Hello ,

Last Sunday, I was guest on the Soni Irabor Live (SiL) Show. In one hour of conversation with the broadcast legend, I went into a lot of detail about the Crowther Documentary Film Project; drawing on our research from when we launched in September 2021, I talked about some of our findings, including a couple of details the Nigerian public is hardly aware of, among other highlights.

“You’re telling me a lot I never knew about Ajayi Crowther, yet I knew a lot about him,” Mr Irabor said at a point during the programme. 

As the conversation progressed, I also pointed out that there is a lot of misinformation online and offline about Bishop Crowther, and why one of the things we also plan to do on the project is correcting as many of them as we have identified. 

So here are a few facts to note about Crowther, condensed from my conversation on SiL. 

1. Ajayi, the boy, was born in Osoogun, Oyo State, Western Nigeria. His exact date of birth is not known, but historians put it between 1806 and 1809. At the Crowther Project, we have settled for 1809. 

2. He was captured as a slave – along with his mother, siblings and cousins – from their family compound sometime in 1821. That put him at around 12 years of age. 

3. He was exchanged multiple times for different items: a horse, rum, tobacco – to mention a few.

4. For the next 14 months, he was moved from one town to the next, one slave market to the next – from Iseyin through Toko to Eko (Lagos), where he was eventually sold to Portuguese slavers and put on a ship bound for South America.

5. A British naval patrol attacked the Portuguese slave ship and rescued Ajayi and 186 other slaves in 1822, and were all taken to Freetown (Sierra Leone). 

6. Freetown was where he learned to read and write. It was where he wore a pair of shoes for the first time. It was where he started to learn Greek, Latin and Creole. It was where he later married another former slave.  

7. Ajayi was baptized in December 1825, after which he took the name Samuel Crowther, one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society (CMS). He was 16. 

8. Crowther was the first to be enrolled in the CMS College at Fourah Bay, where he stood out as a brilliant student. Afterwards, he became a tutor. 

9. Crowther was ordained a priest in London in 1843, aged 34. On his way back from that journey by sea, he started translating the English Bible into the Yoruba language, beginning with the book of Romans. 

10. Crowther lived in Badagry for 18 months, between January 1845 and June 1846. He didn’t translate the entire Bible there, but only a part of it. Translating all books of the Bible took about 40 years, completed in the late 1880s. 

P.S: You may watch the full interview

here!

In other news

1. On Tuesday (1 March), I was a panelist at the ongoing AfricaNXT event, holding in Lagos. Hosted by Nnena Fakoya-Smith, and focused on Crowdfunding for Tourism Businesses, I shared some of the insights I have gained from six months of crowdfunding for the Bishop Crowther Project.

2. The 15th edition of the Jos Festival of Theatre will open in the Plateau State capital on 3rd March. Running for three days, this year’s plays will present poignant messages relating to the digital revolution, relationships, marriage, politics, and current societal ills over three days of performances. According to a statement by the organisers, the festival receives support from the Czech Embassy Abuja, whose ambassador will be in attendance; it also states that over 50 artistes will feature in various productions, after which they will tour in three festival circuits.

3. The African Women in Media (AWiM), in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Network is set to roll out a training program for fellows under the African Environment Journalism Programme. The project is underpinned by the African Green Stimulus Program and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. For more information about the programme and how to pitch stories,

Click Here!

4. Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther and other prominent Lagosians of the 1880s, e.g James Pinson Labulo Davies, Chief Jacob Ogunbiyi e.t.c donated towards the construction of a new building for the Holy Trinity Church, Ebutte Ero in 1878. The former building was destroyed during the 'Iga Alagba Great Fire' on October 22, 1877. This is just one of the less known history of Lagos we'll be sharing with our tourists on the Crowther's Lagos Tour. See flier for details

If you’ll like to keep abreast with updates – off and on the road -- please follow us on social media as follows: 

Twitter: @CrowtherProject

Facebook: Bishop Crowther Project

Instagram: @bishop_crowther_project

Pelu Awofeso

For: The Bishop Crowther Project