Indigenous Evangelistic Enterprise in the Niger Delta: A Study of Garrick Braide Movement

The Western Missionaries should be commended for theiroutstanding efforts in spreading Christianity throughout Nigeria’s nooks and crannies. However, the Western mission Christianity that was introduced to Nigeria and Niger Delta in particular, appeared to fall short of meeting the spiritual needs of the African people.As such, those Africans whose contributions to the evangelization of the continent were quite significant and impressive mustalso be appreciated. One of such is Garrick SokariBraide whose evangelistic endeavor within Niger Delta region was outstanding. This study focuses on the life and ministry of Garrick SokariBraide, as well as his contributions and the impacts of his movement on the Niger Delta Christianity; it explores Garrick Braide’sindigenous religio-cultural ideas and realities in the mediation of the gospel. The study adopts the phenomenological, historical and analytic methods of research,with reference to OgbuKalu’s Theory of African Historiography, and Native Agent. The study discovered that upon African conversion toChristianity, missionaries baptize Africans but failed to baptize their culture. The study further revealed that, Braide who took a more radical and practical approach,saw such western method as alien and unpractical. As such, Braide became the first Africans to recognize that Jesus Christ is a cosmopolitan figure, who hails from all over the world, not only Nazareth, and this may haveenticed him to brand his home town Bakana as Israel. The study finally, advocates for the need to express the Christ message using African indigenous religious spirituality and metaphors because of the oral nature of African tradition and history.