders.16 Ironically, at about the same time as the 1910 Mission Conference was being held in Edinburgh with no African delegates and only a few observers from India and Asia,17 William Wadé Harris, a native of Liberia and one of the earliest African prophets, was trudging through the steamy swamps of Ghana drawing thousands from paganism to Christ.18 The message and ministry of the African prophets were not unique in Christianity, however. The prophets were part of a larger, emerging movement that encircled the globe at the turn of the twentieth century. In the early 1900s in response to waning spirituality and rising liberalism in the church, it seems that the widening gap between proper belief

confusing as to when Babalola’s group, Faith Tabernacle, approached the Welsh (British) Apostolic Church for help when colonial authorities were persecuting them. Official opposition started in 1931 and in response, Apostolic Church representatives visited Nigeria on 1931-09-23, prior to Babalola’s imprisonment in 1932. See Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 47. 16 In 1910 a World Missionary Conference was convened in Edinburgh, Scotland to discuss strategy for global missions. Andrew Walls comments on the ability of the conveners to detect the budding emergence of indigenous African Christianity. He says, “The most important single transforming feature of twentieth-century history was unpredictable even to the best-informed at the end of that century’s decade.” See A. F. Walls, “From Christendom to World Christianity: Missions and the Demographic Transformation of the Church,” in The Cross-cultural Process in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission and Appropriation of Faith (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2007), 59. On the 1910 Conference, see R. D. Winters, “The Legacy of Edinburgh, 1910,” in R.D. Winters, The Unfolding Drama of the Christian Movement, (internet doc., n.d.): 300, accessed 2010-11-22, http://www.edinburgh2010.org/fileadmin/files/edinburgh 2010/files/pdf/Ralph%20Winter%20-%20Edinburgh%201910.pdf. 17 Of the more than 1,200 representatives of Protestant missions worldwide at the 1910 Edinburgh Conference, none were from Latin America or Africa; seventeen were from Asia (Japan, China, India, Burma, Ceylon, and Korea); and twenty-six from the colonies (that is, from the white populations of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa). Walls, The Cross-cultural Process, 55-58. Twelve of the seventeen delegates from Asia were given the chance to speak to the conference. See, Raj B. Patta, “Rev. J. Rangiah, the Unsung Hero of World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, 1910,” internet doc., n.d., accessed 2010-11-22, http://edinburgh2010.oikoumene.org/fileadmin/files/edinburgh2010/files/docs/Rev. %20John%20Rangiah.doc. Of these, Rev. V. S. Azariah of India delivered what became the most oft quoted and perhaps the most influential address. He said to the delegates, “You have given your goods to feed the poor. You have given your bodies to be burned. We also ask for love. Give us FRIENDS!” See, K. R. Ross, “Edinburgh 1910 – Its Place in History” (internet doc., n.d.), 5, quoting from World Missionary Conference 1910: The History and Records of the Conference 9, 9 vols. (Toronto: Fleming H. Revell, n.d.), 315, accessed 2010-11-22, http://www.towards2010.org/ downloads_int/1910-PlaceHistory.pdf. 18 Harris’ ministry began in 1910, the same year in which the Edinburgh Conference convened. Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 29; see also ibid., 36-38. On Harris see further, Walls, “The Evangelical Revival,” in The Missionary Movement, 87-88; and Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 123-25.

394 and vivific experience was being addressed though a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In Africa the pneumatic emphasis of the prophets confronted the failure of mission churches to give Christian believers a fresh way in which to view the world.19 Harris’ prophetic ministry in Ghana with its emphasis on forsaking fetishes and idolatry, obeying the Ten Commandments, and strictly keeping the Sabbath20 helped reorient the spiritual worldview and lifestyle of thousands of unbelievers. Under a direct visionary commission from Jesus, he conducted one of the most effective Christian crusades the twentieth century has ever seen. In two years it is said that over 100,000 people were converted.21

In Nigeria, the prophet movement started first in 191522 with Garrick Sokari Braide in the Niger Delta.23 His ministry there was a powerful mix of the Christian call to repentance and the Spirit’s convincing conquest of opposing evil forces. His work was so effective that it is reported that there was never a time where Garrick Braide agreed to pray for a sick person that his prayers were not efficacious.24 His Delta ministry was succeeded by prophets appearing in the Nigerian southwest among the Yoruba. The precipitating cause is usually viewed as the death, disruption, and uncertainty caused by the Spanish influenza of 1918-1919. But the potency and scope of the prophetic movement in Yorubaland suggests that it was birthed from a stronger motivation than mere health concerns, and that it touched a deeper, more spiritual, African need. It was a

19 See Kalu, “The Third Response,” 4ff; and Omenyo, “Man of God Prophesy unto Me,” 35-36. 20 Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 58. 21 Ibid. 22 This is the date given by Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 301. Kalu offers 1914 as a starting date. See Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 29. 23 See Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 301-04 for a description of Braide’s ministry. Braide ministered from 1914-1918, during World War I. This was also just after the period when Lugard had amalgamated the different British Protectorates in Nigeria into one colonial holding (1912-14). Braide died in 1918, at the close of WWI (1914-18). See also Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 180-84. 24 Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 38, where Kalu quotes a remark made by M. A. Kemmer, Niger Delta Chronicle (1909), quoted in L. Lugwuana, “Medicine, Spiritual Healing and African Response,” Africa Theo. Jour. 23 (2007): 27.

395 genuine movement of God. And again, untrained men and women, divinely mandated in visions and dreams, preached the gospel, with “signs and wonders following.” This new group of prophets among the Yoruba, after 1920, was different than the secessionists of the previous decade, and different even from the earlier prophets such as Harris and Braide. None left mission churches because of racial discrimination or as a result of frustration; they were instrumental in starting new churches; and many sought white support from outside Africa.25 Their appeal lay in that their message was both relevant and mixed with indigenous features.26 Appearing in the familiar form of a babaláwo (a Yoruba traditional Ifá priest/diviner),27 the prophets took seriously the spirit infested world in which African people lived and they called them to faith in a Christ and a Christianity that was demonstratively more powerful than the fading forces of the receding era. Their gospel attracted two groups of people: animists and Muslims who were converted to the Christian message as a result of healings and power encounters; and religious people who left mission churches, attracted like the animists and Muslims to the vitality of the prophet’s presentation and the credence given to their spiritual

25 See Kalu, “Bakuzufu,” in African Pentecostalism, 29 and 41-42. 26 See O. Kalu, “Mademoni: African-Instituted Churches in Pentecostal Rhetoric,” in African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 65-83. and C. O. Oshun, “The Aladura Movement and Their Impact on the Nigerian Society,” in The God’s in Retreat: Continuity and Change in African Religions: The Nigerian Experience, ed. E. I. Metuh (Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 2002), 206. 27 Ifá is one part of what is known as ATR, that body of religious beliefs that predates the arrival of Christianity in Africa. Ifá is complex, and it can be confusing since the term is used in a variety of ways either to refer to a deity, to designate a religion, or a philosophy of life. As a synonym for Orunmila, Ifá either identifies the god of wisdom and insight or refers to the system of divination based on belief in Orunmila. J. D. Y. Peel, “The Pastor and the ‘Babalawo’: The Interaction of Religions in Nineteenth- Century Yorubaland,” AJIAI 60 (1990): 341. Ifá priests are known as babaláwo, or “father of secrets, or mysteries.” See ibid., 344; and I. Karade, The Handbook of Yoruba Religious Concepts, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Weiser Books, 1994), 7. For further information on ATR, Ifá and prophesy see Dada, “The Interaction of Prophecy and Yoruba Culture,” 169 and 172; and Omenyo, “Man of God Prophesy unto Me,” 34. Divination is defined as “the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers.” See s.v. “divination,” accessed 2012-03-31, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/divination. Essentially it is religious fortune telling.

396 universe.28 Frequently members of mainline churches who became interested in a prophet’s message had little option of remaining in their churches: more often than not, ecclesiastical authorities forced them to leave. But as followers flocked from what they felt were spiritually dead churches, and as these churches reacted by refusing to allow them to stay, the prophetic evangelistic healing meetings soon evolved into movements and the movements into identifiable denominations.

Aladura Roots of the Christ Apostolic Church

ꜛThe CAC has its early roots in the egbe Aladura, or prayer band movement that began in 1918 and which comprised part of the prophet-led, second wave indigenous response to Christianity in Nigeria. More particularly, the CAC grew out of the powerful prophetic ministry of Joseph Ayo Babalola (1904-1959), and after a number of transitions, it was organized in its present form in 1943. Aladura, which means “owners of prayer,”29 is a uniquely Yoruban form of Christianity.30 It began at St. Saviour’s Anglican Church, Ijebu-Ode, in present-day Ogun

State, in 1918 when a small group of African Christians convened a prayer meeting to seek God’s help in the midst of the Spanish influenza crisis.31 The sexton, Daddy Alli,

28 Horton argues that the root cause of the popularity of indigenous churches over mission churches can be found in their religious priorities. In mission churches, communion with God was not just an end of religious life, it was the overriding end. In indigenous churches, the emphasis on communion with God was retained. But added to this was the more pragmatic African concern for the explanation, prediction, and control of events in the everyday world. With this old priority restored, a “spectacular reverse movement” from the older mission churches took place that continues up to today. See R. Horton, “Judaeo-Christian Spectacles: Boon or Bane to the Study of African Religions? (Les lunettes judéo- chrétiennes: aubaine ou fléau pour l’étude des religions africaines?),” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 24 (1984): 413. The italicized emphasis in this note is similar to Horton’s. 29 A. Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare: The Public Face of Aladura in Diaspora,” JRA 34 (2004): 493. 30 See B. C. Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” JRA 23 (1993): 266-91. 31 It is estimated that one third of the world’s population, or approximately 500 million persons, were infected by the virus at the time. D. C. Ohadike, “Diffusion and Physiological Responses to the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 in Nigeria,” Social Science & Medicine 32 (1982): 1393. In 1918 the world population was 1.8 billion people; in 2012 it was 7.006 billion. See population data, accessed 2012-01-29, http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/worldpopinfo.php. At least twenty-one million

397 received a vision in which it was revealed that the Church was comprised of two groups, one large and prayer-less, the other smaller and prayer-filled.32 Not long after this, Sophie Odulami, a nineteen years old Ijebu school mistress,33 had a vision in which it was revealed that the “use of medicine, eating kola nuts, drinking palm wine, wearing magic girdles, wearing fine clothes, and having Sunday feasts”34 were all sins practiced by members of the church. These two revelations concerning prayer and dependence on God for healing established the continuing emphases of the Aladura movement. At first the prayer group was officially recognized as a prayer band within St.

Saviour’s. By revelation it was named egbe Okuta Oyebiye,35 Precious Stone or Diamond Society,36 and overtime under the leadership of Joseph Bayo Shadare it attracted a large following.37 While prayer was the main focus, members were also required to live according to a strict moral code. They were enjoined to reject the use of all medicine, to depend upon God only for healing, and to renounce charms and idols.38 David Odubanjo, in his role as the missionary correspondent for the group,39 introduced the Society to

people died from the disease over a twelve-month period. In Nigeria passengers and crews who arrived via ships from overseas introduced the flu. It spread unchecked, killing about 500,000 Nigerians, out of a population of eighteen million, in less than six months. Between 50% and 80% of the Nigerian population was stricken. See J. K. Taubenberger and D. M. Morens, “1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 12 (2006): 15-22. 32 Oshun, “Aladura Movement,” in The Gods in Retreat, 197-98. 33 Odulami became the first prophetic-healing evangelist of the movement. See S. A. Fatokun, “Water and Its Cultic Use in African Initiated Churches in Yoruba-Land of South-Western Nigeria: An Issue in African Development Discourse,” Swedish Missiological Themes 96 (2008): 355. 34 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 304. 35 Oshun, “Aladura Movement,” in The Gods in Retreat, 198. 36 S. B. Mala, “The Christ Apostolic Church – its History, Beliefs and Organization,” Ecumenical Review 28 (1976): 418. 37 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 35. 38 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 304-06. 39 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 36.

398

Ambrose Clark, the mission strategist of Faith Tabernacle, Philadelphia,40 and the new movement was greatly influenced by the Tabernacle’s religious magazine, The Sword of the Spirit.41 People began to call the prayer group Fate Tabernako, Faith Tabernacle. Soon tension developed between the new group and the Anglican Church as issues such as infant baptism, divine healing, and the reliance on dreams for guidance, and rules such as abstention from using medicine, dancing, drumming, debt, drinking, gambling, and mixing with non-Christians42 caused dissension. Not long after this, teachers associated with Faith Tabernacle were forced to resign their positions and their children were removed from the mission school. Finally the Society was expelled from the Anglican Church. The new movement’s first meeting as a separate entity took place on January 22, 1922, and by the late 1920s Faith Tabernacle churches were located in Ibadan, Lagos, and parts of Yorubaland.43 After a year, in 1923, Faith Tabernacle, Nigeria formally affiliated with Faith Tabernacle, Philadelphia.44 Seven years later, in 1930, the leadership of the Nigerian Faith Tabernacle made a fateful move that was to prove critical to its existence: they endorsed the ministry of Joseph Ayo Babalola. In many ways Babalola epitomized the West African prophetic paradigm, and his role in the subsequent founding of the CAC helped establish the prophetic tradition as a vital part of the denomination.45 Not surprising for a West African prophet, Babalola was not trained as a preacher. He was a blacksmith and caterpillar roller driver46 who had on several occasions resisted

40 O. Kalu, “Moya: African Charismatic Initiatives and Classical Pentecostal Missionaries,” in African Pentecostalism: An Introduction, (NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 41. 41 See ibid., 41-42; Oshun, “Aladura Movement,” in The Gods in Retreat, 198; Mala, “The CAC,” 418; and Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 304-05. 42 Mala, “The CAC,” 418. 43 Ibid., 418-19. 44 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” p. 37. 45 See Dada, “The Interaction of Prophecy and Yoruba Culture,” 169-71. 46 Olusheye, My Life, 35.

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God’s call to ministry. Finally one day in 1928, his steamroller engine mysteriously seized.47 And while he was trying to repair it, the Lord met him in a series of visitations. The divine message delivered on three successive days from October 9-11,48 culminated in an irresistible ultimatum: preach Christ now or face death within a year.49 Babalola’s response was immediate and radically decisive: he took a hand bell, a staff of iron, water, oil, and no cap,50 and went about the countryside, calling people to renounce paganism and put their faith in Christ.51 ꜛAt the time Babalola was not associated with Faith Tabernacle. His mandate had come directly from Jesus and he began preaching immediately. Apart from instructions that he received during a seven day fast,52 Babalola did not seek or feel the need for further Christian training. Evangelist Daniel Ajibola53 was the first to notice that Babalola’s message was similar to the Tabernacle’s and he introduced Babalola to its leaders. In 1929 Babalola travelled to Lagos to meet with Odubanjo and Shadare54 at Odubanjo’s house.55 His gospel and calling were reviewed and since both were judged to

47 Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 186. 48 Olusheye, My Life, 36. 49 Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 305. 50 Each item was divinely appointed to Babalola by Jesus as Babalola’s insignia marking his spiritual authority. The bell was to be used during prayer; the staff of iron was a symbol of victory; water was to be used for healing; oil was for anointing the sick; and Babalola was to go bare headed until he wore his crown of glory. See Olusheye, My Life, 36-37. 51 See ibid., Chapter 3, “The Great Apostle Babalola,” 35-44; Dada, “The Interaction of Prophecy and Yoruba Culture,” 70ff; and Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 38ff. 52 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 38-39. 53 Olusheye, My Life, 37. 54 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 40. Shadare was also known as Esinsinade. See O. A. P. Alokan and C. B. Ogunyemi, “An Examination of the Politics of Schism and Secession amongst Indigenous Pentecostal Groups in Nigeria: Trends and Prognosis in Church Literature,” Jour. of Ed. and Practice 2 (2011): 23. Olusheye refers to Shadare as “Esinsiade.” See Olusheye, My Life, 37. See also Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 35. 55 Mala, “The CAC,” 419.

400 be complete already, Shadare, as the senior pastor among the Faith Tabernacle leaders,56 baptized Babalola by water immersion as a sign of their communion and in accordance with the movement’s beliefs.57 “Thus Odubanjo’s Faith Tabernacle, which had existed independently from 1918 to 1930, and Babalola’s Gospel, which he had preached from 1928 to 1930, were fused together as one religious movement.”58 Shortly after that, on July 10, 1930, Babalola’s ministry took a dramatic turn. While waiting in Ilesha for a group of Faith Tabernacle leaders to conclude a meeting, Babalola raised a ten year old boy from the dead.59 It was the beginning of the Great

Revival of 1930. The awakening continued for twenty-nine years60 and brought hundreds of thousands of people into the church. A number of leading AICs were founded during this spiritually dynamic period: Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S), Church of the Lord-Aladura (CLA), Celestial Church of Christ (CCC), Evangelical Church of Yahweh (ECY) “and their various appendages and splinter formations.”61 Babalola’s work – characterized by powerful preaching and prayer, and affirmed by signs and wonders – left an indelible imprint upon Christianity in West

Africa. Christians were emboldened to oppose occult practises in light of the power displayed by the Christian God.62

56 Mala, “The CAC,” 419. Shadare was “senior” not in age or occupational title, but in his rank and position in the ministry. Others respected Shadare for his spiritual stature and quality of service. 57 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 41n28. 58 Mala, “The CAC,” 418. 59 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 41-42. The child’s name was J. O. Ogundipe. After being brought back to life, he lived for roughly another seventy-two years. He died in 2001 at the age of eighty- two. See ibid., 42n31; and also Olofinjana, 20 Pentecostal Pioneers in Nigeria, 16. 60 The revival continued in the CAC until Babalola’s death on 1959-07-26. Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 49. 61 Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 493. 62 See Olusheye, My Life, 38.

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British Apostles and the CAC Split Initially the combined movement of Babalola and Faith Tabernacle operated without a new name. Then in 1931 the leaders sought and achieved affiliation with the British Apostolic Church,63 headquartered in Bradford, England.64 As a result, the movement was re-titled the African Apostolic Church (AAC).65 Eight years later in 1939, the new affiliation was split.66 One part remained as the Apostolic Church; the other reconstituted itself as the Nigerian Apostolic Church (NAC). The NAC would later take the named United Apostolic Church (UAC) to reflect better its association with the

Apostles in Ghana. But since this name conflicted with the United African Company (also the “UAC”), in order to avoid confusion the new denomination was finally renamed Christ Apostolic Church on May 4, 1943.67 On the official registration three trustees were identified: Isaac Akinyele (President), David Odubanjo (General Superintendent), and Joseph Babalola (General Evangelist).68 Usually the breach between the Apostolic Church and the CAC is traced to a disagreement between the British missionaries and the Africans over the use of medicine:

63 Affiliation with a western organization often brought respect to Nigerian indigenous churches. In 1931 when colonial authorities began persecuting Faith Tabernacle members shortly after the beginning of the Great Revival, the Nigerian Faith Tabernacle initially appealed to the American Faith Tabernacle for help. When they refused to come to Nigeria to assist because their mission enterprise was wholly conducted through the mail, the Nigerians broke affiliation with Faith Tabernacle in America and contacted the Apostolic Church in Great Britain. Representatives from Britain visited Nigeria on 1931-09-23. They established the Apostolic Church in Nigeria and legitimized the indigenous movement in the eyes of the colonial authorities. Later, in 1932, when Babalola was sentenced to six months in prison in Benin, representatives of the British Apostolic Church helped to secure Babalola’s release. Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 46-47. 64 Mala, “The CAC,” 420. 65 Babalola was given the name, “Apostolic Church,” by the Lord during his prayer time. The group adopted the name African Apostolic Church because the new movement was organized by black men, and because at the time it was mainly in African countries. See ibid., 419. 66 See Mala, “The CAC,” 419; and Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 48. 67 Olusheye, My Life, 91. 68 Ibid.

402 the British wanted to use medicine for healing, especially quinine to combat malaria, and the CAC wanted to stay true to the original Aladura vision and revival ministry experience of relying solely upon God for healing and health.69 But curiously, the issue of medicine and healing may not have been the only reason for the separation. Apparently, at around the same time, George Perfect, the resident British Apostolic missionary, accused Odubanjo of misappropriating funds. Even though Babalola and Pastor Akinyele – a pastor of high standing, and one of the pillars in the Nigerian Faith Tabernacle – were not directly involved in the controversy, they stood in solidarity with Odubanjo and together they left the AAC to form the new Church.70 Regardless of any other disagreements,71 the stories surrounding the division and the reasons for the establishment of the CAC have helped to establish divine healing both as one of the core distinctives of the CAC and as a sign of denominational fidelity. The CAC lists thirteen doctrines “which the church accepts, strictly adheres to and teaches.” The twelfth article affirms “Divine Healing through obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ and Faith in His Name and Merit of His Blood for all Sickness,

Diseases and Infirmities.”72 With salvation from sin and reliance on God for all needs, divine or Christian healing is considered to be one of the three pillars on which the Church of Christ rests. The basis of the belief is in the “full atonement” of Christ whereby it is held that Jesus’ “stripped body” secures physical healing in like manner as his blood effects spiritual healing. Divine healing is linked with prayer, faith (igbagbo)

69 This is Mala’s view. See Mala, “The CAC,” 420. 70 Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 48nn56-7. Fatokun’s source is the eyewitness account of S. G. Adegboyega, Short History of the Apostolic Church in Nigeria (Ibadan: Rosprint Press 1978), 87-97. Adegboyega was one of the original pastors ordained by Faith Tabernacle, Philadelphia. Fatokun, “The ‘Great Move of God,’” 37. He shared in the persecutions of the early church with Babalola. Ibid., 46. 71 British missionaries, for example, failed to consult with the African churches when appointing new missionaries to Africa. Grimley and Robinson, Ch. Growth in Nigeria, 306. 72 Mala, “The CAC,” 420.

403 and trust (igbekele); and it is available through individual or corporate petition, prophets or healers who are specially gifted in healing, or at specific healing centers in Ibadan (Ile Asbara Adura, Power House) and Ede (Ile Abiye, Faith Home).73 Perhaps because of the importance of healing and most certainly because of the manifest display of God’s power in healing and deliverance,74 the CAC grew rapidly between 1932 and 1946. It expanded throughout Nigeria and Ghana. Unfortunately, with growth came problems and conflict. Purportedly, pastoral leadership grew lax and pastors became “greedy, avaricious, corrupt and even self-centered. They would not listen to prophecies and even began to suppress prophecy in that it revealed their sins.”75

Universal Gospel Apostolic Church of Nigeria (UNIGAC)76 As a result of these issues, a number of churches left the CAC in 1946. The split was led by the pastor of St. Paul’s Apostolic Church, the most elder Elijah Abodunrin of Illa-Odo town in Oyo State.77 Seven years earlier St. Paul’s had been part of the original split from the Apostolic Church, and Abodunrin’s departure now was a great loss to the

CAC. Apparently, he was a prominent and effective prophet. Abodunrin returned to the

73 Mala, “The CAC,” 421. For more on the CAC, see Sanneh, W. African Christianity, 194-97. 74 Odelami links divine healing, and the injunction against medicines, with God’s subsequent confirmation of divine healing during the Great Revival when he says: “The church which was started through prayer had ‘divine healing’ as central in its doctrine as a result of the revival.” M. O. Odelami, “A Biblical-Theological Analysis of the Practice of Divine Healing in St. Paul’s Apostolic Church of Nigeria,” (master’s thesis, Acadia Divinity College, 1984), 102. 75 Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 102-03. 76 This section on UNIGAC is largely based on Odelami’s MA thesis written in 1984. See “Healing Ministry in St. Paul’s Apostolic Church of Nigeria,” in ibid, 93-117. 77 Ibid., 103. Note: This was not the last split or controversy in the CAC. After an extended struggle for control of the leadership, the CAC was split in two administratively in 1992. Both groups continue to be called Christ Apostolic Church but they have different leaders. Pastor A. O. Akinosun (2010-present [2013]) heads the majority group; E. Ogunranti heads the minority group and is assisted by Evangelist T. Obadare. See Alokan and Ogunyemi, “The Politics of Schism,” esp. 25-26. For current leaders of the majority CAC group, CAC (Worldwide), see s.v. >Profiles, accessed 2012-12-29, http://www.cacworldwide.net/profiles/gec.asp.

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CAC for a brief period, but the breach was made final in 1947 after the Lord threatened and eventually punished him for his reluctance in breaking away.78 After the split Abodunrin felt divinely restricted from travel, and so for twenty- three years, from 1946 until his death in 1969, he never left his home town. The nascent denomination grew despite this impediment. The sick were brought to Illa-Odo and many of them were healed when Abodunrin prayed for them. Other churches led by other pastors who had broken away from the CAC with Abodunrin also grew. The first branch- church was established at Inisha, under Evangelist Agboola; a second, at Ekosin, was headed by Pastor Durotoye and Rev. Anjorin Daramola; and another at Igbaye was led by Evangelist Noah Popoola. Initially the new faction had no definite organization or written beliefs. The church spread by “preaching, praying, sharing and healing by the divine power.”79 In much the same way as during the early period of Christian missionary work when education or medicine played a key role in evangelism, healing became a vital vehicle for outreach and growth. As Odelami, the denomination’s current General Overseer, says,

Healing was what the pestilence-stricken people of Nigeria needed before they could listen to any word of salvation. They would first know Christ in his power to heal before they came to know what salvation is. In turn, the healing granted according to their need served as means (sic) of calling them to respond to the larger Christian message as a whole.80 In the beginning, the denomination, while not experiencing a great deal of growth, apparently, did suffer a lot of persecution. Supposedly, it threatened the work of the CAC and unsettled traditional cults.81 But the Church remained steady throughout this period, attempting to live in accordance with the scripture and in obedience to the guidance of

78 Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 103. 79 Ibid., 104. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid., 105.

405 the Holy Spirit. Since healing was a critical component of its ministry, allegedly, extra care was taken lest sin should stymie the work of ministry and divine healing.82 When Abodunrin died in 1969 he was succeeded first by Elder Gidado, popularly known as “Baba Apata,”83 and then by Most Elder Samson Abioye. Gidado’s tenure was brief (1969-1971) and Abioye’s was marred by sexual sin (1971-1975). Abioye enjoyed the cooperation of the other elders and leaders of the branches and he was beloved by all, but his failure ended his term abruptly in 1975 when he died. Abioye’s sin also caused a lot of confusion and problems in the church. Under the original founder, Abodunrin, a few branches had been established in the north and south of Nigeria, but under Abioye no new churches had been planted. An intensive period of reflection and confession followed. After three months of extensive prayer in the various branches of the church Michael Odelami was appointed as the Church’s new leader. Purportedly, the Lord had confirmed his selection in about fifty-three revelations or prophecies, through fifty different prophets, each indicating that Odelami was divinely delegated to the position.84 Odelami was a familiar and effective figure in the church.85 He had been ordained into ministry in 1967 at St. Paul’s Apostolic Church, Ibadan when he was about twenty- eight years old86 while working for the government at the Western Nigeria Development Corporation. That same year he founded and became the pastor of a church in Mọkọla, Ibadan. Then, for the next part decade he pioneered the establishment of three other churches, two with Evangelist Oluṣola87 in Oṣogbo (1968) and Abeọkuta (1970), and

82 Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 106. 83 Ibid., 105n17. 84 Ibid., 106-07. 85 This paragraph is largely based on my interview with Odelami, at Ibadan, on 2012-06-18. 86 Odelami was seventy-three in 2012. According to his thesis, written in 1984, “Odelami was born in Akinlalu over forty years ago.” Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 107. 87 Ibid., 107.

406 another with Elder Omidiji in Lagos (1975).88 Immediately prior to his appointment as General Overseer for his denomination, from 1972 to 1975, Odelami was involved with these four new churches. He also supervised the mother church, St. Paul’s Apostolic Church in Ibadan, preached weekly, got married, and worked fulltime as an executive officer at Sketch Publishing Company, a facility owned by the government of Oyo State. In the year of his appointment, 1975, Odelami left his secular work and entered ministry fulltime. He led a nationwide revival in 1976 that lasted through 1977. “Demons were cast out; the witches and the wizards and those with evil spirits confessed, and surrendered their power at the call of the Name of Jesus Christ.”89 ꜛAlso in 1976, Odelami travelled briefly to Britain and the United States90 on mission work. In 1977 the denomination was given a definite organizational structure.91 In 1979 while in Nigeria, after an international follow-up tour during which he revisited churches in Britain and the United States, Odelami received instructions from the Lord to pursue biblical studies.92 He studied in Canada for four years (1980-1984), returned to Nigeria, and founded a church school for his denomination (1984) and helped to found a theological college,

CINDICO (1986), with S. K. Abiara. SPAC expanded rapidly throughout this entire period and a great number of people were added to the fellowship.93 By the time Odelami arrived in Wolfville in 1988 seeking affiliation with AU for CINDICO, his denomination

88 The church at Abeokuta was begun with the help of two new converts, Elegbede and Omidiji. Elder Elegbede is still at Abeokuta. Even though he is a Senior Overseer over all other elders in UNIGAC and a Trustee, and Odelami often delegates him to look after important matters, he is not yet an ordained pastor. The church at Lagos was started after Elder Omidiji moved there for work. Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18; and Odelami to Dockendorff, email, 2012-09-10. 89 Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 107. 90 Odelami first preached in churches in and around Chicago, Illinois before travelling south to Houston, Texas. Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18. 91 Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 107. 92 Odelami, interview, Ibadan, 2012-06-18. 93 Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 107.

407 supposedly numbered over 1.5 million members and adherents.94 The name had been changed in 1986 to Universal Gospel Apostolic Church of Nigeria (UNIGAC) to reflect the “Universal” outlook of the mission of the church.95

Religious Context The emphasis on healing, the power of divinely appointed prophets, and the attraction of their message are all related to the indigenous African religious context. In the following appendix, Appendix E, the African religious worldview will be described.

Key characteristics will be emphasized, and then prayer and divine healing will be used as representative examples of the response of Yoruba Christianity to the indigenous perspective. These issues are particularly relevant when considering CINDICO and UNIDICO and the indigenization of their curricula. In Appendix E, it will also be noted that the traditional African religious worldview and its associated practices constitute a significant threat to conventional Christian beliefs and lifestyle in Yoruban Nigeria. This, of course, presents a further reason why the ministry and teaching of CINDICO and

UNIDICO are sorely needed in Nigeria at this time.

94 Cited by A. D. MacRae, then Principal of ADC, as part of the biography read during the awarding of a DD degree to Odelami by AU, on Sunday, 1997-05-11, in 1997 Spring Convocation, program for AU Convocation held at Wolfville, 1997-05-11, ECWA. B. Mala notes this number in a letter to Perkin, 1989-09-12. He says, “The Universal Gospel Divinity College serves a large Community of over 1.5 million people to provide both academically sound and theologically evangelical education.” C. O. Oshun quotes a number approximate to this. Not referring specifically to UNIGAC but generally of the larger Aladura movement, he says, “It can no longer be doubted that the Aladura Movement now constituting churches in her own right with an estimated membership of about 1.4 million, is a legitimate Branch of the body of Christ and the Church Universal.” Oshun, “Aladura Movement,” in The Gods in Retreat, 211. It appears that Imevbore is likely correct when he states without prejudice, “I do not know enough about … UNIGAC to comment on the size but it seems to me that what is being said is that there are about 1.5 million people in the area around the two colleges, CINDICO and UNIDICO.” Imevbore to Dockendorff, email, 2012-09-10. This would be congruent with Odelami’s statement to MacRae, arguing against the amalgamation of UNIDICO with CINDICO: “It is true that CINDICO and UNIDICO are almost in the same area but the fact is that only one divinity college cannot adequately cope with the grate (sic) demand of witnessing to a population of over two million, by far larger than that of Nova Scotia.” Odelami to MacRae, 1990-03-27. 95 “UNIGAC,” pamphlet by Odelami, [1992-05?], first panel.

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Appendix E: African Traditional Religion and Christian Responses

Introduction This appendix serves as a companion to the discussion in Appendix D on the roots of the CAC and UNIGAC, the two denominations to which Abiara and Odelami belong. The following narrative describes the indigenous religious milieu of southwestern Nigeria and gives some sense of the spiritual perspectives that have shaped the thought and ministry of the CAC and UNIGAC. Despite every attempt to be thoroughly Christian, inevitably, the social, religious, and cultural views of Yorubaland have combined with Christianity and influenced the manner in which Yoruban Christians approach life and ministry. As will be seen in the discussion, sometimes the meshing of the indigenous worldview with the historic faith of the Church has produced a response that is not always consistent with the overall tenor of the Gospel of Christ. It was noted in Appendix D that Odelami and Abiara are products of their denominational roots. In this appendix it will be argued that given the vibrant spiritually of the Yoruba belief system, Odelami and Abiara and the institutions that they lead are also impacted subtly by their larger religious context. The Yoruba live in a world that is alive with a multitude of otherworldly forces who work to produce both weal and woe. While this spiritually dynamic frame of mind is largely foreign in the West, to the Yoruba it is as familiar and as influential as the listless causality of secularism is to Westerners. In both instances, the responses and reactions to the routines of life are so un-self- consciously moulded by intimate paradigms that these frames are frequently assumed to be universal givens. The discussion will begin by first examining African Traditional Religion (ATR) both as a particular field of investigation and as an expression of Nigerian belief. In the late 1940’s, Religious Studies was pioneered in Nigerian universities and over the years,

409 with the transition from European to indigenous scholars, this discipline has matured and developed. After tracing this progress, various tenets peculiar to the religious worldview of the Yoruba, the tribe to which Abiara and Odelami belong, will be described. First the cosmology of the Yoruba will be discussed and then the pantheon of Yoruba gods, the òrìṣà, will be considered.1 Three features that seem particularly relevant to the interface of African Christianity and the indigenous African religious worldview will be reviewed in some detail: the belief in spiritual forces, healing, and prayer. It will be shown that this trinity of beliefs comprises an important core of Yoruba Christian practice. But as features held in common with ATR, they, and other beliefs like them, are especially open to misapplication or manipulation. Unless they are properly understood and managed, these key tenets of African religious life can pose significant threats to important and widely held historic Christian beliefs and practices. It is this susceptibility to misinterpretation and misuse that gives rise to the crisis and the opportunity of theological education in southwestern Nigeria. For Christian training institutions such as CINDICO and UNIDICO, the prospect of guiding pastors, churches, and educational practitioners into an integrated form of Christianity is great. But in order to address adequately the critical faith issues in their Christian communities, these Colleges and those who work with them need to consider seriously the religious world in which they function so as to formulate a curriculum and an approach to ministry that is relevant to them and their client’s needs. As was shown in the main body of this thesis, one of the things that most impressed MacRae and the Senate of AU was the deliberate indigenization of the courses at CINDICO and UNIDICO. This appendix helps those who are unfamiliar with African indigenous beliefs understand how difficult a task that was and continues to be in Nigeria. As the narrative progresses, it ought to become

1 The “dotted s” indicates a “sh” sound.

410 increasingly evident that the role that CINDICO and UNIDICO play in Yoruban Christian society is critically important. They provide the necessary and challenging service of interpreting Christian faith in the context and under the influence of conflicting worldviews and familiar religious forms. While these issues are particularly relevant for the indigenizing of CINDICO’s and UNIDICO’s curricula, here the focus will be on the significant threat that the traditional African religious worldview, and its associated practices, poses to Christian beliefs and lifestyles in Yoruban Nigeria.

African Traditional Religion ꜛToday there are three major religious groupings in Nigeria: Muslims, Christians, and those who adhere to traditional religion. Traditionalists represent the oldest and the smallest group. The missionary efforts of both Christianity and Islam, in conjunction with the pressures arising from modernity and societal change, have diminished their numbers greatly. But still, they tend to be proud of their African heritage and they jealously safeguard the older tribal beliefs.

Traditional African religions have been researched for centuries.2 At first they were reported unofficially in early travelogues and missionary reports. Later they were examined more seriously by Christian missionaries, colonial officials, and trained ethnographers and anthropologists. But it was not until after the Second World War, when E. G. Parrinder was appointed as the first-ever lecturer on African religion in the newly created Department of Religious Studies at the University College of Ibadan, that African religion was investigated as an independent topic of critical research.3 Parrinder’s

2 For an interesting précis of the history of the study of ATR see C. I. Ejizu, “Emergent Key Issues in the Study of African Traditional Religions,” Conference paper (n.d. [post 1987?]), n.p. accessed 2012- 02-16, http://afrikaworld.net/afrel/ejizu.htm. See also J. K. Olupọna, “The Study of Yoruba Religious Tradition in Historical Perspective,” Numen 40 (1993): 240-73. 3 A. Hastings, “Review Article of Geoffrey Parrinder: In the Belly of the Snake: West Africa over Sixty Years Ago, by Geoffrey Parrinder; A Bag of Needments: Geoffrey Parrinder and the Study of Religion, by Martin Forward,” JRA 31 (2001): 355. In 1949, the Department of Religious Studies was a

411 work brought intellectual credibility to the study of indigenous religious beliefs in West Africa. He coined the term “African Traditional Religion”4 and pioneered the budding area of interest. Soon, ATR became a valid focus of inquiry in universities in Africa and abroad. During the decolonizing period of the 1950s and 1960s and as part of the pan- African movement of cultural nationalism,5 increasingly African religions were investigated by indigenous African scholars.6 In Nigeria, E. Bolaji Iduwu argued that the concept of a “Supreme God” was universal in African religions7 and that “African religions” could be considered as a single religion, a type of “diffused monotheism.”8 In

novel creation first begun in Nigeria. See R. I. J. Hackett, “The Academic Study of Religion in Nigeria,” Religion 18 (1988): 37. See Parrinder’s obituary for an appreciative survey of his work and life in U. King, “Professor Geoffrey Parrinder (30 April 1910-16 June 2005),” Brit. Jour. of Relig. Ed. 28 (2006): 115-18. 4 See J. C. Aguwa, “Christianity and Nigerian Indigenous Culture,” in Religion, History, and Politics in Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ogbu U. Kalu, ed. C. J. Korieh and G. U. Nwokeji (Lanham: UPA, 2005), 23; and Hackett, “The Academic Study of Religion,” 37-38. Parrinder chose to emphasis African religions as “traditional,” rather than to use the more pejorative word “primitive,” and he saw sufficient coherence across African religions to identify them in the singular. See Hastings, “Review Article of Geoffrey Parrinder,” 358-59. 5 See, R. Shaw, “The Invention of ‘ATR,’” Religion 20 (1990): 339-53. 6 See E. Chitando, “African Christian Scholars and the Study of African Traditional Religions: A Re-evaluation,” Religion 30 (2000): 391-97. 7 See Hackett, “The Academic Study of Religion,” 39, referring to E. B. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief (London: Longman, 1962). Idowu supported this contention partly on the Christian notion of the universal revelation of God by God. See E. B. Idowu, “God,” in Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs, ed. by K. A. Dickson and P. Ellingworth (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1969), esp. 18-20. 8 See Shaw, “The Invention of ‘ATR,’” 344-45, referring to E. B. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition (London: SCM Press, 1973), 104. In contrast, John Mbiti writes of African religions, using the plural (Shaw, “The Invention of ‘ATR,’” 345), and he describes them as being essentially monotheistic (Hastings, “Review Article of Geoffrey Parrinder,” 358). Although it has been suggested that Parrinder saw ATR as polytheistic (ibid., 358), Parrinder himself points up that in his writings he had suggested four categories of polytheism for ATR, and concludes that “the overall impression is that much of African thought is both theistic and unitary.” See E. G. Parrinder, “Monotheism and Pantheism in Africa,” JRA 3 (1970): 87. In this article, Parrinder provides an excellent survey of the discussion up to 1970. Hastings, writing thirty years later, asserts that the monotheism proposed by Idowu and Mbiti is “a pale reflection of biblical Protestantism;” and he says that ultimately the arguments about whether African religions are singular or plural, or monotheistic or polytheistic, are pointless given the scope and diversity of religion in Africa, and the inevitable and irremediable influence of Christianity and Islam on contemporary religious thinking and study. See Hastings, “Review Article of Geoffrey Parrinder,” 358-9. Despite Hasting’s opinion, however, the nature of African religions continues to be debated. Whether they are monotheistic or polytheistic depends in part upon whether or not the òrìṣà and Ancestors are worshipped or merely venerated. Among the Akan of southern Ghana, for example, even though Ancestors are subservient to the supreme god, Pobee argues that since they are directly involved in peoples’

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Kenya, John Mbiti insisted that African religions were not singular: they were plural,9 but that regardless of this plurality, it was the Supreme God who was the eventual Recipient of all worship. He argued that even when worshippers were unaware of his existence, or when they worshipped other African deities, the Supreme God is acknowledged de facto because of his supreme position.10 Today, after a little over a half century of research and debate, even though a number of issues remain unsettled,11 generally it is agreed that indigenous religion in African varies from region to region, yet like Christianity or Islam,12 it is distinguished by a core set of features across all of Africa: the belief in the existence of the Supreme God, other divinities, Spirit beings, Ancestors and mysterious powers, good and evil, and the afterlife.13 Some scholars, in an effort to emphasize that African religion(s) is a dynamic belief system rooted in African soil and espoused for generations from the forefathers to the present, prefer to use the term African Indigenous

lives, their help is sought, and they are actually honoured when approached, then effectively, they are worshipped. See J. Pobee, “Aspects of African Traditional Religion,” Sociological Analysis 37 (1976): 9. In a recent paper Pikkert also appears to support the thesis that ATR is polytheistic. He asks whether widespread belief in a Creator god in traditional religions make them essentially monotheistic or, are they polytheistic given the belief in lesser spirits who are active in daily life. His conclusion is that the pantheon of lesser gods provides an avenue for human petition that renders the Supreme Being secondary in worship and address. See P. Pikkert, “Who is the ‘Supreme Creator’ of African Lore?” paper, n.d. [post 2000?]: 1. 9 See Shaw, “The Invention of ‘ATR,’” 345; and Ejizu, “Emergent Key Issues,” 6. 10 See Shaw, “The Invention of ‘ATR,’” 345, referring to J. S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (London: SPCK, 1970): 58. 11 See Ejizu, “Emergent Key Issues,” 5-13. 12 See ibid., 6. Shaw is critical of the influence of Christianity in the work of Christian scholars such as Parrinder, Idowu, and Mbiti. She argues that the presumptive use of Judeo-Christian templates does not do justice to the study of African religions as they actually are, in and of themselves. See Shaw, “The Invention of ‘ATR.’” Horton is even more critical than Shaw. He seeks to get “as far away as possible” from the interpretative approach of Christian based authors in the study of African religions. See R. Horton, “Judaeo-Christian Spectacles: Boon or Bane to the Study of African Religions? (Les lunettes judéo- chrétiennes: aubaine ou fléau pour l’étude des religions africaines?),” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 24 (1984): 391-436. Chitando, however, argues that the critique of early African Christian scholars is unfair, and that it unduly diminishes the significance of their pioneering contributions. See Chitando, “African Christian Scholars,” 391-97. 13 D. T. Adamo, “Christianity and the African Traditional Religion(s): The Postcolonial Round of Engagement,” Verbum et Ecclesia 32 (2011): 3.

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Religion rather than ATR.14 The renewed interest in indigenous religion has led to a resurgence of African beliefs. In Nigeria this culminated with the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture, Festac ‘77, held in Lagos and Kaduna, January 15 and February 12, 1977. At that time indigenous religion was reintroduced to many Nigerians as part of an emphasis on African culture.15 More and more since then practitioners have wanted to dialogue with and be recognized by other religious groups.16

African Creation and Cosmology

While it is difficult to be definitive, it would appear that most regional African religions have a creation story in which a supreme creator god makes the world for the purpose of providing a place for animals and man to live.17 In Yoruban lore, Olorun (Olodumare), the supreme god who presides over a pantheon of lesser gods, or òrìṣà,18

14 Adamo, “Christianity and the ATR(s),” 3. 15 See the fascinating and insightful essay, U. Etuk, “The Theology of Contextualization in Africa: A Cover for Traditional Cultural Revival,” Concordia Jour. 11 (1985): 219. Etuk does an excellent job exposing the current and subtle dangers to Christian belief and practise resulting from an increasing accommodation and familiarization with ATR in Nigeria. Regarding the Festival of Black Arts and Culture, the 3rd World celebration was recently held at Dakar, Senegal, on 2010-12-10. See: “Africa’s World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures Recap: Great News Overlooked,” 2011-01-21, accessed 2012-02-25, http://afrofusionlounge.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/africas-world-festival-of-black-arts-and-cultures-recap- great-news-overlooked/. 16 See Adamo, “Christianity and the ATR(s).” 17 See P. Pikkert, “Who is the ‘Supreme Creator,’” 1. Ikenga-Metuh analyzes three W. African traditional religions based on their creation myths. One of the creation myths belongs to the Yoruba. See E. Ikenga-Metuh, “Religious Concepts in West African Cosmogonies: A Problem of Interpretation,” JRA 13 (1982): 11-24. 18 Òrìṣà, also spelled orisha because the “dotted s” indicates an “sh” sound, as a noun means god or gods; as an adjective it means sacred or holy. See A. B. Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa: Their Religion, Manners, Customs, Laws, Language, Etc. (Central, Hong Kong: Forgotten Books, 2007), 30. The òrìṣà are also described as “angelic forces.” See I. Karade, The Handbook of Yoruba Religious Concepts, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Weiser Books, 1994), 11. Ilésanmí argues that òrìṣà were actually great men and local heroes deified in story by the Yoruba; and that they were popularized under the influence of Christianity and Islam by African theologians, the babaláwo, or diviners for Ifá (Orunmila), the òrìṣà of wisdom and insight. Ilésanmí suggests that these deified local heroes were considered gods in their own right, and did not serve as intermediaries for the supreme god, Olorun (Olodumare); and that it was only after geo-political expansion and systematization that they became sufficiently recognized so as to be considered universal Yoruba gods. See T. M. Ilésanmí, “The Traditional Theologians and the Practice of Òrìṣà Religion in Yorùbáland,” JRA 21 (1991): 216-26. The evolution of òrìṣà from local to regional deities through political domination, population shifts, cultural diffusion, and

414 dispatches Oduduwa, the founder of the Ifé kingship and ancestor of all Yoruba kings, to create and populate the earth. Oduduwa descends from heaven in a canoe. And as he floats on the water covering the earth, he pours a bag of sand into it. A five-toed chicken, sent down in the canoe with him, scratches and scatters the sand, and it becomes the first dry land. People are then created, and the town of Ifé is built.19 In this manner, the inhabitable world was formed and the human race begun. Another version of this myth, gathered from along the Atlantic coast from Porto Novo to Lagos,20 differs in some important, but non-essential details. Oduduwa is a female Earth goddess who is paired with a male sky god, Obatala (Orisanla, “Heaven”). Oduduwa is coeval with Olorun, but Obatala is created by him. Together Oduduwa and Obatala (“Heaven” and “Earth”) produce two children, the god Aganju (“Land”) and the goddess, Yemaja (“Water”). Other òrìṣà are produced in later births by other progeny.21 Contained in this latter creation myth are the three chief components of Yoruban cosmology – orun, ile, and aiye – heaven, earth, and the world. The story pictures the place where people live, the world or aiye, as being cupped between orun and ile, heaven and earth. In shrines, especially in southwestern Yorubaland, this is symbolized by two

ethnic intermarriage was one of the factors that helped establish the Yoruba ethnic identity. See O. Ojo, “‘Heepa’ (Hail) Òrìṣà: The Òrìṣà Factor in the Birth of Yoruba Identity,” JRA 39 (2009): 44. 19 This version of the Yoruba creation story is from Oyo, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Ibadan. See P. Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology and Cult Organization of the Òyó Yorùbá,” AJIAI 34 (1964): 243. In a slightly different account, Orisanla (Orisha-nla, or Obatala, the god of whiteness) is ordered by Olorun to create the earth. When he gets drunk on palm wine, his younger brother, Oduduwa, assumes the task. When the brothers quarrel over who owns the earth, Olorun intervenes. He gives Oduduwa the right to rule over the earth; Orisanla is given power to form human bodies, and he becomes the creator of men through birth. See Ikenga-Metuh, “Relig. Concepts in W. African Cosmogonies,” 16. 20 Porto Novo is 100 km (62 mi.) west of Lagos; and Lagos is 191 km (118 mi.) southwest of Oyo. 21 See Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 29ff. As O. Ojo points out, òrìṣà had different attributes in different regions. For example, Odudua, or Oduduwa, who is known as both a god and the mythical father of the Yoruba, is male in northern Yorubaland, male or of unknown sex in the southeast, and female (the wife of Obatala) in the southwest. See O. Ojo, “‘Heepa’ (Hail) Òrìṣà,” 44.

415 whitened saucer-shaped calabashes, one part placed covering the other.22 It is believed that the different regions of the cosmos are populated by different entities. Orun is the home of Olorun, his emissaries the òrìṣà, malevolent forces called ajogun, and other preincarnate spirits. Ile belongs to the Earth goddess Ile and is the abode of vengeful earth spirits, the souls of deceased Ancestors, and certain forest spirits. Aiye is the place where humans dwell and interact with all of these spiritual forces.23 In orun Olorun is the supreme god.24 He is without origin, and as can be seen in his arbitration among the òrìṣà25 and humans, he is moral.26 On a day to day basis, he is not actively involved in peoples’ lives, for while he is ultimately responsible for creation and maintaining order in the wider cosmos, he has assigned the daily details of life on

22 Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 35. Also see Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 244. 23 The basic outline for the following section describing the entities which inhabit heaven/sky, earth, and the world, plus the various cults of the gods, is taken from Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 245–48 and 251-59. This approach uses Yoruba cosmology to describe the Yoruba religious system. It is in contradistinction to other models that describe the Yoruba religious system using a schemata of various gods and spirits. See ibid., 248-51. P. R. MacKenzie compares three models of òrìṣà cults using material from Morton-Williams (cosmology), Iduwu (hierarchical model of supreme god, òrìṣà and spirits), and Verger (an undifferentiated listing of deities). He argues that the òrìṣà are individual, fully deity, and over time, dynamically affected by the assumption of new characteristics. Since they grow and decline, MacKenzie’s point is that they cannot really be captured in a closed cosmology. Rather, they need to be studied from the experience of the cults themselves as part of open-end theisms, and part configurations and groupings. See P. R. McKenzie, “Yoruba Òrìṣà Cults: Some Marginal Notes Concerning Their Cosmology and Concepts of Deity,” JRA 8 (1976): 189-207. 24 Olorun is not conceived as being an òrìṣà. Ikenga-Metuh, “Relig. Concepts in W. African Cosmogonies,” 22. Also, he is supreme in a greater sense than merely being a “high god,” or “sky god” located “in the heavens.” Rather, he is above and apart from the other deities; and it is his pre-existence, peculiar qualities, and authority that set him apart from all other beings. See ibid., 17-18. Also see Parrinder, “Monotheism and Pantheism,” 82, discussing Idowu, Olodumare. 25 Ikenga-Metuh, “Relig. Concepts in W. African Cosmogonies,” 20. 26 In his essay Bewaji describes the various attributes of Olorun (Olodumare) as including creator, most powerful being, all knowing, and impartial judge. He also argues that Olorun is most like the Old Testament Jewish God, Yahweh: he is the source of both good and evil; and he uses good and evil equally to accomplish his ends. Thus, for Bewaji, Olorun exercises control and executes judgment through punishment that is immediate and “evil” (famine, pestilence, earthquake and the hardening of peoples’ hearts), but which is also more effective than the patient, future-oriented recompense attributed to the Christian God who philosophically and theologically cannot be the author or source of evil harm. See J. A. I. Bewaji, “Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief and the Theistic Problem of Evil,” African Studies Quarterly 2 (1998): 7-12.

416 earth to particular òrìṣà.27 The òrìṣà are comprised of over 400,28 generally benevolent, deities or angelic powers29 arranged in groups of similar disposition.30 Their primary task is to wrestle with human nature in order to uplift and purify it.31 They bless people with good things as long as their will is respected and they receive adequate sacrificial acknowledgement.32 Warring against the òrìṣà and humans are more than 200 malevolent forces, or demons, collectively known as the ajogun.33 The ajogun are bent on total human annihilation. They are in a constant battle with òrìṣà and humanity; and humans are inescapably embroiled in this continual spiritual conflict.34 The ajogun include such forces, or personified evils, as iku (death), arun (disease), and ofo (loss).35 All of these misfortunes can be mediated by human agents such as warlocks, wizards, and witches. Besides the ajogun and òrìṣà, two other spirit entities inhabit orun. The first are the ara-orun, or sky-people. They consist of spirit doubles of people living on earth and souls waiting to be reborn. ꜛThe second is the egbe orun, the band of heaven (or the sky). Members of this troublesome group of spirits are sometimes incarnated in àbíkú children and are blamed when a mother bears a series of children who die in infancy. It is thought that rather than each infant being unique, all of the babies were inhabited by a single

27 Ikenga-Metuh, “Relig. Concepts in W. African Cosmogonies,” 20. 28 O. Ojo, “‘Heepa’ (Hail) Òrìṣà,” 34. Following Idowu, Gehman writes that there are 1,700 òrìṣà. See R. J. Gehman, African Traditional Religion in Biblical Perspective, rev. ed. (Kenya: East African Educational Publishers, 2005), 187. 29 Karade, The Handbook, 11. Like Ilesanmi, Barber says that òrìṣà are deified humans who once lived on earth. See K. Barber, “How Man Makes God in West Africa: Yoruba Attitudes Towards the ‘Orisa,’” AJIAI 51 (1981): 729. 30 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 246. 31 Karade, The Handbook, 11. 32 A. Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare: The Public Face of Aladura in Diaspora,” JRA 34 (2004): 503. 33 Karade, The Handbook, 12. 34 Ibid., 12. 35 Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 503.

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àbíkú spirit which, instead of remaining enfleshed in the physical world, abandoned the infant “bodies” and returned to orun when called back by its egbe orun companions.36 The earth, ile, is the domain of the Earth goddess Ile (Onile).37 She is coeval with Olorun and thus pre-exists the other òrìṣà. Three entities are associated with her. The first are vengeful spirits, perhaps best viewed as emanations of her power. These spirits curtail and punish the violations and disagreements among the members of her powerful cult,38 the Ogboni, a closely connected and secret society of political and religious leaders and consecrated priests.39 Second are the Ancestors and other dead who either live in her domain as Earth-dwelling spirits or who pass through it on their way to orun where they live with the òrìṣà and from whence they may be reincarnated. And finally, certain tree and forest spirits, the egbe ogbe, or the company of the forest, are part of Ile’s domain.40 Life lived in the physical world, aiye, where people dwell, is lived best when harmony is maintained in human and spiritual relations. Since the spiritual and physical worlds are viewed as integral parts of a single whole, it is assumed that the interaction between the gods, various spirits, and humans is complex, dynamic, and causal.41 The

36 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 245. Àbíkú literally means “born to die” children. The word consists of three syllables: à - one who is, bí – born, kú – dies. See A. Ọpȩfeyitimi, “Ìwuré: Medium of Communicating the Desires of Men to the Gods in Yorubaland,” JRA 18 (1988): 40n5. The Yoruba have a similar but unrelated belief regarding twins, also based on the notion of the immortality and reincarnation of souls. An ibejis, or twin, statuette represents a newborn twin when it dies. The image is believed to contain the soul of the dead twin, shared by the surviving sibling, and is cared for regularly by the family or the surviving twin. See, F. Leroy et al., “Yoruba Customs and Beliefs Pertaining to Twins,” Twin Research 5 (2002): 132-36. For a fascinating novel on this theme see H. Oyeyemi, The Icarus Girl (Toronto: Penguin Group, 2005). 37 Notice that ile refers both to the Earth goddess, Ile, and to the physical region, ile. 38 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 245. 39 P. Morton-Williams, “The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Òyó,” AJIAI 30 (1960): 364. 40 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 245. 41 See Aguwa, “Christianity and Nigerian Indigenous Culture,” 16-17. For a concise, single paragraph description of the various elements in the Yoruba worldview and their interrelationship, see Barber, “How Man Makes God,” 729.

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òrìṣà, while generally beneficent, are vengeful when affronted.42 The ajogun do not vary; they are inherently and consistently malevolent. And in order to secure blessings, avert ill, and maintain community harmony and balance, it is important that both of these groups, as well as the Ancestors, are properly honoured or appropriately placated. Benefits are solicited through various offerings and the observance of rituals and taboos. Curses are avoided by magical talismans and by appeasing displeased gods or Ancestors. People can also enlist the help of the gods and the Ancestors to bring evil or good on others and to assist in achieving desired goals. Divination performed by a babaláwo, an

Ifá diviner,43 plays an important part in discovering the natural causes and spiritual agents which stand behind everyday physical events or illnesses. The babaláwo prescribes the remedies, sacrifices, and activities needed to restore health or avert disaster.

Yoruba Traditional Worship As people seek benefits from and are blessed by an òrìṣà, they devote themselves to that òrìṣà by joining the òrìṣà’s cult. An òrìṣà may be worshipped because of the blessing received; or because a person has been possessed by an òrìṣà, or called in a dream, or directed through Ifá divination to worship a particular òrìṣà. More than one òrìṣà may be worshipped, but usually a person will be initiated into the cult of only a single òrìṣà.44 Principal deities include Obatala (Orisha-nla), Esu (Eshu, Elegba[ra]),

42 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 246. 43 The word Ifá is used in a variety of ways either to refer to the system of divination itself or as a synonym for Orunmila, the god of wisdom and insight. J. D. Y. Peel, “The Pastor and the ‘Babalawo’: The Interaction of Religions in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland,” AJIAI 60 (1990): 341. Used to describe religious views based on ifá, Ifá reflects a philosophy of life. Divination is “the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers.” See “divination,” accessed 2012-03-31, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/divination. Essentially, divination is religious fortune telling. 44 See Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 248 and 252. For a list of Yoruba gods, see McKenzie, Appendix A in “Yoruba Òrìṣà Cults,” 200-02; and Karade, The Handbook, 29. Ellis lists and describes eight chief gods (see Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 29-57) and twenty-three minor gods (ibid., 58-70). He includes a number of myths and stories with his material.

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Oshun (a fertility goddess), Ogun (god of iron and war), Yemoja (goddess of oceans), Shango (Sango) and Oya (goddess of death and rebirth, and the cohort of Sango).45 Strangely, even though Olorun is the supreme god, since he is perceived as a distant god,46 no cult worships him directly.47 He provides each person with ꜛtheir ori, that is, their distinctive character or fate at their birth.48 But apart from this endowment, contact between humans and the spiritual realm is conducted almost exclusively through the òrìṣà. It is presumed, however, that whenever an òrìṣà devotee presents an offering to the òrìṣà, Olorun receives worship as a result. This notion of a “Supreme God” neglected

45 This list is based on Karade, The Handbook, 24-27. Ellis identifies Yemoja as the Water goddess “Yemaja.” See Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 36ff. 46 Morton-Williams says that Olorun’s relationship to people and the òrìṣà is parallel to that of the Alafin, or King, of Oyo. The Alafin is responsible for everything in the kingdom and although he is secluded and rarely seen, he directs and responds to his subjects using his state officials as intermediaries. Olorun functions similarly, and the òrìṣà are his agents. See Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 245. Idowu uses this same analogy (see ibid., 245n1, referring to Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 48ff), but according to Bewaji, Idowu objected to this portrayal and he wrote Olodumare in order to investigate and refute this perception. See Bewaji, “Olodumare,” 2, quoting Idowu, Olodumare, vii. Ikenga-Metuh too argues that Olorun is not distant. Instead, he contends that because of his position as creator and providence, Olorun is beyond rituals relating to daily life. He is only invoked for temporal concerns when other, lesser deities do not respond or do not yield the desired response. See Ikenga-Metuh, “Relig. Concepts in W. African Cosmogonies,” 22. 47 Ukpong argues that the Supreme Being is worshipped, but infrequently, not because he is distant from the world and people, or because he has chosen to work through intermediaries, but because as a sign of respect for his position he is not to be approached often by people. See J. S. Ukpong, “The Problem of God and Sacrifice in African Traditional Religion,” JRA 14 (1983): 187-203. 48 Ori actually means “head,” but used in the spiritual sense it indicates that part of a person, initially pure in origin and nature and given by god before birth, which selects the person’s destiny and then serves both as a guide to achieving the destiny’s potential and as a guard against forces that would thwart its fulfillment. Ori can, however, be corrupted by a person’s bad character (iwa), evil forces and evil people (omo araye and elenini), bad circumstances, and disobedience. At the time of judgment, when a person gives account of their life before Oludumare, ori acts as a witness to the manner in which a person’s life was lived on earth. See R. O. Ogunade, “The Yoruba Concept of Ori in Relation to Human Destiny,” academic paper, n.d. [post 2004?], n. p., accessed 2012-02-13, http://unilorin.edu.ng/publications/raymond /The Yoruba Concept of Ori in relation to Human Destiny.htm. Also see A. O. Ogunrinade, “Predilection for African Indigenous Practices in the Pentecostal Tradition of African Indigenous Churches with Reference to Christ Apostolic Church Agbala Itura,” Cyberjournal for Pentecostal-Charismatic Research 18 (2009): n.p., section 1.4, “Prayer Methods in CAC Agbala Itura and their Correlation with African; Subsection, Indigenous World View,” accessed 2009-08-12, http://www.pctii.org/cyberj/cyberj18/adewale. html. Typically the Yoruba belief in ori does not lead to a helpless resignation to fate. Instead, it instills a positive, even aggressive, attitude of self-achievement as individuals pursue their destiny. See B. C. Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” JRA 23 (1993): 270-71.

420 by humans as they worshipped other gods was adopted by Christian missionaries in the 1800’s and used to convey the claims of Jehovah, the Father of Jesus, for worship. Thus, Olorun became Jehovah’s new name in Yoruba.49 The òrìṣà bless devotees with material benefits such as health, wealth, and children in accordance with their ori. But it is important to note that they operate within particular roles and in specific areas with regard to the world. Since they exercise control over natural forces such lightning and tornadoes; and activities such as hunting, driving, and the use of iron; and events such as smallpox, the fertility of farms and the forest, and so on, it is understood that their primary concern with humans is in relation to the environment and cosmic forces.50 They can be vengeful when displeased, but they are not particularly concerned with moral lapses. This is the special interest of the Ancestors – the living dead, the host of honoured men and women who continue to be intimately involved in community and personal life even after death.51 Like the òrìṣà, Ancestors do not have unbounded influence. They have jurisdiction over their ancestral group only and

49 Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 32. 50 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 246-47. 51 For a brief but informative description of Ancestors, see S. A. Ige, “The Cult of Ancestors in African Traditional Religion,” An Encyclopaedia of The Arts 10 (2006): 26-31. For the importance of Ancestors as seen among the Akan of southern Ghana, see Pobee, “Aspects of ATR,” 7-11. Kopytoff examines the Suku of southwestern Congo (Kinshasa) and argues that Ancestorship in Africa cannot be viewed using Western categories. He suggests that Ancestors are an extension of the elder system in many African cultures and that it is in the context of this arrangement that Ancestors retain their social standing in community life even though they are dead. See I. Kopytoff, “Ancestors as Elders in Africa,” AJIAI 41 (1971): 129-42. Brain, using material gathered in Uluguru in Eastern Tanzania, argues that Kopytoff is correct in rejecting the idea of “ancestor worship,” but he contends that Ancestors are subject to a “cult” and that they do receive “sacrifice.” Brain also holds that Ancestors differ from elders in that Ancestors know the thoughts as well as the actions of their living descendants. See J. L. Brain, “Ancestors as Elders in Africa. Further Thoughts,” AJIAI 43 (1973): 122-33. For an older study that attempts a quick survey of Ancestors in all of Africa see J. T. Addison, “Ancestor Worship in Africa,” Harvard Theological Review 17 (1924): 155-71. In Christian terms, the Ancestors might equate with “the cloud of witnesses” in Heb. 12. But our “ancestors of the faith” are largely inspirational: they are, for the most part, detached from this world and revered as models of maturity and faith. By contrast, African Ancestors are not “dead and gone.” They are deceased. But they continue to exist in the spiritual realm and they actively involve themselves, for good and for bad, in their families’ lives, providing sanction for the behaviours and misbehaviours of their progeny. See P. Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, 2nd ed. (NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 154-55.

421 their specific concern is to safeguard the good reputation of their own kin by maintaining social order and enforcing community taboos. Thus, it is the Ancestors, and not the òrìṣà, who are affronted by immoral behavior. When properly appeased, Ancestors bless their lineage with children and prosperity.52

Cult Associations Powerful socio-political religious cults are associated with particular deities.53 Devotees of Ile (Onile), the Earth goddess, form the Ogboni, a secret society that worships the spirit of the earth and adjudicates in events which spill blood on the ground. In old Oyo the Ogboni served as mediators between the two main organized groups in government, the Alafin, or king, and the Oyo Mesi, or Council of State. As a result, they actually held the reins of government,54 and even kings had to submit to their decrees.55 As a group, these three, the Alafin, the Oyo Mesi and the Ogboni, also controlled and ensured cult worship of the òrìṣà.56 The Ogboni were disbanded in Oyo in 1948,57 and with the advent of national independence, they and other cult groups were excluded from political administration in modern Nigeria.58 There are other cult associations besides the Ogboni. The masked cult, Egungun, is linked to Ancestor worship, as well as other òrìṣà.59 Egungun masks purportedly bring

52 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 247. 53 For a description of the cults at Oyo, the role which they played in society, and the relationship between them and state organization and sanction, see ibid., 251ff. 54 For a full account of the Ogboni see Morton-Williams, “The Yoruba Ogboni Cult,” 362-74; and also, Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology.” 55 Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 77. 56 See Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 253ff. 57 Morton-Williams, “The Yoruba Ogboni Cult,” 370. 58 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 259. 59 See Morton-Williams, “The Yoruba Ogboni Cult,” 251; Barber, “How Man Makes God,” 729- 30; and Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 89-91.

422 back the spirits of important Ancestors and fetch the gods to town.60 They are considered dangerous and powerful, as well as awesome.61 Sango, the god of thunder and lightning, is both an òrìṣà and a deified royal ancestor. He is honoured by a cult in Oyo and by a royal cult in Koso.62 Two gods provide insight to humans and other òrìṣà and aid in decision making: Ifá (Orunmila), the god of divination, embodies wisdom and understanding, and Esu (Elegba or Elegbara) the trickster god.63 Christian and Muslim missionaries equated Esu with Satan as the author of evil because he is willfully malicious, proud, and clearly associated with bad things.64 The priests of Ifá are highly organized; Esu’s priests, apparently following the disorder of their god, have no identifiable rank. Priests, ꜛor àwòrò,65 mediate requests from devotees and ensure that the òrìṣà are properly honoured.66 Ifá priests are known as babaláwo,ꜛ(274)ꜛ(377) or “father of secrets, or mysteries.”67 They perform the critical function of religious fortune telling, or

60 For more on Egungun festivals, the types of Egungun, and the symbolism represented in ere (the carved wooden Egungun masks) and other Egungun apparel, see N. H. Wolff, “Egungun Costuming in Abeokuta,” African Arts 15 (1982): 66-70+91. 61 See Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 255-56. And also the story of a woman’s encounter with an unmasked Egungun and the retribution exacted on her and her family in Barber, “How Man Makes God,” 739. 62 See Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 252 and 255. See the myth regarding Sango and his deification at Koso in Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 41-43. 63 See Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 248. 64 Bewaji argues that this view of Esu is wrong and misleading. See Bewaji, “Olodumare,” 12-15. 65 Àwòrò are priests of òrìṣà other than Ifá. They might be considered as “fetish priests.” See Peel, “The Pastor and the ‘Babalawo,’” 342. 66 Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 251. For a description of typical òrìṣà worship see Barber, “How Man Makes God,” 730ff. Barber argues that Yoruba òrìṣà worship is similar to supporting a Big Man in Nigeria: the value or status of òrìṣà and their devotees are enlarged depending upon the number, wealth, and attention of followers, and the effectiveness of the òrìṣà to provide guidance, material blessings, and prestige. If no one supports a Big Man any more, he loses his power; if devotees abandon their òrìṣà, it falls into oblivion. See Barber, “How Man Makes God,” esp. 736-39. Sanponna, the òrìṣà of smallpox, is one such god that has lost its power with the eradication of the disease. 67 “Secrets:” Peel, “The Pastor and the ‘Babalawo,’” 344; “Mysteries:” Karade, The Handbook, 7.

423 divination.68 This is the core to Yoruba traditional religion since little is ventured without first inquiring of the òrìṣà, offering the prescribed sacrifice to appease or influence the òrìṣà, and then determining if the sacrifice was effective. Babaláwo receive extensive training and are expected to memorize a voluminous body of divination verses (ese Ifá) contained in the Ifá corpus.69 Each of the sixteen major odu (Oju odu) and 240 minor odu (Omo odu) contain 1,680 ese, or divination verses.70 Their skill and professionalism helped set babaláwo apart from ordinary àwòrò and earned them the greater respect of the early missionaries.71 As hegemonic practitioners, babaláwo seek to unite all òrìṣà traditions under Ifá. Currently babaláwo are prominent in the revival of traditional religious worship in Nigeria.72

68 For a description of Ifá divination see Karade, The Handbook, 11-13 and 81-94; and P. Morton- Williams, W. Bascom, and E. M. McClelland, “Two Studies of Ifa Divination. Introduction: The Mode of Divination,” AJIAI 36 (1966): 406-07 and 421-30. See also Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, 47-53; and Morton-Williams, “An Outline of the Cosmology,” 254-55. 69 The Ifá corpus contains the proverbial wisdom and moral direction of Ifá. As a body of material it is personified in sixteen heavenly prophets, called The Ancients or Elders. They are said to have been disciples of Orunmila (Ifá), and it is believed that they contributed their accumulated wisdom to him for use in advising mankind and other òrìṣà. All sixteen Ancients jointly are called “the odu”; each one individually is known as “an odu,” or because of their seminal stature, as a “Major” or “Principal odu.” Each Principal odu is identified by a unique pattern of eight elements displayed in two parallel rows of four elements drawn in powder sprinkled on an opon, or divining board. The elements are either a “head,” represented by a short single straight line, or a “tail,” indicated by a short double straight line. From the combination of lines and elements that identify the Principal odu, 240 other combinations of rows and elements may be obtained. These are called Omo odu, children of the odu. Each minor odu is associated with its own set of ese, divination verses. See Karade, The Handbook, 11; and Morton-Williams, Bascom, and McClelland, “Two Studies of Ifa Divination,” 406. Upon consultation, the babaláwo, using an opele or divining chain, divines the sign of the odu governing the client’s inquiry, and recites the ese associated with it, prescribing appropriate actions to be taken. The entire system is a form of geomancy, based on mathematical formulations. While Ifá divination is supported by an integrated cosmology, myth, and religious worldview, it is similar to and may have originated from Islamic divination practices that were then diffused into Muslim Africa. See ibid, 406-07. On Ifá geomancy, see: W. R. Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991). 70 Karade, The Handbook, 11. 71 Peel, “The Pastor and the ‘Babalawo,’” 345-46. 72 See Ilésanmí, “The Traditional Theologians,” 223-25.

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The Yoruba Christian Paradigm ꜛ(57)ꜛ(239)The response of the church to the challenge of traditional religion and the African worldview in Nigeria has been varied. Some groups, especially among the AICs, have adopted practices that echo their pre-Christian past. Their customs function as familiar forms that help bridge the gap between the old and the new belief systems.73 Thus, the “convents” of the old temples are mirrored in the sacred places or “gardens” of churches. Old Testament, pagan, or Islamic traditions are reflected in the various taboos concerning drink, pork, snails, menstruating women, and wearing shoes in holy places.

Spirit possession, an ancient practice in òrìṣà worship,74 is paralleled somewhat by the dramatic experiences of Spirit baptism and speaking in tongues. And concerns with health, wealth, fertility, and witchcraft are anxieties which are common to most Nigerians.75 But, for all the similarities, indigenous faith practices differ from the old traditions in that they are expressions of the biblical record. The Scripture, interpreted literally, is the authoritative guide for Nigerian Christians, and those things which are contained in or consistent with the Bible are adopted.76 In many denominations, whether in the older

73 See Ogunrinade, “Predilection.” See also S. A. Fatokun, “Water and Its Cultic Use in African Initiated Churches in Yoruba-Land of South-Western Nigeria: An Issue in African Development Discourse,” Swedish Missiological Themes 96 (2008): 349-76. On the Celestial Church of Christ see R. I. J. Hackett, “Thirty Years of Growth and Change in a West African Independent Church: A Sociological Perspective,” JRA 11 (1980): 212-24. See also Jenkins’ discussion on syncretism versus inculturation, in Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 140-60; and also E. Ilogu, “Independent African Churches in Nigeria,” Intl. Review of Mission 63 (1974): esp. 494. 74 See Barber, “How Man Makes God,” 730ff, esp. 734. Zuesse distinguishes two basic forms of divination in Africa. One, like Ifá, he calls wisdom divination; the other, found in folk religions controlled by local spirits and demigods such as òrìṣà, he categorizes as possession divination. See, further E. M. Zuesse, “Divination and Deity in African Religions,” Hist. of Religions 15 (1975): 158-82. 75 See, E. G. Parrinder, “The Religious Situation in West Africa,” African Affairs 59 (1960): 42. 76 See Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 501-02; and Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 267. Jenkins argues that in recent years churches of the global South have stood resolutely against the liberalizing tendencies of the global north (141). He points up that African independent churches proudly claim authentic Christian status (154). See Jenkins, The Next Christendom. Kalu quotes one Pentecostal pastor as saying, “I believe in the Bible from cover to cover including the

425

AICs or the newer charismatic churches, pastors assume the role of inspired diviner, that is, they act as the mediums through which the word and will of God are conveyed. Yet Christ is emphasized in their teaching, prayer is underscored, and preachers provide pointed spiritual, moral, and personal direction based upon an indigenous interpretation of the Word of God.77 Worship in Nigerian churches may be reminiscent of the ecstatic festivals which honour the òrìṣà,78 but that too is authentically Christian. Given that “[t]he African dances and jigs his faith out in fitful songs and music, in clapping of hands and uproarous (sic) exclamations,”79 the exuberance found in Nigerian Christianity is normal and similar to celebrations found in charismatic services throughout the world. Yoruban Christians share three significant convictions with devotees of traditional religion that reveal the fundamental similarity of their cosmologies, the African-ness of their Christian faith,80 and the critical divergences of their faith positions. The first is the belief in invisible forces, especially malevolent spiritual powers, and the second and third are found in the twin beliefs in the power of prayer and the efficacy of ritual action.81

index.” See O. U. Kalu, “The Third Response: Pentecostalism and the Reconstruction of Christian Experience in Africa, 1970-1995,” Jour. of African Christian Thought 1 (1992): 8. 77 Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 269-70. 78 Pemberton imparts some sense of the vibrancy, complexity, length, and significance of the rituals involved in òrìṣà worship in J. Pemberton III, “A Cluster of Sacred Symbols: Orisa Worship among the Igbomina Yoruba of Ila-Ọrangun,” Hist. of Religions 17 (1977): 1-28. The pictures accompanying Idowu’s article aid in visualizing Yoruba religion. See E. B. Idowu, “The Religion of the Yoruba,” Gangan (1970), n. p. In the pre-Christian period, religious adherence was deeper among Yoruba women than among men and the great bulk of active and regular worshippers were women. See O. Ojo, “‘Heepa’ (Hail) Òrìṣà,” 42-43. For a chilling first hand description by missionary Robert Stone of women enthusiastically celebrating the benefits attributed to human sacrifice in Abeokuta around 1861, see ibid., 43. 79 G. K. Okeke, “Indigenization of Christianity in Africa: A Historical and Theological Examination from the Nigerian Background,” Communio viatorum 21 (1978): 53. 80 This is Ray’s thesis. See Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 289. 81 Ibid., 267ff. Adogame uses Ray’s analysis to describe Aladura in Diaspora. See Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 503.

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Belief in Invisible Forces Regardless of doctrine, both Nigerian Christians and believers in traditional religion see the world as being alive with supernatural forces that either provide blessing and protection or are arrayed against one for ill. The fact that these spiritual forces exist is hardly doubted for they routinely reveal themselves as they influence everyday events;82 and so the notion that life’s blessings and tragedies are spiritually conveyed is readily accepted by both Christians and Traditionalists. For followers of traditional religion, divination, prayers, and offerings are used to explain, predict, and control the circumstances of life.83 For them, religious actions are performative – they do not merely express things, they do things. It is routinely assumed that the ritualized petitions and sacrifices of àwòrò and devotees of òrìṣà literally attract benevolent powers and repel malicious ones.84 Nigerian Christians, too, expect results from their actions and prayers. They assume that if they follow a prescribed code of conduct,85 or a particular procedure in cleansing or scripture reading, that their lives will be blessed and their desires secured.86 Engaging the invisible forces of the spiritual world through proper worship and living is far from perfunctory. It makes a vital difference. But for Yoruba believers, what changed decisively with the advent of the gospel was their understanding of Olorun, the old-world, now Christianised, “Supreme God” of Yoruba tradition. Through Jesus, Nigerian converts enter into a whole new awareness of

82 See Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 505ff, esp. 506. Peel emphasizes that early babaláwo converts in the mid nineteenth century believed that “the Devil was a palpable force in the world, capable of working real wonders.” Peel, “The Pastor and the ‘Babalawo,’” 355; see also 354ff. 83 Horton, “Judaeo-Christian Spectacles,” 413. For further explication, see R. Horton, “African Traditional Thought and Western Science. Part I. From Tradition to Science,” AJIAI 37, no. 1 (Jan. 1967): 50-71; and Horton, “African Traditional Thought and Western Science. Part II. The ‘Closed’ and ‘Open’ Predicaments,” AJIAI 37, no. 2 (Apr. 1967): 155-87. 84 Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 268-69. 85 Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 502-05, see esp. 504. 86 See Fatokun, “Water and Its Cultic Use”; and Ogunrinade, “Predilection.”

427 what Olorun is like and the grounds upon which petitions can properly be made to Him. Importantly for Nigerian Christians, the content of their prayers has not changed. But their confidence in asking Olorun directly for blessings has altered significantly. For now Olorun is not only supreme, He is benevolent and close as well.87 Previously, there had been a pantheon of òrìṣà to please and adjure. Now in Christianity, it is the Supreme God, Olorun, with His host of angels, who actively wields authority over every other spiritual power. Formerly, spiritual and temporal wisdom resided in Ifá and his priests, the babaláwo. Now wisdom and insight are seen as actually existing in Olorun’s Son,

Jesus Christ, and they are readily available through charismatic prophets, pastors, and apostles who dream dreams, see visions, and have revelatory trances. True worship, still heavily ritualized, contains symbols which are now even more pregnant with meaning and even more effective in realizing results. The finished work of Jesus on the cross has become the foundation of all requests and Christ’s unlimited provision for temporal and eternal care is forcefully understood.88 Crowning all of this is the belief that the essential key in the relentless warfare against lesser gods, evil spirits, witches, and warlocks is agbara emi mimo, the power of the Holy Spirit. In Nigeria today the Holy Spirit continues to be the ultimate spiritual resource for believers – an all-powerful advocate and the agent of every divine healing and act of deliverance.89 Since petition and power, as experienced in prayer and healing, clearly elaborate the similarities and differences between the traditional worldview and the spiritual perspective of Nigerian Christians, these two disciplines will be examined more closely. As exercises common to both religions, they may be considered to be at the confusing

87 Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 504. 88 See S. B. Mala, “The Christ Apostolic Church – its History, Beliefs and Organization,” Ecumenical Review 28 (1976): 420, on the doctrines and beliefs of the CAC; note esp. 421 under, “Divine or Christian Healing.” 89 Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 504.

428 interface of faith, practice, and cultural spiritual perspective. For that reason, they also give a further opportunity to understand the challenges that confront Yoruban Christians as they respond to culture from within their indigenous context.

Prayer (Ìwuré) In both traditional religion and Yoruba Christianity, prayer is a primary means90 whereby the forces of good are summoned to control evil and to secure ire, the “good things in life.”91 For Nigerians, ire consists, principally, of three things: money (wówó), children (wómo), and everlasting life (àtúbòṭán ayé). But, it needs to be noted, àtúbòṭán ayé is not to be understood in terms of “living forever.” It is much more concrete and temporal and includes long life, good health, peace, and a good end to one’s life.92 While indigenous belief reckons that ultimately all ire comes from Oludumare, the “good things in life” reside with the òrìṣà and are dispensed to people in response to prayer, ìwúre,93 as mediated by àwòrò.94 Ìwúre, to be effective, must be empowered by a spiritual force called àsę,ꜛ the authority or power of command. In the beginning, àsę originated with Olodumare. But after He created the heavens and the earth by the power of his àsę, he made it available to òrìṣà, who in turn make it available to priests and kings for ruling.95 Thus, for traditional believers, when an àwòrò prays, the prayer is considered to be effective through the use of the original àsę, imparted by the òrìṣà. The àsę calls

90 In traditional religion the other means of marshaling favour and mobilizing the òrìṣà on one’s behalf is sacrifice. Of the two principal forms of ritual communication, prayer is the verbal and sacrifice is the non-verbal means of contact between man and the gods. See Ọpȩfeyitimi, “Ìwuré,” 27. 91 Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 270. 92 Ọpȩfeyitimi, “Ìwuré,” 27-28. 93 Ìwúre is “the totality of the Yoruba traditional prayer par excellence.” Ibid., 27. Note: There appears to be no difference in the meaning of Ìwúre and ìwuré, despite the difference in phonetic emphasis. 94 Ibid., 28. 95 See Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 279; and Ọpȩfeyitimi, “Ìwuré,” 29.

429 down the òrìṣà to be present at the rite;96 and the priest’s invocations are made all the more effective when the òrìṣà is “fed” its favourite food in ẹbọ, sacrifice,97 and/or when sacred songs containing oríkì, or ꜛpraise names, are sung extolling the attributes of the òrìṣà.98 These accolades are intended to please the òrìṣà and obtain the requested blessings from it. It is thought that oríkì establish a personal relationship and emotive connection with the òrìṣà and it is this combination of intimacy and positive emotion that incites òrìṣà to act.99 Also, it is through the combined media of àsę, ẹbọ, oríkì, and ìwúre – the spoken word of command, sacrifice, tribute praise, and performative prayer – that followers of the òrìṣà successfully call on the gods to do things in the world. Important parallels with this indigenous perspective of prayer have proved useful for Christianity in Nigeria. In the beginning, the logos of God, both in Jesus100 and at creation, spoke into the darkness and created.101 Since then Jesus, as the creator and sustainer of all things,102 continues to speak with power into the lives of believers.103 They in turn use His name104 and voice105 both to speak to God the Father in prayer106

96 Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 279. 97 Ọpȩfeyitimi, “Ìwuré,” 30. For more on Yoruba sacrifice see A. G. Olusola, “Animals in the Traditional Worldview of the Yorùbá,” Folklore 30 (2005), 155-72; J. O. Awolalu, “Yoruba Sacrificial Practice,” JRA 5 (1973): 81-93; and E. D. Adelowo, “Rituals, Symbolism and Symbols in Yoruba Traditional Religious Thought,” AJT 4 (1990): 166ff. For the foods favoured by òrìṣà see Pemberton’s description of òrìṣà worship in Pemberton III, “A Cluster of Sacred Symbols,” 8ff; and Olusola, “Animals in the Traditional Worldview,” 167. 98 See Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 280-81; Ọpȩfeyitimi, “Ìwuré,” 35-36. 99 Ray, “Aladura Christianity: A Yoruba Religion,” 280-81. 100 John 1:1 101 Genesis 1:1-2:3; Hebrews 11:3 102 John 1:2; Col. 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:2-3 103 John 10:27. For example, see Jesus’ authoritative statements in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:20, 22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44) and the conclusion drawn by the audience in Matt. 7:28-29. 104 John 14:12-14; John 16:26 105 Luke 10:16 106 John 14:13-14; Acts 4:23-31

430 and to perform miracles,107 effect healing,108 and instruct others.109 The application of oríkì to Yahweh,110 while not wholly intended to induce Him to respond to the faithful, surely must be a source of pleasure to Him as petitioners express their worship and their faith.111 This, together with a belief in the dynamic presence of God to hear and answer prayers, captures the present reality and essence of the Nigerian Christian’s spiritual life. At the beginning of the twentieth century it provided the foundation for the Aladura prayer movement. Today it sustains the sincere belief and pregnant expectation of Nigerian Christians that when they earnestly and properly petition God in their prayers,

He will respond and undeniably supernatural results will occur.

Healing With regard to healing, Africans generally believe that sickness is caused by physical and spiritual factors and that before healing can truly take place both of these etiologies must be adequately addressed.112 Nigerians, like other people, understand that some maladies are caused by physical circumstances such as a tragic fall or an infection.113 But beyond this, and especially with intractable or inexplicable illnesses, factors such as witchcraft, sorcery, demonic oppression or possession, or sin are seen as either causing or complicating ill health. In some instances, sickness may also be

107 Acts 5:12; Acts 19:11-12 108 John 9:1-6; Acts 3:1-10; Acts 5:15-16 109 Acts 9:28 110 See Psalms 111, 113, and 144:1-8 111 Heb. 11:6. Our belief in the existence of a benevolent God who responds to our petitions is a necessary and prior condition of our pleasing God and having an intimate relationship with Him. 112 See D. I. Ayegboyin, “‘Heal the Sick and Cast Out Demons’: The Response of the Aladura,” Studies in World Christianity 10 (2004): 235; and U. Etuk, “The Theo. of Contextualization,” 216-17. 113 Ibid.

431 interpreted as a trial of faith given by God, or as a means whereby God is glorified.114 Consequently, in an attempt to explain, predict, and control calamities, spiritually based causative questions are posed: who is causing this sickness, what is the real reason for barrenness, or why did this accident occur in the first place? In a world where there is no demarcation between the secular and the sacred, and where the physical and spiritual realms intersect dynamically, discovering fundamental, spiritually-based causes is critical. Medicine, when it is available and if it is used, treats the body, but when a witch is believed to be involved, traditionalists consult a diviner and Christians invoke the power of the Holy Spirit or call in angelic powers. In the case of a broken taboo or a deliberate sin, confession and repentance are urgently advised.115 The church in Nigeria takes these issues seriously in order to do ministry effectively in its context.116 Not to do so is to risk being viewed as irrelevant. For churches in Nigeria who approach illness and causation from an African perspective, there are clear benefits. Divine healing is a powerful evangelistic tool.117 Enthusiastic testimonials provide publicity for churches that contextualize the gospel and

114 Nigerians accept that there are four different categories of illnesses, each based on its cause or origin: “Naturalistic” illnesses are caused by such things as poor sanitation, injury or infection; “abnormal” illnesses, like diabetes or tumors, have natural causes but may also be attributed to witchcraft, sorcery or demons; “inexplicable” illnesses, such as psychosomatic sickness, are typically considered as examples of demonic oppression or possession; and “divinely instituted” illness, or illness that comes from God and which may be the result of sin, given as a trial, or be used for God’s glory. Each of these four classes of illness has a different treatment regime in Aladura churches in accordance with their physical or spiritual causes. See Ayegboyin’s essay, “‘Heal the Sick;’” and also Adogame, “Engaging the Rhetoric of Spiritual Warfare,” 504-05 and M. O. Odelami, “A Biblical-Theological Analysis of the Practice of Divine Healing in St. Paul’s Apostolic Church of Nigeria,” (master’s thesis, Acadia Divinity College, 1984), esp. 112ff. 115 See Ayegboyin, “‘Heal the Sick,’” 241. 116 Jenkins says that “Today, rising African churches stand or fall by their success in healing, and elaborate rituals have formed around healing practices. … Healing is the key element that has allowed Christianity to compete so successfully with its rivals outside the Christian tradition … To some extent, the churches are forced to share the same intellectual universe as their competitors.” Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 146. See also Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 111-13. 117 Ibid., 104.

432 promote God’s power to heal.118 Given the current state of healthcare in Nigeria and the dependence on traditional remedies for illnesses, divine healing allows the church to deliver healthcare to a needy population at little or no cost, while at the same time addressing the root concerns of many Nigerians regarding ill health.119 Unlike traditional religion that attributes evil to human agency and leads people to suspect their neighbours of being witches or bearers of ill-will, Christianity emphasizes that Satan is the cause of evil. The focus is on demons and other spiritual forces rather than on people.120 While some of the older denominations such as the CAC and UNIGAC continue to advocate divine healing only, eschewing the use of medicines,121 it seems that in the future they may need to integrate rather than isolate these two healthcare resources.122 The newer charismatic Pentecostal denominations in Nigeria have already done so. They conduct healing services and offer medical seminars and clinics as part of their ministries.123

118 M. A. Ojo, “The Contextual Significance of the Charismatic Movements in Independent Nigeria,” AJIAI 58 (1988): 185-86. 119 Ojo, “The Contextual Significance,” 185-86. 120 Ibid., 186. This is not always the case, however. Many prophets of the AICs and other prophetic churches have torn families apart by falsely accusing family members of being witches. See, C. N. Omenyo, “Man of God Prophesy unto Me: The Prophetic Phenomenon in African Christianity,” Studies in World Christianity 17 (2011): 36 and 46. In a study of witchcraft among African Christians in the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria (LCCN), an Orthodox mission-based church in Adamawa State in northeastern Nigeria, it was found that Christian beliefs of evil had been modified in accordance with traditional worldviews. A large majority of Lutheran Christians (89.9%) persisted to believe in witches, and of these, the majority believed that witches could harm them (91.8). The focus continued to be on witches who were evil rather than on universal, inherent, personal evil resulting from the Fall as recorded in Genesis 3. See T. M. V. Berg, “Culture, Christianity, and Witchcraft in a West African Context,” in The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World, eds. L. Sanneh and J. A. Carpenter (NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), 45-62. 121 The CAC is against using western or traditional herbal medicines in healing. They emphasize prayer and water and emphatically advocate iwosan lai lo ogun (healing without the use of medications). See Ayegboyin, “‘Heal the Sick,’” 237 and 243; and Mala, “The CAC,” 420-21. UNIGAC, the denomination that Odelami leads, also encourages its members to practice divine healing and to refrain from medicine and magical means for healing. See Odelami, “An Analysis of Divine Healing,” 113-14. 122 Ayegboyin, “‘Heal the Sick,’” 243. 123 Ibid., 246.

433

Threats to Christian Faith and Practice Traditional religion continues to pose a significant threat to established Christian beliefs and practice, surprisingly, as a result of the emphasis on contextualizing Christianity. In 1985 Etuk noted that with the Africanization of Christianity – in concert with the quest for national unity, the African reaction against everything colonial, and the clash between capitalist and socialist ideals – there has been a revival in interest in traditional culture and as a consequence, a serious confusion in Christian religious thought and praxis. Traditionalists have been revitalized and some Christians are advocating that conventional Christian positions on social and domestic issues such as polygamy be moderated.124 Thus, in the mid-1980s, it was felt that traditional religion was not only not about to die, it was regaining ground “with a vengeance.”125 Twenty years later that premonition appears not to be correct at least in terms of official religious affiliation. Indigenous religion accounts for only 1.4 percent of the population, or 2.17 million people in Nigeria. However, almost three times as many people, 8% of Nigerians, hold traditional religious beliefs and participate in traditional religious practices. Deeply committed Christians and Muslims avow the tenets of their faith and also believe in the protective power of certain spiritual people, the power of juju and other sacred objects, the evil eye, witchcraft, evil spirits, the safeguarding effect of sacrificial offerings to Ancestors, and reincarnation. Further, they visit traditional healers, own sacred objects, participate in ceremonies to honor Ancestors, and take part in traditional puberty rituals.126 What is remarkable is that Nigeria is one of the lowest scoring countries in sub-

124 Etuk, “The Theo. of Contextualization,” 217. 125 Ibid. 126 See “Traditional African Religious Beliefs and Practices,” in Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed., T. Miller, A Project of the Pew Research Center in collaboration with Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2010): 34-35. Nineteen countries situated below the Sahara were surveyed for this study. See ibid., v.

434

Saharan Africa for traditional beliefs and practices. The only other country that scores lower is Christian Rwanda127 at 3%. Tanzania, a country that like Nigeria is almost evenly split between Muslims and Christians,128 scores the highest at 62%. Given that 13% of the people converted and attending Pentecostal churches in Nigeria come from religions outside of Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, or AIC churches129 it would seem that Christian evangelism is reaching adherents from ATR. But the fact remains that the indigenous mindset permeates the church in Nigeria. And while very few people in sub- Saharan Africa identify themselves primarily as followers of a traditional African religion, people in a number of African countries admit that they have relatives who still adhere to traditional faiths. 130 Exactly how far churches can stray from Christian theology and practice can be seen in two essays by Ayegboyin, regarding two different African Christian groups. In the first article he lauds the Aladura churches for their healing response to illness in Nigeria. But then he notes: “Some charlatans are known to run faith homes as private business ventures. Their ‘pastoria’ serve as the supermarket where candles, holy oil,

‘mantles’ vestments (Soutane), incense, perfumes, salt etc. are sold. In most cases such charlatans are known to dabble in sorcery, magic and cultic practices.”131 In his second paper, Ayegboyin is sharply critical of the prosperity gospel of the new Pentecostal groups that emerged in Nigeria in the 1980s. He calls for a rethinking of their theology,

127 Rwanda is 95% Christian. See Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension, 19. 128 Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension, 17. 129 R. Ruby, sr. ed., Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals, A Project of the Pew Research Center in collaboration with Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2007): 34. 130 Miller, ed., Tolerance and Tension, 4. 131 Ayegboyin, “‘Heal the Sick,’” 245. See also C. O. Ogunkunle, “Commercialization of Religion in Nigeria: The Christian Perspective,” in Issues in the Practice of Religion in Nigeria, ed. M. T. Yahya (Ilorin: Decency Printers, 2006), 302-03. Ogunkunle suggests that the commercialization of religion in Nigeria is a function of poverty both in the society and among pastors.

435

“if it is still worth being called a Christian theology.”132 According to Ayegboyin, prosperity preachers in their pursuit of power, prestige, and popularity have compromised the fundamental ethos of the gospel and their integrity as well. They seek blessings that are denied to the poor, use foreign and unchristian philosophical and theological argument to support their preaching, and situate themselves too close to political and economic power to be either objective or critical.133 The confusion of traditional religious beliefs and contemporary Christian practices is subtle. Etuk relates the following incident at a Christian funeral.

Recently, a minister of the Lutheran Church of Nigeria was suspended indefinitely for certain utterances and practices which were considered inconsistent with Lutheran (Biblical) doctrine and practice. … [The] minister, while officiating at the funeral of a little boy, had invited the dead boy's father to fetch a handful of sand to be placed in the coffin beside the dead body. The minister then instructed the dead boy not to return to his parents until he shall have completed counting the grains of sand given to him. Since that much sand in the Ibibio conceptual scheme represents an uncountable quantity, the dead boy would never return. It should be clarified at this juncture that this is a common belief among the Ibibios of Nigeria and most likely is rampant in other parts of Africa as well. The belief is that there is a spirit world where infants exist in preincarnate state, and that some of these infants for one reason or another decide to play pranks on human couples by incarnating and returning to the spirit world repeatedly unless something is done either to keep them here permanently or stop them from coming back. [These are known as àbíkú children in Yorubaland.]134 To return to the minister, the already distressed father of the dead boy is reported to have told the minister, to the consternation of everyone present, that his son had gone to be with Jesus who had been his companion from the day of his Baptism, and that he did not believe in putting sand in the coffin nor in the possibility of the child coming back.135

132 See D. I. Ayegboyin, “A Rethinking of Prosperity Teaching in the New Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria,” Black Theo.: 4 (2006): 84. This is an excellent essay that is soundly based and passionately concerned. 133 See Ayegboyin’s eight-point critique of prosperity teaching and his candid conclusions, in Ayegboyin, “A Rethinking of Prosperity Teaching,” 80-85. 134 See Ọpȩfeyitimi, “Ìwuré,” 40n5; and → on page 417. 135 Etuk, “The Theo. of Contextualization,” 215.

436

The traditional role of the prophet can also be abused. Many prophets of the AICs and other prophetic churches have torn families apart by falsely accusing family members of being witches.136 In the neo-Pentecostal movements of the 1980s increasingly key African national leaders consulted church prophets; and some of these prophets, in addition to providing healing and determining the causal agents behind personal dilemmas, were predicting, among other things, the scores of football matches, the death of Michael Jackson, and the outcomes of national elections.137 According to Etuk and others, the church needs to do better; and Okeke, in 1977, called for the African Church to stand up especially for the poor.138 There are other needs, too, particularly among the AIC churches for better education and organizational structure,139 and a greater effort toward inclusion in the wider body of churches.140 Significant changes have taken place over the decades, and certainly some advances have been made. But as with most things, more and better things can be done. This is an area in which theological colleges like CINDICO and UNIDICO can make a valuable contribution. With proper and insightful teaching, these institutions can – as Abiara visioned to MacRae in 1994 – contribute to the growth and expansion of

136 See Omenyo, “Man of God Prophesy unto Me,” 36 and 46. 137 See ibid., 44-46. 138 Okeke, “Indigenization of Christianity in Africa,” 55ff. 139 Ilogu, “Independent African Churches in Nigeria,” 494. Ilogu raises other serious concerns and offers constructive counsel. See especially, 495-97. 140 S. B. Mala, “African Instituted Churches in Nigeria: The Quest for Unity, Education and Identity,” in Ministry in Partnership with African Independent Churches, ed. D. A. Shank, papers presented at the Conference on Ministry Partnership with African Independent Churches, 1989-07, Kinshasa, Zaire (Elkhart, IN: Mennonite Board of Missions, 1991), 34-36. As a bit of an aside, but still relevant and interesting to the issue of AIC church identity, Gifford roughly compares, on a scale from one to ten, the Catholic, the new Pentecostal and the AIC churches in Accra, Ghana. He uses the number and types of cars in the church parking lot and dress and headgear of the women as indicators of social standing. He awards the Catholics the highest number, ten, and after ordering five new Pentecostal churches – the last one ending at a “5” – he makes the startling assessment: “… and the prophetic churches rate a mere 1.” P. Gifford, “A View of Ghana's new Christianity,” in The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World, eds. L. Sanneh and J. A. Carpenter (NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), 84.

437 the church in Africa. But just as important, as Abiara also saw and prophesied to MacRae, regarding the graduates of CINDICO,

Their theological training will as well pave way (sic) for the expected systematic and contextualized theology. It is apparent that there is a revival going on in Africa, but thank God, our spiritual experience could now be more deeply rooted in a strong biblical theology because of the training and exposure you [Dr. MacRae] had accorded our students.141 The encouraging thing about visions is that from time to time they may fade, but they never really die. Cast nearly two decades ago, Abiara’s view of a vibrant indigenously rooted and theologically healthy African church is no less desirable, and no less doable, now than it was in 1994.

141 Abiara to MacRae, 1994-05-26.

438

Appendix F: CINDICO’s 1989 Self-Study

439

440

441

442

443

444

445

446

447

448

449

Supporting Documents

450

451

452

453

454

455

Appendix G: MacRae’s 1990 Report to AU Senate

Preamble

456

457

458

MacRae’s 1990 Report

459

460

461

462

463

464

465

466

467

468

469

Addendum: ADC Faculty Recommendations

470

471

Appendix H: UNIDICO’s 1993 Self-Study

472

473

474

475

476

477

478

479

480

481

482

483

Appendix I: MacRae’s 1993 Report to AU Senate

484

485

486

487

488

489

Appendix J: 1994 Senate ad hoc Committee on External Affiliation Report

490

491

492

493

Appendix K: McDonald’s 2006 Letter of Probation

June 19, 2006 Dr. Michael Odelami Universal Gospel Divinity College, P.O. Box 444 Ile-Ife Osun State, Nigeria

Dear Dr. Odelami:

I trust that your time with us this year has been profitable to you and, as you make preparations to return to Nigeria, that you will have a safe trip home and a good year in your leadership of the academic programs of the CINDICO and UNIDICO Colleges. I am writing a revised letter of the correspondence that I had with you May 3 of this year and have made the changes that you requested. The basic contents of the letter, however, are the same and we are requesting that some important information outlined below be forwarded to us no later than October 1 of this year.

Because we have not been able to secure adequate information in a timely fashion from the two colleges in Nigeria for some nine years now, yesterday afternoon [2 May 2006] our ADC Senate voted to place both schools on a probationary status until that information is received. The specific Senate decision is as follows:

“That the agreement [of Acadia University] with the schools in Nigeria be given immediate probationary status until the conditions of the agreement with both colleges have been met and until Board documentation in line with the original agreement has been received by October 1, 2006.

If documentation has not been received by October 1, 2006, then it is recommended that at the next ADC Senate meeting, this agreement with both colleges be terminated.” Motion carried. What this means is that because we have not been able to receive the transcripts in time for consideration by our Faculty and Senate before recommending them to the University Senate, we will not be able to process these transcripts and supply the Acadia University degrees in time for our May 14 Convocation. Also, since the earliest that we can process them now is in time for our Fall Convocation in October, it is important that we also have the accompanying materials that address the concerns that I have listed below and that we have assurance that compliance with these concerns is in place here by October 1 of this year. Because of the new probationary status that now exists between the CINDICO and UNIDICO colleges and Acadia University

494 through Acadia Divinity College, we will not be able to process further transcripts for graduation or convocation before receiving the information and assurances that I will list below. Thank you for your understanding in this matter and be assured that we want to continue to cooperate with you and the two Nigerian colleges in the accrediting and awarding of degrees from Acadia University, but we need to have the evidence of compliance with the agreements between our schools. The list of concerns that need to be addressed by October 1 of this year include the following: a) That the ADC Senate receives through the Academic Dean of the Acadia Divinity College, annual reports from both Nigerian colleges (CINDICO and UNIDICO), including annual transcripts and recommendations of students ready to graduate, by no later than April 15 each year to facilitate the process of graduation and to allow adequate time for an examination of these materials by the ADC Senate to enable students to graduate and give the ADC Senate adequate time to assess the materials sent to it on behalf of the colleges in Nigeria. b) That the ADC Senate receives evidence that the Boards of both institutions are meeting regularly and participating in the oversight of both colleges. c) That both institutions reaffirm Dr. Michael Odelami’s leadership responsibilities for the academic work of both colleges and that this affirmation be conveyed to the ADC Senate through the Academic Dean of Acadia Divinity College. d) That Dr. Odelami, or his designate(s) who are approved by each institution (UNIDICO and CINDICO), submits proposals to ADC for any changes in their respective academic programs for approval by the ADC Senate and the Acadia University Senate, before those changes are implemented. e) That both colleges clarify their financial operations indicating how they are managed responsibly, and that an annual financial audit is carried out that is forwarded to Acadia Divinity College. This audit has in mind the concern of protecting each institution from unnecessary concern about its financial management and the concern to protect the salary and benefits of the faculty and staff of both Colleges so that these individuals are compensated regularly and equitably. It is essential that Dr. Odelami, or his designates who are approved by the Boards of the Nigerian colleges, is/are prepared to insure that Acadia Divinity College receive updates on the budgets of the two Colleges and on their financial situation. f) That both colleges insure that communication is possible between UNIDICO and CINDICO and Acadia Divinity College. This means that adequate means of email, telephone, and fax machines are in place so that communication is no longer impeded. We also need to have the addresses of both schools along with the names of those in charge of the leadership of each institution, specifically, the chair of the Board of Governors for each school as well as the names of the presidents, academic deans, and other officers of each school. g) That a list of the names of the faculty members of both Colleges and their educational background be sent to ADC and updated annually.

495

It is essential that this information be sent to us by courier no later than October 1 of this year and that annual reports be given no later than April 15 of each year thereafter accompanied by the transcripts of those students who will be granted Acadia University degrees. Essentially, we are asking that we have full compliance with the original terms of agreement with both colleges worked out by Dr. Andrew MacRae and the then President of Acadia University, Dr. James Perkin. I am aware that a recommendation has been made that your students be charged $250 during their three years of studies at the Nigerian colleges with ADC monitoring these funds for the purpose of maintaining the triennial reviews of our relations with the CINDICO and UNIDICO colleges and paying for the expenses related to those reviews. We, however, do not think that it is best for ADC to oversee such funds since you should have persons who can monitor these in Nigeria. If you choose to request such funds from your students, it is preferable that the individual colleges both receive and manage such these funds themselves with the approval of your respective Boards of Trustees. I want to thank you for conveying these concerns to the appropriate representatives of the two colleges in Nigeria and I look forward to our cooperation with you and the Colleges in the very important ministry of preparing men and women for Christian service in Nigeria and around the world. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

In Christ’s service,

Lee M. McDonald, President

Cc: Dr. Andrew MacRae Dr. S. K. Abiara

496

Appendix L: Selected Photographs

Dr. S. K. Dr. Andrew MacRae Abiara 1990

Dr. S. K. Abiara 1990

Dr. Imevbore and Dr. Glenn Wooden 2012 497

“The Four” at ADC (with Moses Adekola)

498

CINDICO 2008

Classrooms

Administration Building and Classrooms

Library Dormitories Dormitories

Classrooms Classrooms

499

UNIDICO 2008

Odelami’s House & Office

Well Housing

Housing

Classrooms Water Closet

500

CINDICO Graduation 2012

Pastor Akinpelu

Provost Dr. Olunlade

501

UNIDICO Graduation 2012

Michael Odelami

Naomi Odelami

502

CINDICO Leadership

Dr. Imevbore 2012 Dr. Abiara (in white) 2008 Governing Council, Chair with Dr. Odelami

CINDICO Graduation 2008 Dr. Michael Odelami speaking in red, Dr. Glenn Wooden in blue and Dr. S. K. Abiara in gold

503

UNIDICO Leadership

June 2008 Governing Council with Dr. Wooden

June 2008 Graduating Class Dr. Wooden (in blue) in the center

504

Nigeria

Ibadan from the Hotel

505

CAC Agbala Itura Church, Ibadan

506

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