Peter Akinola

One of his first actions as primate was to get together 400 bishops, priests, lay members, and members of the Mothers' Union to elaborate a vision for the Church of Nigeria under chairman Ernest Shonekan, a former president of Nigeria.[23] The vision elaborated was: "The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) shall be; bible-based, spiritually dynamic, united, disciplined, self supporting, committed to pragmatic evangelism, social welfare and a Church that epitomizes the genuine love of Christ."[23]

Part of the program of actions were, e.g.

• on central level
  • translating the books of liturgy in further languages
  • establishing a group of 3000 leading lay personalities who will take care of fundraising and relieve the bishops of this duty
  • establish a legal support team to enforce the constitutional right of freedom of religion and worship
  • establish colleges for theology and universities
  • provide internet access for the dioceses
• for each diocese
  • training full-time itinerant evangelists
  • on the job training for priests and their wives
  • working out a social welfare program for less privileged people
  • establish a hospital with at least 30 beds
  • establish secondary schools
• on community level
  • literacy courses for adults
  • set up cottage industries for the unemployed

Archbishop Peter Akinola in his cope and mitre, traditional vestments.

In August 2003 he stated that if the celibate homosexual Jeffrey John was consecrated as Bishop of Reading or the non-celibate homosexual Gene Robinson consecrated as Bishop of New Hampshire, the Church of Nigeria would leave the Anglican Communion. A number of dioceses throughout the world, including the Diocese of Sydney, made similar statements. Under pressure from the Archbishop of Canterbury, John withdrew from appointment as bishop and was subsequently appointed as Dean of St Albans. Gene Robinson's consecration went forward, precipitating a crisis in the Anglican Communion. At the end of 2003 Akinola commissioned together with Drexel Gomez, primate of the Church in the Province of the West Indies and Gregory Venables, Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone Claiming our Anglican Identity: The Case Against the Episcopal Church, USA, a paper for the Primates of the Anglican Communion detailing the implications of the consecration of Gene Robinson for the Anglican Communion, in the view of conservative Primates.[24]

His first reaction on the Windsor Report 2004 was outspoken and critical,[25] but the statement from the Primates gathered at the first African Anglican Bishop's Conference, headed by Akinola, was more moderate and expressed commitment to the future of the Anglican Communion.[26] However, whilst strenuously supporting those parts of the Windsor Report which address the gay issue, he has not followed with those parts that deplore overseas interventions in the U.S. Church and has, on the contrary, set up a missionary body, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, in order to formalise the ties between break-away Anglicans in the United States and the Church of Nigeria.

In September 2005, Akinola spoke out against the Church in Brazil deposition of an Evangelical bishop and excommunication of over 30 priests.[27]

In September 2005, the Church of Nigeria redefined in its constitution its relationship to the Anglican Communion as "Communion with all Anglican Churches, Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.".[28] In a later press release, Akinola clarified "We want to state that our intention in amending the 2002 Constitution of the Church of Nigeria was to make clear that we are committed to the historic faith once delivered to the Saints, practice and the traditional formularies of the Church. ... We treasure our place within the worldwide family of the Anglican Communion but we are distressed by the unilateral actions of those provinces that are clearly determined to redefine what our common faith was once. We have chosen not to be yoked to them as we prefer to exercise our freedom to remain faithful. We continue to pray, however, that there will be a genuine demonstration of repentance."[29]

On 12 November 2005, Akinola signed a Covenant of Concordat with the Presiding Bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province of America.

Akinola refused to take Holy Communion in company with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, both at the Primates Meeting at Dromantine in 2005 and at the Primates Meeting at Dar es Salaam in 2007 and, on the latter occasion, he issued a press release in order to publicise and explain his refusal and that of others associated with him.[30]

Akinola's name as chairman of the Global South Primates heads the list of signatories to a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury on 15 November 2005.[31] In this letter Europe is described as "a spiritual desert" and the actions of the Church of England in supporting the new civil partnerships laws are said to give "the appearance of evil".

Three of the bishops whose names appeared on the document at the Global South website (President Bishop Clive Handford of Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Primate of the West Indies Archbishop Drexel Gomez, and the Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone Bishop Gregory Venables) denied signing or approving the letter, and criticised it as "an act of impatience", "scandalous", and "megaphone diplomacy".[32]

Akinola was among the Global South leaders who opposed the consecration of Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop in the Anglican Communion. This group successfully pressed for the voluntary withdrawal of ECUSA's representatives from the Anglican Consultative Council's meeting in Nottingham in 2005, although representatives did attend in order to make a presentation supporting full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the Church, for which a vote of thanks was passed.

In August 2005 he denounced a statement of the Church of England's House of Bishops on civil partnerships and called for the disciplining of the Church of England and ECUSA on the grounds that the Church has not changed its position on same-sex partnerships. Since the Anglican Communion has historically been defined as those Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, whose archbishop is head of the Church of England and thus primus inter pares in the Anglican Communion, this led to speculation that Akinola was positioning himself as a possible international leader of a more conservative church than the present Anglican Communion, which would no longer recognise the authority or primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, he attended the subsequent Primates Meeting in Tanzania in 2007, although he absented himself from all the celebrations of Holy Communion during that meeting.

In May 2007 he flew to the United States to install Martyn Minns, a priest who had left the Episcopal Church of the United States, as a bishop of the Church of Nigeria. Akinola reportedly ignored requests not to do this from both the presiding bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, the timing of the requests and their intent, relative to Akinola's departure from Nigeria is a subject of contention.[33][34] The newly installed bishop indicated at a press conference that the intention was to replace the Episcopal Church of the USA (as an organ of the Anglican Communion) with a structure formed under auspices of the Church of Nigeria.[35]

Akinola was one of the principal founders of the Global Anglican Future Conference,[36] an international gathering of conservative and orthodox Anglican bishops[37] and declared the Church of Nigeria in full communion with the newly created Anglican Church in North America, which was founded to create an alternative ecclesiastical structure to the Episcopal Church of the United States within the Anglican Communion.[38]

In September 2006, the Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria, headed by Akinola, issued a Message to the Nation, taking up ten political controversies in Nigeria, among them a bill regarding same-sex relationships: "The Church commends the law-makers for their prompt reaction to outlaw same-sex relationships in Nigeria and calls for the bill to be passed since the idea expressed in the bill is the moral position of Nigerians regarding human sexuality."[39] The bill in question, as well as criminalising same-sex marriage, also proposed to criminalise "Registration of Gay Clubs, Societies and organizations" and "Publicity, procession and public show of same-sex amorous relationship through the electronic or print media physically, directly, indirectly or otherwise", on penalty of up to 5 years of imprisonment. The proposed legislation was formally challenged by the United States State Department as a breach of Nigeria's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Some western supporters justify the legislation on the basis that it does not support the stoning to death of homosexuals under the Sharia code.

In February 2006, Muslims rioting over the Danish newspaper cartoon controversy spread to Nigeria. Rioters targeted Christians and their property, resulting in a reported 43 deaths, 30 burned churches [40] and 250 destroyed shops and houses. Included among the victims was the family of one of Akinola's bishops, Ben Kwashi, the Bishop of Jos, who was out of the country at the time. Kwashi's home was broken into and his wife was tortured and sexually assaulted, resulting in her temporary blindness. The rioters also severely beat Kwashi's teenage son. In response to the rioting, Akinola issued a statement in his capacity as president of the Christian Association of Nigeria: "May we at this stage remind our Muslim brothers that they do not have the monopoly of violence in this nation."[41] Some criticized this statement as inciting Christian counter-riots against Muslim targets in Nigeria. (For example, Christian mobs in Onitsha retaliated against Muslims, killing 80 persons[42] and burned a Muslim district with 100 homes,[43] forcing hundreds of Muslims to flee the city.) American evangelical leader Rick Warren, however, wrote that Akinola's angry response "was no more characteristic than Nelson Mandela's apartheid-era statement that 'sooner or later this violence is going to spread to whites'".[44]