A travel writer, tourism journalist, and culture researcher, Pelu Awofeso have asserted that Bishop Ajayi Crowther should be given a posthumous national honour.
He claimed that Crowther’s contributions are greater than his African and global peers.
Awofeso said that his documentary project on Bishop Ajayi Crowther, the linguist, and sage, was driven by a need to tell the story of a man who contributed immensely in the areas of language translation, agriculture, commerce, and culture development to his homeland, Nigeria before she attained independence.
Awofeso who had embarked on the research told The PUNCH that a number of factors brought the idea of a documentary for the late sage to his consciousness. He noted that his visit to Gbobe in Lokoja, where
Bishop Crowther once lived, was the beginning of his engaging the Crowther legacy.
He also noted that he had visited landmarks linked to the bishop, as part of his work as a tour guide and travel writer in the second half of January 2021, without thinking about the Crowther documentary. Awofeso also visited the Iron of Liberty in Lokoja, the CMS Mission House, Badagry, the Ajayi Crowther University in Oyo. He said he also visited St John’s Anglican Church, Abeokuta, and the Canterbury Cathedral, England, without thinking about the legacy of the late Crowther.
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Awofeso asserted that a lot of young Nigerians do not have a full grasp of the contributions of Bishop Ajayi Crowther to Nigerian culture and heritage. He stated that nine out of ten Nigerians know that he translated the Bible into Yoruba.
“What most Nigerians also don’t know is that he led the translation of the Bible into other local languages,” he said.
In the course of his research for his documentary, Awofeso learnt that Bishop Crowther spoke 13 different languages, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, Creole, Ibo, Hausa among others. He also discovered that he was first trained as a carpenter and that he bagged an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1864.
Pelu Awofeso said that Bishop Ajayi Crowther employed his charismatic leadership virtues in spreading the gospel of Christ in Nigeria, which has led to the impressive religious tourism funding that many Nigerian pastors enjoy today. He also said that Ajayi Crowther helped stop traditional practices such as the killing of twins, human sacrifices, and the burying of people with monarchs in the 1860s.
“He was an exceptional student in school and a quintessential teacher. We’ve also learned that he was a diplomat, a mediator, and a peacemaker. Bishop Crowther was many things, and we’re hoping that our documentary will help shine more light on his personality as well as other accomplishments that have gone uncelebrated over the past century-and-half. If he were a European missionary, he would be better celebrated; and our team has also argued that had he been a Catholic, he would already be a Saint.” he added.
Futhermore, Awofeso said “When the British colonial administration needed to stop the slave trade in the Crown colonies,”.
