Contributions of Omojola Agbebi to Indigenous Christianity in Nigeria: Lessons for 21st Century African Christian Leaders

Dr. Omojola Agbebi was a prominent indigenous Baptist leader in Nigeria who lived between 1860 and 1917. He was renowned for his campaign towards the Africanisation of Christianity. He believed that the Africans should be the leadership of the church on the ‘African soil’ for cultural and social reasons as they understand terrain and appropriate theology appropriate for the African people. Therefore, this paper focuses on the contributions of Dr. Omojola Agbebi to indigenous Christianity in Nigeria and considering his contributions as a blueprint for Christian leaders in Africa. The paper adopts a historiographical approach to examine the personality in focus. The paper recognises Omojola Agbebi to be an apostle of indigenisation as he laboured to promote African Christianity through the planting of local churches, preaching in local dialects and the show of his love for native African attires. The use of local language is significant to help the future generations communicate fluently in their mother tongue and retain the language. The work recommends that African Christians can emulate preaching in local dialects to indigenous peoples to promote communication in the indigenous languages of their congregations; the establishment of centres for local languages in theological institutions and the contextualisation of the gospel to make it meaningful to the audience.