Urhobo Historical Society
History of Christianity In Nigeria
THE URHOBO, THE ISOKO, AND THE ITSEKIRI
By Samuel U. Erivwo, Ph.D.
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CHAPTER TWO
SECOND ATTEMPT:
PROTESTANT ABOLISTIONISTS
TILL 1914
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© Samuel U. Erivwo, 1979
Reproduced in Urhobo Waado By Permission of
Professor
Samuel Erivwo
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After the failure of the
first attempt to plant Christianity in Nigeria [in the sixteenth and
seventh
centuries], a failure, which, as we have already pointed out, was
largely due
to its connection with the [Portuguese] slave trade, it was significant
and
fitting that the second attempt which finally succeeded should be a
concomitant
of the abolitionist movement. Since by the end of the eighteenth
century when
the abolitionist movement started, Western Christianity was already a
divided
Christianity, divided into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Since
Protestant countries, notably Britain,
initiated and championed the campaign to end the slave trade, it was
Protestant
Christianity which led the way when the Faith was reintroduced to the
Itsekiri
and their neighbours, the Urhobo.
During
one of three expeditions -- in 1841, 1854, and 1857 -- Samuel Ajayi
Crowther
sought to introduce the Christian faith to Okwagbe people who belong to
the
Urhobo ethnic group. He made an attempt to live on the Western bank of
the
River Niger. We are told in Christian oral tradition of the Urhobo that
the
Okwagbe people rejected Crowther and his message which he claimed to
have
brought from God. The Okwagbe
could not conceive how a man could claim to
bring good news from Oghene (Urhobo
word for God), who is often identified with the sky. They were more
interested
in trade than in that type of good news which seemed to them a fairy
tale.
The
Crowther Crisis
As
a sequel to the creation of the Niger Coast Protectorate in 1891
Captain
Harper, appointed Acting Vice Consul for Warri District, requested the
Church
Missionary. Society (C. M. S.) to send a missionary to Warri District.
This
request, which came before the parent committee of the C.M.S. in Salisbury Square
[United Kingdom]
in 1893, was not favourably considered. The reason for this adverse
outcome is
not far to seek. Bishop Ajayi Crowther died in 31st December
1891.Before his
death, he had been politely discredited by C.M.S. authorities through
the
Maidera Commission of Inquiry set up by the C.M.S. to investigate
certain
complaints received from the mission field, including complaints from
the Niger
mission
under Bishop Crowther. It was found out that Bishop Crowther’s
treatment of two
junior workers of the C.MS. from the Niger Delta who were accused of
misconduct, charged to court in Sierra Leone and found
guilty by the British
Administration, was not severe enough. The whole question was
exaggerated by
some C.M.S. puritans from Cambridge,
whose report on the incident was unfavourable to Crowther. The whole
affair
became a C.M.S. scandal. The matter even went to the British Parliament
where
attempts were made to discredit the work of the C.M.S. overseas.
Following this
whole episode now known to historians as the Crowther crisis, the
C.M.S. which
previously adopted Henry Venn’s policy of the native church changed its
practice and began to send white missionaries to the mission field,
including
the Niger Mission which had hitherto been worked exclusively by
Africans.
What is more, in appointing a successor to Bishop Crowther, the C.M.S.
authorities decided not to appoint an African. For Crowther’s
episcopate,
regarded as an experiment, was now deemed by the C.M.S. to be a failure.
In
reaction to this stand of the C.M.S. the Niger Delta
Pastorate Church
declared its independence of the C.M.S. on 29th April 1892. This breach
with
the C. M.S. lasted many years. For, although attempts were made to
reach a
settlement, it was not until after the death of James Johnson that the Niger Delta Pastorate
Church
reverted fully to the C.M.S. In 1893 when Captain Harper’s request was
placed
before the C.M.S. Home Committee, the breach was not only still on, but
was in
fact still fresh. Since geographically Warri District fell within the
Niger
Delta Pastorate territory the C.M.S. was not in a mood to, and did not,
consider the request favourably.
The Diocese of
West Equatorial Africa
Herbert
Tugwell was appointed bishop after the ephemeral episcopacy of Mr.
Hill,
Crowther’s successor. His Diocese, the Diocese of West Equatorial
Africa,
covered the whole of the West Coast.
On
touring the Western Delta in 1894 Bishop Tugwell saw the need for a
missionary
at Warri to minister to European merchants there. The Africans in their
employment might be allowed to eat of the crumbs that fell from their
table!
Consequently Tugwell put the plea of the European merchants at Warri
for a
missionary before Salisbury
Square
in 1898, but to little purpose. It was not without difficulty that
C.M.S.
authorities permitted Rev. Henry Proctor, a C.M.S. missionary stationed
at
Patani, to pay occasional visits to Warri. Indeed it was expressly
stated by
the C.M.S. that Bishop Tugwell was to relieve Proctor of this extra
duty “which
does not properly belong to him as a missionary of the Society”.
A
man of lesser mettle could have been daunted by the attitude of the
C.M.S.
Parent Committee; but not Bishop Tugwell. He took up the matter with
the Parent
Committee again in 1899, this time arguing that should the C.M.S. not
take the
advantage of British conquest of the Benin
empire in 1897 to open mission stations in Benin
and the neighbouring country
there was the possibility of the local people lapsing into a worse form
of
idolatry and “paganism.” Despite Tugwell’s eloquent and persistent
demand, the
C.M.S. refused to be drawn into the Benin-Warri mission field which
they
contended should be the responsibility of the Niger Delta Pastorate.
Thus, it
came about that Benin
and
Warri, the first places in Nigeria
to have contact with European Missionaries, were among the last areas
to be
evangelised in Nigeria.
Not until the early ears of the twentieth century was the
Benin-Sapele-Warri
area eventually evangelised.
Bishop
James Johnson’s Era
In July 1901 James
Johnson,
after his consecration as an assistant bishop the previous year,
visited Warri,
Sapele and Benin.
In the first two places the bishop reported that he met worshipping
communities
which he then undertook to organise. Thereafter he paid yearly
episcopal visits
to this region until 1917 when he died.
“Native Foreigners”
In
the early years, the young congregations both at Sapele and Warri faced
a
number of difficulties. There was no resident catechist, let alone
priest, who
could minister to the congregations regularly. The first members of the
congregations were “native foreigners”, that is, Africans who were not
Delta
people. They were neither Itsekiri nor Urhobo who could be attracted to
the
congregations. The Saro and Yoruba who constituted the first
congregations were
people either in the employment of the Government or of mercantile
houses.
It
would appear also, at least at Sapele according to the witness of E. M.
Howel,
that the congregation was initially a mixed one, being made p of people
who had
elsewhere embraced Christianity through different denominations --
Anglican,
Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and so on -- before they came to
Sapele either
on transfer or to trade. Be this as it may, it was Bishop Johnson of
the Anglican
Church who first visited these Christians and first organised them into
a
proper worshipping community. Thus the difficulty of welding a mixed
group
together was also there, a problem which perhaps partly accounts for
the split
at Sapele later on.
Because
of difficulty of staffing, a primary school opened in 1902 at Sapele
had to
close down the following year, while a similar school opened at Warri
apparently functioned only on Sundays when teachers were available.
Bishop
Johnson, who was greatly concerned about personnel for the two
congregations,
earnestly searched for staff to be in charge of the worshipping
communities as
well as the schools attached to them; but he did not find it easy to
secure
qualified staff. It will be recalled, as earlier stated, that the
C.M.S. showed
no real interest in this area. Furthermore, Bishop Johnson who had a
life-long
dream of an independent African
Church in full
communion
with the Church of England, employed on African agents, who were
usually Yoruba
or Saro, to work in the Niger Delta Pastorate (N.D.P.) Churches. His
hope was
that before long the N.D.P. would be constituted into an autonomous
Diocese
with James Johnson himself as the Diocesan.
Making
use of African agents who were not themselves indigenes of the Delta
had its
own difficulties. This is a fact which earlier writers like Professor
Ajayi
and, notably, Professor Ayandele did not seem to have appreciated. Dr.
Tasie
has however made the same point forcefully in respect of the eastern
Delta,
namely that those Africans regarded by Bishop Johnson and his
colleagues as
“natives” were not so regarded in the Delta.
Yoruba Catechism -- Native Church
Policy
Thus,
while Bishop Johnson felt that making use of Yoruba and Saro to
evangelise the
Itsekiri and Urhobo was the right thing to do, (and let it be added
that there
is much to be said for it), and consequently made it imperative for the
young
converts among the Itsekiri and the Urhobo to learn the catechism in
Yoruba if
they were to be baptised, the converts held a contrary view. While in
pursuance
of his native Church policy inherited from Henry Venn, Bishop Johnson
directed
that the Urhobo converts be taught Yoruba instead of English so that
they could
learn the catechism in order and so be baptised. But many refused. They
would
rather be taught English at once.
According to Omofoye Emuakpo, one of the earliest converts from Ephron,
this
was one of the reasons why he and others seceded from the N.D.P. in
1916 and
joined the African
Church, where the
minister did not insist on their learning the catechism in Yoruba
before
baptism.
These were only some of the difficulties which the congregations at
Warri and
Sapele and those which sprang up shortly afterwards in the Urhobo
hinterland
had to face in the early years of Christianity in the western Niger
Delta.
Omatsola -- Catechist
However, as a
result of the
organization by Bishop Johnson of the congregations at Warri and
Sapele,
Christianity soon began to penetrate the Urhobo hinterland. The Bishop
appointed Aghoghin Omatsola as an agent at Sapele and Omatsola helped
in no
small way in the expansion of Christianity from Sapele to the
hinterland.
Before 1914 there were already no less than fifteen congregations to
the Urhobo
hinterland, which looked up to Sapele as their mother Church. Among the
congregations which did so were Eku, Abraka, Sanubi, Amukpe, Idjerhe.
The Cleansing of the Leper
The
manner in which Christianity reached some of these places is
fascinating. For
example, at Idjerhe (Idhese) Christianity was introduced by a leper who
found
himself miraculously healed in his isolation in the bush. This man, we
are
told, was driven from the community as a result of his leprosy, then a
slow and
certain killer. While in the bush he was told thereafter he should do
no evil.
He
did so and was healed. On returning to town he gathered people and
started a
worshipping community.
A
similar thing happened in the Urhobo hinterland and in Isoko. Thus, at
Owe the
infant Church was reported to have been made up of lepers. This was
because,
once Christianity had penetrated the hinterland, many of those who came
to
Church did so in expectation of miracles. The sick expected to be
healed; those
who were barren expected children; those who had been held bound by edjo longed to be released from its
clutches and be enabled to freely eat tabooed food which they could not
eat
before their conversion. It may be argued that there was too much
emphasis on
miracles; for, when later such miracles appeared to cease, attendance
at
services dropped. But, in fact, the ‘disappearance’ of miracles and a
decline
in Church attendance are both accounted for by a common factor: lack of
faith.
It may well have been that the initial converts were presented with the
crown
without the cross. They wanted the joy of Christianity but were not
prepared to
accept its discipline. For, what actually, more than anything else,
brought
about decline in Church attendance was the high and uncompromising
moral demand
which the new faith imposed on the converts.
Ethical Demands or Cultural Pressures?
Polygamists
were required to send away all their wives but one if they were to be
baptised
members of the Church; and the converts were not expected to pay any
form of
respect or homage to their ancestors, the cult of which they had
cherished from
the beginning. The cult was indeed ingrained in their way of life. They
were
expected to refrain from participating in annual and traditional
festivals,
which were generally connected with the ancestral cults, and in which
the
traditional culture of the Itsekiri, Urhobo, and Isoko appeared in bold
relief.
If converts were denied participation in traditional festivals, they
were also
excluded from taking traditional chieftaincy titles; they could not
circumcise
their daughters the way the Urhobo and Isoko had always done. All these
prohibitions had the effect of discouraging Church attendance. Thus,
though
many of the first converts were happy they were healed or released from
their
respective Ukoedjo,
yet they found all that they had to give up in order to continue to be
Christians too high a price to pay. This was basically why Church
attendance
dropped. To say this is not to suggest that the new faith was not
taking root.
It did, in fact, spread, and, although in times of crises there were
back-sliders, the Church members grew over the years.
Catechists, Agents and other Evangelists
Who
were the chief propagators of the new faith and how did they themselves
come to
embrace it? The spread of the new faith in Itsekiri, Urhobo, and Isoko
lands in
the early years was due to the evangelistic
fervour of Omatsola ,
Aganbi,
Omofoye Emuakpo, Ogugun, Denedo, Evwaire, Madam Birbrina, and
Rev. J.D.
Aitkens, among others. Aghoghin Omatsola an Itsekiri, educated in Hope
Waddell
Training Institution in Calabar where he had embraced Christianity
before the
dawn of the twentieth century, returned to Sapele where he met and
worshipped with
a few other Christians from various parts of West Africa, notably from Sierra Leone, Gold Coast (present day Ghana)
and
Yorubaland. After the visit of Bishop Johnson to Sapele to organise the
congregation there, Aghoghin was appointed an agent. He spread the
faith to
many villages and towns in the neighbourhood of Sapele.
Meanwhile
a few congregations were springing up in Abraka, Urhuovie and Uhwokori.
These
were initially made up of liberated slaves from the area of Zwo in
Yorubaland.
The congregations were later visited and organised by Bishop Johnson
who
appointed an agent at Uhwokori congregation. Evwaire, a native of
Ogbovwan in
Ughelli, whose mother hails from Uhwokori, first heard of Christianity
from the
congregations at Uhwokori. In about 1910 Evwaire introduced the new
faith to
Ughelli. But before this date the faith had spread from Warri through
Ephron to
Oguname, and to Ohrerhe (Mogba). The chief propagators of Christianity
in these
places were Omofoye Emmuakpo, Denedo, Ogugu, and Masima Ebossa; while
Aganbi
evangelised in Eku and its neighbourhood.
From
Ogbovwan in Ughelli, Christianity was carried to many other parts of
Urhobo and
Isokoland. The evangelists included Udori, who took the faith to
Agbarha clan;
Isikpen who introduced it to Evwreni. Avwarecha took it to Olomu, and
Udu to
Uwhereu. From Isoko those who heard of Evwaire’s new faith came,
enlisted, and
spread the faith among their people. Thus Agbro of Emevor introduced
the faith
there, as Ikogho of Uwhere, who first heard it from Isikpen, did at
Enwhe.
Foods Tabu
Many
of those who embraced Christianity did so because of a desire to be
free to eat
food they could not eat before conversion. It was for this reason that
Christianity in Urhoboland was initially known as Orugbegwa
-- that which defies
tabu. About 1911, Mr. Oluku
Adjarho, from Ekiugbo, also of Ughelli, brought the Christian faith
from
Yorubaland where he had been sojourning. Thus, Ekiugbo also became
another
sub-centre to which people flocked to enlist in the faith.
Because
Oluku was adroit in the Yoruba language, he read the Bible and taught
the
enquirers. Thus, between 1901 when Bishop Johnson first visited Warri,
Sapele
and Benin,
and 1914 when World War I broke out, Christianity spread by leaps and
bounds
among the Urhobo and the Isoko and, to some degree also, among the
Itsekiri.
In the case of
Isoko, apart
from those places from where people came to Urhoboland to enlist in the
new
faith, there were other towns which received Christianity from a
different
source. A man of the name Utuedon, who was said to be a relation of
Dogho Numa
of the Itsekiri, introduced Christianity to Uzere in 1909 when he was
posted
there as a court clerk. He was a convert of Bishop Johnson. He held
services in
a court hall, services from which women were excluded.
Brobromae and Other Women of the Faith
Ironically,
however, it was a woman who in 1911 introduced Christianity to some
other parts
of the Isoko country. She is Bribrinae by name, a native of Patani.
Bribrina
was one of the early converts to Christianity in Patani. When she had
twins and
was required by custom to destroy them she refused because of her new
faith.
Accordingly, she was banished to an island opposite Patani. It was here
that an
Igbide man called Ibiegbe met her and helped her. He later married her
and
brought her to Igbide, where Bribrinae undertook the evangelisation of
the
people. Through her efforts Christianity spread to many other parts of
Isokoland.
As
if to further disprove the principle of Uruedon at Uzere, it was also a
woman
who brought Christianity to Illue-Ologbo. She is Madam Emadu, who in
the course
of her travels embraced Christianity in Obiaruku. Thus, through the
work of
Evwaire, Utuedon, Emadu and Bribrane, Christianity spread rapidly in
Isokoland
before 1914. As men from Isoko inland -- Pwhe, Emevor and Ozoro --
flocked to
Ughelli to Evwaire to be taught the new faith, so many others from
Isoko water
side journeyed to Patani and in the course of their trade embraced
Christianity
there. In 1913, the Revd. J. D. Aitken (who was with Proctor at
Patani),
reported that many Isoko were visiting Patani and buying either the
Bible in
English or an Ijo translation of one of the Gospels. These they kept
under
their pillows “as a witness that they have left heathenism and have
joined
God’s company”.
Aitken
traveled through Isokoland and Urhoboland between 1912 and 1913 and
helped to
propagate the faith. His method in each town was to preach to the local
people
in the evening on their return from their farms. The places visited by
him
included Evwreni, Uhwokori,
Ekrerhavwe,
Oguname, Abraka , and the villages
around Ughelli. Aitkens
met several Christians in these places -- people who had
embraced the
faith through the evangelisation efforts of Bishop Johnson and his
agents. It
should be emphasised that without the zeal and persistence of Bishop
Johnson
the evangelisation of Itsekiri and Urhoboland would not have happened
when it
did. For, as already indicated, on the evidence of Rev. Henry Proctor
himself,
the C.M.S. was not interested in evangelising areas which were outside
Igboland.
“We
get very little if any help at all from the so-called Niger Mission and
I have
found it so all along. All the members of E.C. (Executive Committee)
myself
excepted are working amongst Ibos and naturally Ibo work looms largest
in their
ideas. They know little or nothing of our work or our district, the
Secretary
cannot find time to visit us and I feel we have little or no sympathy.”
And yet, to quote
Ikime,
“little do the Christians in Itsekiri and
Urhoboland realise that they owe
their faith more to the energy and
determination of a fellow Nigerian
than to the C.M.S. and the Niger Mission
itself”
If
the Itsekiri, the Urhobo, and also a part of the Isoko people recognise
this
fact, then they ought to express their appreciation for the work of
Bishop
Johnson, at least by naming an institution after him, as they have done
after
Bishop Tugwell. This is a point made as early as 1965 by Professor
Ikime, but a
point about which Anglican Christians in the area have not taken
serious note.
J. D. Aitken and Isoko District
From
his travels in Isoko and Urhoboland, J. D. Aitken was convinced of the
necessity to organise and administer these Churches together under one
district. This is significant, especially when it is realised that
Aitken did
not make many converts in the course of his itineration. For example,
at Oleh
only one convert was made in 1913. In spite of the poor result, he
believed
that if the faith was to spread and grow, then proper organisation was
needed.
Accordingly he, proposed at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the
Niger
Mission held in July 1914 that the work in Isoko be merged with that in
Urhobo
under a new district in charge of which a European or West Indian
Missionary
should be assigned. Aitken suggested that either Okpare or Mogba
(Ohrerhe) in
Agbarho should be the head-quarters of the new district with strong
stations at
Uhwokori, Oleh, and Emede.
Although
this proposal might have been inspired by the desire on the part of
Aitken to
be independent of Proctor and become a superintendent of his own
district,
there is no doubt that a real need for such a new district did exist.
The
congregation which sprang up, in Urhoboland in particular, could not be
properly organised and administered without such an arrangement. For
Bishop
Johnson, enthusiastic and energetic as he was, was the only trained
personnel
of N.D.P. who visited the Urhobo congregation; and since he had an
extensive area
(the Eastern and Western Niger Delta) to cover, the congregations in
Urhoboland
suffered considerably. Had he trained personnel to work under him in
these
areas from the beginning, it would have been a different story. But up
till
1914 no other trained personnel worked in the Urhobo Churches. This is
why, had
the recommendation of Aitken been accepted by the E.C. of the C.M.S.
Niger
Mission, it would have rebounded to the advantage of the young
congregation in
Urhoboland.
But
the whole of Aitken’s recommendation was not accepted, to the detriment
of the
Urhobo congregations. Only the Isoko section was constituted into a
district,
leaving the Urhobo section to continue to grope in the dark. The
refusal by the
C.M.S. to take up the work in Urhoboland is perhaps better seen as a
result of
their continued reluctance to interfere with the work of Bishop
Johnson’s Niger
Delta Pastorate. In any case, it was the Urhobo Churches which
suffered.