The first part of this article was published last Friday.

From the East to the West and from North to South, the presence of the various Christian missions were seen and felt in Nigeria and even beyond. They embarked on invaluable projects that impacted positively on the lives of the people, rather than embarking on meaningless projects and infrastructure. They had the interest and welfare of the people at heart. To them, the salvation of the souls of men was paramount, not money nor the worldly mundane things that would fizzle out when He will appear in His majesty and glory, with ten thousand of His saints according to the book of Jude. In places where the Christian missionaries lived and worked, schools, colleges and tertiary institutions were voluntarily and benevolently established. The schools were there for the asking, if you ask me.
In Calabar main town and at Itu, now in Cross River State for example, schools and skills acquisition centres were established by Saint Mary Slessor and the charismatic Hope Waddell of blessed memory. At Abeokuta and Badagry in the west where Gollmer, Henry Townsend and Samuel Ajayi Crowther – one of the early converts worked, schools and colleges were also established. The renowned CMS Grammar school in Lagos which, of course, was the first secondary school founded in Nigeria is a living witness to this assertion.
In order parts of Nigeria and Africa as a whole, the different Christian missions through their missionaries built free, affordable and magnet schools and colleges. For instance, the first University in West Africa called the Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone, established by the Anglican Church, served the whole of West Africa before the establishment of the premier University College, Ibadan in Nigeria. This gesture of goodwill by the Christian missionaries no doubt brought Western education and civilisation closer to the people and to other parts of Africa. So, anyone born between 1920 and 1960 whose alibi is that he never had the opportunity of going to school at this period should be asking himself a question and taken to the psychiatric hospital for autism and asperger’s syndrome, because Western civilization and education where made free and compulsory at this time. Essentially, this was the white man’s modus operandi in fulfilling their mission or vision in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
Thanks to Michael Crowder for much of what we know today about the dividends of planting of schools and colleges in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. According to him, “It is clear, therefore, that in Nigeria – as in other West African countries, the foundations and the early edifice of western education were the work of the Christian missions. It was from the early converts that the first African elites emerged to compete with the Europeans on their terms, who became the leaders of the Nigerian nationalist movements and helped to gain Independence for their countries from the colonial masters.”
Such educated Africans like – Herbert Macaulay, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, Dr. Caseley Hayford and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Sir Dauda Jawara of Gambia and Leopold Senghor of Senegal. Others include, Sekou Toure of Guinea, Felix Houphouet Boigny of Ivory Coast, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela of South Africa respectively were produced.
Speaking further on the effect, Crowder wrote, “these revolutionary forces essentially had influence on the subsequent development of Nigeria, the emergence of the Nigerian nationalists who started with marked intensification to take the control of the government from the British administrators.”
The Christian missionaries continued to surge, soar and becoming complacent with the structure already put in place, charitable hospitals and clinics were built to cater for the sick and the wounded people. They prayerfully dedicated these hospitals to the service of God and humanity. In the Eastern parts of Nigeria and even in the North, leprosy colonies and units were built, which took care of lepers living pitiable and wretched lives, and living in misery and in isolation in areas where they may be found. Succinctly put, the missionaries took care of the disabled like the blind people, the cripple, the deaf and dumb and also built orphanage homes where fatherless and motherless babies were taken care of. Above all, scholarships were given to the early converts to study medicine and nursing overseas, since they needed able, capable and competent doctors and nurses to run the hospitals and clinics effectively.
Furthermore, the Christian missionaries helped to promote the study of Nigerian languages, especially the three major languages such as – Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and gave encouragement to the writing of these languages in order to enhance and promote Christianity. A million thanks to the early Christians and missionaries because through them and their works of charity, love and care and preaching of the word of God undiluted, many bad practices like the killing of twin babies, human sacrifices to appease gods and goddesses, the killing of slaves to accompany important chiefs and kings in their journey to the next world, and the secret cult brouhaha were suppressed and reduced to the barest minimum), if not totally eradicated in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
At this juncture, therefore, a perturbing and nagging question readily comes to mind – where is the love of God and his dear son Jesus Christ in our churches today? When church founders and leaders display lack of love and care for their members but are rather preoccupied with thoughts of how to acquire large hectares of land in major cities and suburbs for building magnificent, picturesque and breathtaking church auditoriums to the detriment of the teeming number of people who are apparently living on the breadline, wallowing and wobbling in abject poverty, cannot pay their children’s school fees let alone pay their house rent whenever it expires.
The pulpit and the pew as well should be careful. Christianity is a reality not a fantasy as projected and being portrayed by Christians in Nigeria. By the time we come to this realization and knowledge and stop converting the church into a cybercafe and a ballroom and begin to extol the virtues of love and care for one another like the early believers and Christians in Acts of the Apostles, stop being selfish and greedy, stop the aggressive tendency for power and title, emulate or follow the examples laid down by Jesus Christ who is the author and finisher of our faith and the way, the truth and the life and also toe the lines of the Christian missionaries who toiled, laboured and planted Christianity in Nigeria as beacons and crusaders of the Christian faith, otherwise, heaven would be an illusion and a mirage to so many irrespective of their religious inclination or persuasion, church, position they occupy, title they bear, or whatever they profess to be. Remember, God is not a respecter of any person or persons as much as we know. Heaven is for believers and Christians who have diligently kept and practised this new and of course the greatest commandment given by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself before his ascension into heaven, which says, “that ye love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. Note the repetition and use of the intransitive verb ­Love, the object is you and I. Jesus did not say we should love money, prodigious church building or auditorium or transient worldly mundane things that would not stand the test of time at his appearing. This new and greatest Messianic injunction or message, therefore, calls for an immediate U-turn, spiritual rebirth and a spiritual check-up of all unbelievers and professing Christians in Nigeria and, by extension, in South Africa where at present there is a brute force and morbid fascination of xenophobic attacks on Nigerians before it is too late. Looking at Christianity more closely and critically, it is not a fantasy, but a reality, a way of life and the hope of eternal life for true believers when all about life here is over and our work on earth is perfectly done to be with Christ ad-infinitum.
Concluded.
Owhorji wrote in from Port Harcourt.

Christian Owhorji