First Baptist Church Sapele

The First Baptist Church, Sapele (1917): A Landmark in the Modern Itsekiri Christian Movement

The religious landscape of the Western Niger Delta underwent a seismic shift at the turn of the 20th century. While the Portuguese had introduced Catholicism to the Itsekiri royalty in the 16th century, and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) had established Anglicanism in the late 1800s, it was the arrival of the Baptist mission…