Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The British imperial military conquest of the disparate groups in both the Northern and Southern parts of what we have today as Nigeria, brought these groups for the first time together under one political control. The Northern half is predominantly Islamic in cultue while the Southern part is occupied by groups with varied shades of traditional worship systems and later submitted to Christianity after colonial conquest. After the conquest of the Sultanate in 1901, the British fell in love with the system of administration in place there and the obedience of the people to alien authority. By this time, the Southern parts of the country had been ‘pacified’ and Christian Missionaries had begun the aggressive proselytization of the interiors and hinterlands of the area. This frightened the Muslims of the region, who alerted the British of the imminent danger to their faith. Realizing that the Emir of Muri, had extracted a promise from Lord Lugard the progenitor of the British conquest of the northern part of Nigeria, to prevent the evangelization of the Muslim areas and prevention of non-Muslims from living alongside Muslims, the colonial authority quickly devised a settlement pattern called Sabon Gari (visitor’s quarters), and banned the Christian Missionaries from proselytizing in the north. With this, the British regained the trust and loyalty of the emirs and their religious leaders and diminished the possibility of Christianity spreading throughout the region. The paper examines the role of British colonial rule in undermining the spread of Christianity in Northern Nigeria.