Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria

In 1913 three missionaries, Dr. Niels Brønnum, his Scottish bride Margaret C. Young,
also a medical doctor, and Miss Dagmar Rose left Denmark for Africa. They were sent by
a small new "Sudan Society." Within six months, Mrs. Brønnum died and Miss Rose took
the Brønnums infant son to his grandparents home in Scotland.

Dr. Brønnum, now utterly alone, refused to give up his call. He traveled farther inland
and established work at Numan, in Yola province (now called Adamawa). He remained in
Nigeria for many years and was joined by other missionaries from Denmark. Dr.
Brønnum was one of the great Lutheran pioneer missionaries. The church took root and
grew, hundreds of lay leaders were trained, and the first five Nigerian pastors were
ordained in 1948.

Support and interest for the mission in Nigeria grew within the United Evangelical
Lutheran Church, a Danish predecessor of The American Lutheran Church (now part of
the ELCA). A few American missionaries were sent to Nigeria under the Danish Sudan
Mission Society, and in 1934 the Sudan Mission became officially part of the UELC. A
number of missionaries were sent during the 1950s, including the Rev. Mark Thomsen,
who later became the Executive Director of the former DWMIC/ALC and the Division
for Global Mission, ELCA.

The Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria has experienced significant growth through the
outreach ministries of Nigerian families who are trained in evangelism. They move to
unevangelized areas and earn their livelihood as farmers while evangelizing their
neighbors. This method of church growth has been especially effective in Muslim areas
where foreign missionaries would not be allowed to live or work.

The Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria (LCCN) was established as an independent

organization in 1956. The first Nigerian president, Pastor Akila Todi, was elected in 1960.
The LCCN currently is led by Archbishop Namuel Babbai. The LCCN has over 715,000
members in 2000 congregations, served by 350 pastors. There are five dioceses, each
with a diocesan bishop. The LCCN has had its share of internal disagreements, but has
continued to grow and to be a light on a candlestick in the sometimes dark areas of
political turmoil and economic decline in Nigeria.

The LCCN has a holistic approach in reaching people through health, social work, and
evangelism. The LCCN has ten dispensaries and three maternity homes. A program for
training evangelists and catechists helps to ensure good leadership for the church. Pastors
and church leaders are trained at Bronnum Lutheran Seminary and in the
interdenominational seminary, Theological College of Northern Nigeria near Jos.

Both Christians and Muslims have a strong presence in Nigerian life, resulting in strife
and tension and sometimes violence. The LCCN provides leadership in promoting
Christian-Muslim dialogue as a way of enabling Christians and Muslims to work together
for the common good of all. It has sponsored international conferences for Christian
Mutual Relations and established a center for dialogue in Jos, Nigeria.

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ELCA and not the churches or institutions represented on these pages.

Akila Todi
c.1905 to 1992
Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria (LCCN)
Nigeria

When the Lutheran Church Christ in Nigeria (formerly Ekkilisiyan Kristi a Nijeriya
Lutheran or EKAN Lutheran), established by the Sudan United Mission (SUM-Danish
Branch) decided to become episcopal in 1971, the Rev. Akila Todi was elected as its first
bishop in 1973.

Akila Todi's date of birth is not certain. Margaret Nissen, a SUM (Danish) missionary and
the first historian of the mission puts it about 1909, while Nicholas Pweddon, a friend of
Akila and a later historian of the Lutheran Church in Nigeria records it as 1903. However,
a funeral biography has 1905. He was born to Mallam Biku Tonsheno and Mallama Flo
in what is now called Old Numan among the Bachama people of northeastern Nigeria
who now call themselves the Bwatiye. He was from the Klah clan. His parents were
traditionalists who worshipped the Bachama demigods, the youngest and most
benevolent of whom is Nzeanzo. Like Jesus Christ, Nzeanzo is said to have a mother
(Vunon) but no father. He determined when to be born and the day he was born, he began
to walk and plan to save his elder brothers from being killed by a wicked uncle. The story
of Nzeanzo might have provided some common ground between Christianity and
Bachama traditional religion. It is no wonder that the Bachama became Christians en
mass. His parents called him Atodi-a-Kwaki which means "wish my ears were stuffed"
because they wished the stories about enemies invading and destroying the Bachama
were not true.

Probably about the age of 18, Akila Todi began to visit the mission compound close to his
parents' house to learn the white man's mysteries. His parents, particularly his father, did
not want him to get close to the missionaries. His father, being a farmer and a blacksmith,
wanted his son to follow in his footsteps him rather than loiter with the strangers. So
Akila would steal away to visit the missionaries. However, whenever his father spotted
him there, he would order that Akila be denied food,--something which his mother
usually disobeyed. He was befriended by one of missionaries, Miss Laura Madsen, a
nurse, who employed him as a milk boy and as her helper in a home for orphans.

Later Madsen sent Akila to school. In 1934, after he finished school, she employed him
as her steward and cook. With this new position his earnings rose to about 10 pound 8
shillings and he was able to buy a pair of trousers. Nevertheless, he could not wear them
to the mission house because the missionaries taught that trousers would make young
Africans proud and so "spoil them." When he proved to be a hardworking person,
Madsen made him a ward attendant in the mission hospital.

Meanwhile, Akila Todi became a Christian while working for Madsen and was baptized
by Pastor Ernst I. Engskov in 1930. Akila Todi's skills and sense of responsibility were
noticed in the Numan church and he was elected a church elder (shugaban ekkliasiya) in
1936. In 1945, he was elected chairman of the local church council. He was, without a
doubt, a shining leader in the young Lutheran church in Numan.

He married Ullipan Elipgan on December 29, 1930. Ullipan was baptized on 23 July
1933 and took the name Lisa. The marriage was blessed with nine children, only five are
living.

From 1937 to 1938, in order to hone his skills in the hospital, Madsen sent Akila Todi to
Garkida, to attend the Nursing School run by the Brethren Mission, an associated
mission. He worked as a nurse in the mission hospital until 1951, when he felt called into
the ministry and enrolled at the Bible School in Guyuk. He graduated in 1954 and
returned to Numan. At that time, the Numan Divisional Officer pleaded with the church
leaders to release Akila Todi to serve the local government council as a school manager
and councillor in charge of education. The local government authorities sent him on
courses in administration in London and in Leeds in 1955. The same authorities sent him
to the Institute of Administration for an advanced course in administration in 1956-1957.

People liked and admired him for his honesty, transparency and hard work. Due to his
thoroughness in the area of finances, he was nicknamed "manager akwai duhu," meaning
"manager with an eagle eye to spot fraud." In recognition of this noteworthy service, the
federal government of Nigeria decorated Akila Todi with the medal of the Order of
Meritorious Service in 1943.

But Akila Todi had not forgotten his call to preach the gospel, in spite of the attractive
opportunities he had with the local government. He was in the second group of pastors
ordained in the Lutheran church in 1955. He would have been in the first group in 1948,
but his health failed him. Although the local government authorities wanted Akila Todi to
continue working for them, he decided to return to the church.

With the end of colonialism in sight, many missions decided to turn their work over to
nationals. In 1956, the Lutheran Mission also did the same. The mission asked the
nationals to select leaders to replace them. But as the national leaders felt it was
premature to turn over the administration of the church to nationals at that time, they
suggested a joint leadership of nationals and missionaries to make a gradual transition.
Accordingly, Pastor Pilgaard Pedersen was elected as the president of the church to be
assisted by Pastor Akila Todi. This arrangement worked until 1960 when Akila Todi
became full president of the Lutheran Church in Nigeria.
Later, the Lutheran Church Council felt the title of "president" was not the most
appropriate title to give to a church leader. The New Testament, they argued, uses
"bishop" whereas "president" was the title for a leader of any organization. So, at their
meeting in November 1971, the church made the change in the title. Only pastors having
served the church for at least ten years could be elected bishops. It was also decided that a
bishop so elected was to serve for a five-year term in the first tenure and after that period
could be re-elected every five years. In the election conducted on May 19, 1973, Akila
Todi was elected almost unanimously as the first bishop of the Lutheran Church of Christ
in Nigeria. He was re-elected in 1978 and 1983.

Under Akila Todi's leadership the church grew from its limited presence in what was
known as the Adamawa province to becoming a national church with congregations in
almost all the cities in Nigeria. The growth was so phenomenal that his successor felt
compelled to divide the church area into five dioceses in 1995. One remarkable
achievement in the growth of the church at this time was the presence of the church
among the Koma people, a people living in the most mountainous places in Adamawa
state. The Koma people are one of the most primitive people of Nigeria. The Lutheran
church has 40 congregations among the Koma people. To meet the demand for pastors,
Akila Todi established six Bible schools, one Bible college and a seminary named after
the first Lutheran missionary, Dr. Niels Bronnum. As a result, he ordained 102 pastors.
He initiated the idea of writing a history of the church and Margaret Nissen was
commissioned to do the writing in 1963.

In 1970, Akila Todi was elected chairman of the association of all SUM established
churches in Nigeria which goes by the Hausa name, Tarrayar Ikklisioyin Kristi a Nijeriya
(TEKAN), i.e. the Fellowship of Churches of Christ in Nigeria. He also held some ad
hoc responsibilities assigned to him by the Adamawa state government. He was a
member of the Adamawa Tax Appeal Board from 1960 to 1979. He was appointed the
first chairman of Gongola State Christian Association of Nigeria from 1981 to 1985 and
chairman of Gongola State Christian Pilgrims' Welfare Board in 1983. In recognition of
Akila Todi's service to humanity, the federal government of Nigeria decorated him with
the medal of Officer of the Order of the Niger in 1978. For his contributions to the
development of Christianity in Nigeria, Warburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa,
awarded him with an honorary degree of divinity in 1979.

Akila Todi had difficulties with the younger generation of pastors who were uneasy with
the episcopal system in a church where tribal feelings were so strong. A decentralized
church administration would have probably worked better. According to E. P. T.
Crampton, this was the blind adoption of the Danish Lutheran pattern, because the
Danish bishops, unlike the Swedish bishops, "are not part of the 'historic episcopate' as
defined by Catholics." Some accused the bishop of being very conservative in his
theology. For example, he opposed the ordination of women and dancing during worship.
According to him, dancing in God's house was a sin. The Pentecostals came in with a
more liberal stance and reaped the harvest of deserters from the Lutheran church. Even
before Akila Todi's voluntary retirement in 1986, he was accused of tribalism and
favoritism towards his tribe, the Bachama. To illustrate the intensity of the tribal
animosity, one of the tribes that felt very much aggrieved, the Lunguda, pulled out of the
Lutheran church en mass in 1965 and joined the Baptist church. The tribal palaver was
one of the problems Akila Todi's successor, Bishop David Windibiziri, a Lunguda,
inherited. In his attempts to redress the imbalance, Windibirizi sank into more mucky
waters, and that controversy remains unresolved.

Akila Todi spoke four languages, Bachama, his mother tongue, Hausa, Fulfulde, spoken
by many Bachama people because of proximity to the Fulani, and English, which he
learned in school.

Akila Todi died of deteriorating health on February 3, 1992 in the Evangel Hospital, Jos,
and was buried in Numan on February 15, 1992.

Musa A. B. Gaiya

Sources:

E. P. T. Crampton, Christianity in Northern Nigeria (Zaria: Gaskiya Corporation, 1975).

Anonymous, "Biography of Rt Rev. Bishop Akila Todi of the Lutheran Church of Christ
in Nigeria (LCCN)," a funeral speech, 1992.
Margaret Nissen, An African Church is Born (Numan: LCCN, 1966).
Dimga Jones Kadabiyu, "The First Bishop of LCCN: The Life and Works of Akila Todi,"
B.D. thesis, Theological College of Northern Nigeria, Bukuru, 2003.

This article, received in 2003, was researched and written by Dr. Musa A. B. Gaiya,
Senior Lecturer in Church History at the University of Jos Department of Religious
Studies, Jos, Nigeria, and 2003-2004 Project Luke fellow.