CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE IN EASTERN AND NORTHERN NIGERIA (1841-1914): A HISTORICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

Christianity as a religion was brought into limelight as a result of the spiritual revival amongst various Christian denominations in Europe. Thus, these denominations began to form missionary bodies made up of spirited and willing Christians who decided to take the gospel to places where Christianity has not dominated. One of such places was Nigeria. Thus, many Christian missionary bodies trooped to Nigeria. As a result of this the nineteenth century Christian missionary enterprise in Nigeria was successful unlike the Christian missionary enterprise in Lagos, Benin and Warri that took place between 14-16th century. The problem of this study is that many literatures have demonstrated the advent and impact of Christianity in Nigeria, without an in-depth analysis on reasons Christian missionary enterprise blossomed in the east than that of the north of Nigeria. Hence, this research will carry out a comparative analysis of Christian missionary activity between the east and north of Nigeria by pin pointing factors that made the missionary work more successful in the eastern area than northern Nigeria. The research finds out that there were different approaches and strategies applied by the Christian missionaries in spreading the gospel message in eastern and northern Nigeria. However, eastern Nigeria recorded better results than the northern territory. The research recommends that present Christian missionaries should learn to adopt different strategies in the course of their evangelism in various places so as to achieve positive results.