The Ecclesiastical Province of Lagos is one of the 14 ecclesiastical provinces of the Church of Nigeria. It comprises 13 dioceses: Lagos (Bishop: Ifedola Senasu Gabriel Okupevi) Awori (Bishop: Akin Atere) Badagry (Bishop: Joseph Adeyemi) Egba (Bishop: Emmanuel Adekunle) Egba West (Bishop: Samuel Ajani) Ifo (Bishop: Nathaniel Oladejo Ogundipe) Ijebu (Bishop: Peter Rotimi Oludipe) Ijebu-North (Bishop: Solomon Kuponu) Lagos Mainland (Bishop: Akinpelu Johnson) Lagos West (Bishop: James Odedeji) Remo (Bishop: Michael Fape) Yewa, formerly Egbado (Bishop: Michael Adebayo Oluwarohunbi) Ijebu Southwest (Bishop: Babatunde Ogunbanwo)
History of the Anglican church in Lagos
The evangelical movements of the 18th century gave rise to many missionary societies such as that of the Baptist (1792), "the joint efforts" (1795) and Church Missionary Society — CMS (1799). Closely related to them was the birth of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804) and the CMS-inspired founding of the West African Mission in the same year. There was also the Niger Expedition of 1841 which was a response by both the Church Missionary Society and Wesleyan Missionary Society to evangelise newly freed slaves in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
The seed of the Anglican Church in Lagos was planted by the activities of liberated Africans in Sierra Leone and the CMS, an evangelical society within the Anglican community in Great Britain. CMS was founded in 1799 by evangelicals during a period of Evangelical Revival in Great Britain and members soon developed a plan to establish missionary activities in Africa.
Badagry outpost
In 1809, CMS commenced missionary activities among the liberated African community of Sierra Leone, many of whom were originally Yoruba, Hausa, Efik and Igbo of present-day Nigeria. Many of the liberated Africans converted to Christianity and as early as 1838, some began to return to their original homeland. Among those Africans who returned and settled in Nigeria where converts who wanted a Christian mission amidst them. Returnees who settled in Abeokuta wrote a petition to the CMS mission in Sierra Leone for a new station in Abeokuta.
Henry Townsend, a CMS missionary priest, and Birch Freeman, of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, were sent to survey Badagry, giving a joint service of Eucharist and thanksgiving on Christmas Day 1842. After completing his mission, Townsend wrote a favorable report about extending missionary activities to Abeokuta. A set of missionaries was sent in 1845, the group landed in Badagry where many stayed to establish a mission while some continued the journey to Abeokuta. Among those who stayed at Badagry was a German Lutheran presbyter names Gollmer.
After the fall of Lagos to British colonists, the British consul felt cooperation with missionaries and legitimate goods traders was important to the success of the abolition of slavery in Lagos. An invitation was sent to the CMS mission in Badagry to come and preach in Lagos. An African, James White was the first catechist sent to Lagos by CMS. In January 1852, White held an outreach event at Iga Idunganran that included Akitoye, many of his chiefs and residents, he later chose a site at Ebute Ero and built a bamboo structure to preach the gospel.
Move to Lagos
Early missionaries such as Henry Townsend, Charles Andrew Gollmer and Samuel Ajayi Crowther gave rise to the Yoruba Mission. Gollmer was made Deacon in 1841, and priest the same year. By July 1852, the mission at Badagry moved to Lagos which was considered an important location to spread the gospel; among those from Badagry who moved to Lagos were Gollmer and Ajayi Crowther. Gollmer obtained land rights to five sites from Oba Akitoye and chose White's Ebute Ero post as the first site of a CMS station. The mission became part of Diocese of Sierra Leone led by Bishop Owen Vidal. In London, an act of parliament, the Bishops in Foreign Countries Act 1841 granted ability to create Anglican bishops in non-British territories and confirmation of communicants by those bishops, CMS led by its secretary, Henry Venn began making plans to make the missions an extension of the English Church and on a path towards self-sustenance under administrations of a local Bishop and Diocesan Synod.