My ‘Crowther’ interview on TVC
Jan 07, 2022 5:41 pm
Hello ,
New Year greetings. Here’s wishing you a year of many opportunities and memorable events.
For the Bishop Crowther Project, the year started off with a half-hour interview on TVC’s breakfast programme. On 3rd of January, I was invited to talk more about the project, and share bits of information about what we’ve done so far.
It was a follow up on the story published last December by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). Here’s a link to that: https://rb.gy/x6ovib
As would be expected, I started from the very beginning, summarising how the project was inspired (in January 2021) and then the journey since.
“Before then, like most people, the much that I knew about him were the basics: that he was a slave and that he translated the Bible into Yoruba language, and so on. But the more we began to access archival materials – in Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta – the more we uncovered more interesting details of his life,” I said.
Like the fact that Bishop Crowther could speak 13 languages – Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Creole, Latin, Greek and Arabic among them.
I also talked about Bishop Crowther being a controversial/ polarising figure, noting in the same breath that people tend to focus more on the ‘religion’ side of him, when in fact he was a man of many sides.
“Bishop Crowther was more than just a missionary” I argued, adding that “he was an individual with a lot of humanity in him." And that there's so much that he can teach us in the 21st century.
Anchor: What do you think this documentary would change? Do you think it would change the perspectives of the people about the bishop?
I answered in the affirmative, backed with some points. I rounded off the interview saying that: “People should know that Crowther didn’t have an easy life – he was always struggling, trying to do something, trying to achieve something and trying to make the best of his life.”
I also said the following:
Almost a decade before Scottish missionary Mary Slessor was preaching against the killing of twins, Bishop Samuel Crowther was already preaching against the practice of human sacrifice. When we talk about these killings, hardly do we hear that Crowther played a role in that fight; we only hear Slessor. Again, we’re not trying to knock any heads together; we’re just trying to present the facts as we see them, and then let the Nigerian public see for themselves as we see them. It’s almost as if we’ve been comfortable with a single story – now is time for people to see the other side/ the different sides and then make up your mind whatever it is they want to believe.
One of the things people also don’t know is that though Crowther was preaching to convert the people from traditional religion to Christianity, he was very respectful of their own beliefs, the African traditional belief system as well as Islam. And he was always being heard telling his fellow missionaries that when they go to the field to preach, they should not desecrate the religions of these other people…our duty is to keep on preaching, keep on converting until we win them over. What he did is not different from what today’s clergymen do that we know now – it was basically preaching and trying to win souls and they were doing it with a lot of respect and regard.”
If you would like to watch the entire interview, it’s available at this link: https://youtu.be/Cmt4EcmS2HU
Donate to the Crowther Project:
Option 1 (Paystack)
Option 2 (Cash transfers):
Homestead Nig Ent (UBA Acct 1015558184)
Option 3 (GoFundMe):