CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION 1. Background to the Study
From creation humanity has been an extension of God’s aims to reach out to the lost generations and to shape up the spiritual, political and economic landscape of any nation. A Nation’s existence can be meaningful only when God is involved purposefully in the affairs and plans, organizations of human life. In spite of the fact that Nkanu is a land endowed with varied and abundant human and natural resources, it still suffers from economic, social and developmental quagmire, imbued with the backward inclinations which have stalled its progress for years.
This has also given rise to undue suffering. Howbeit with the coming of Christianity things began to change through the efforts of the missionaries. It made the people’s existence meaningful and worthwhile. Rev. Brewer, was the first Methodist missionary to arrive Agbani in Nkanu from Nara in the year 1910. He lived between 1916 and 1925.
According to Chief Nnamani Nwa- Ugboachi (personal
communication 13/6/2010), one of the prominent chiefs who served as a teacher and interpreter to the white-man, Agbani had three warrant chiefs who were instrumental to the white man’s positive reception. It was however, the warrant chief Nnaji Onakporoko who actually received the missionary first and helped him to establish the first school and church at Akpoeke.
Due to the hospitality of the Agbani people which was made possible by the then warrant chief, the missionaries decided to settle there with their mission of evangelizing the community area and its environs. They first established a Methodist church directly opposite the railway line quite adjacent to the road that presently leads to Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani’s residence from the rail line which was equally used for the purpose of education.