Catholics in Nigeria, after the failed efforts that ended in early 19^th century, count their membership from liberated slaves from Brazil. The Society of African Missions (SMA) based in Dahomey (Republic of Benin) discovered that a Catholic community was already in Lagos, early in the 1860s under the supervision of a catechist named "Padre Antonio". In 1868 the SMA, led by Francesco Borghero, arrived Lagos and the evangelisation of the area covered today by five provinces - Lagos, Benin, Ibadan, Jos and Kaduna - was initiated. The Vicariate Apostolic of the Bight of Benin was created in 1883 and was under Fr. J. B. Chausse. Our Lady of Apostles Sisters (OLA) co-operated in this mission. They had communities in Lagos and Abeokuta by 1873.

The Vicariate Apostolic of the Upper Niger was created in 1884 with its centre first in Lokoja and later in Asaba under the very popular Fr. Carlo Zappa who had minor seminarians by 1911. The strong resistance of the West Niger Igbo to foreign religion and fashion was reduced by British military operation. From this area Paul Emechete emerged as the "first modern priest in the Gulf of Guinea" in 1920. This development was in line with SMA founder, Marion Brésillac’s insistence on building local community and local clergy. The church, which reached Abeokuta and Ibadan in the 1890s, had already a minor seminary established in Ibadan by 1908. The first three Yoruba priests ordained in 1929, Julius Adewuyi, Peter Oni, and Lawrence Layode were trained in neighbouring Dahomey at the St Gall major seminary, Ouidah.

As happened with the Protestant mission, the move to the north was halted by British order. However, in 1907 the intrepid Zappa was able to make the 300-mile leap from Asaba to establish the only catholic station in the north up to the 1930s in Shendam. Westwards, the historic Benin was administered from Sapele, got its own bishop in 1929 (Thomas Broderick) who was resident in Asaba, and moved to Benin in 1939. Issele-Uku diocese was created in 1973 to take care of the West-Niger Igbo. These were the initial steps that later led to the formation of the three ecclesiastical provinces of Lagos, Ibadan and Benin.

If Zappa preferred raising Christian communities and did not emphasise education, though he was compelled to do so later, the school in the service of evangelisation became the trademark of the Holy Ghost Fathers [Spiritans] who arrived Onitsha in December 1885 led by Fr. Lutz. The Apostolic prefecture of the Lower Niger was created in 1889. Fr. Léon Lejeune was the architect of the school for evangelisation, and the indefatigable Bishop Joseph Shanahan carried this to its ultimate conclusion leading to massive conversions among the Igbo to Catholicism. The initial evangelisation in the Lower Niger consisted of buying back slaves, instruction to create Christian community and medicare. Lutz and later the Sisters of Cluny were noted for medicare.

When Shanahan took over from Lejeune as prefect in 1905 he capitalised on the Igbo love for education and his knowledge of their religion to evangelise. "If we go from town to town talking about God we know from experience that much of our efforts brings no result. But no one is opposed to schools". This sole focus on schools even to the point of excluding the building of churches drove a wedge between original preoccupation of French Spiritans to build Christian communities and the new drive to make converts through the schools. The matter became clear during the school take-over in 1970.

In his great treks inland Shanahan not only established schools but also saw the need for more agents of evangelisation. St Patrick’s Society (Kiltegan) was founded in 1932 for this particular mission. The Prefecture of Calabar was created in 1934 and confided to them. In this way the catholic foothold in Calabar made in 1903 after the destruction of the Long Juju (Arochukwu oracle) in 1901 became firm. As from 1930 Shanahan turned his attention to expand towards the north resulting in the prefecture of the Benue (present day Makurdi diocese). The Holy Rosary Sisters (founded in Kileshandra in 1924) joined the mission for the education of women. So also were the Medical Missionaries of Mary founded by a lay missionary Mary Martin. Later Sr. Magdalene Walker started the foundation that came to be known as the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus. The latter two congregations were for the education of the girls in Calabar and adjoining areas.

Shanahan was extremely cautious about setting up seminaries compared to the SMA in Western Nigeria. The first seminary of Igbariam was opened in 1924, and the first ordination of a priest of the Lower Niger (John Cross Anyogu) was in 1930. One must also note the impact of policy differences and even competition between the Spiritans and SMA. This may have led to lost opportunities for setting up common projects like common major seminaries. From these initial efforts in the Lower Niger there emerged the three ecclesiastical provinces of Onitsha, Owerri, and Calabar.

This late 19^th century and early 20^th century evangelisation in Nigeria initially attracted slaves, outcasts, the poor, the disabled and all the marginalised. It is a statement on the Christian missionary orientation to outcasts and underprivileged. This alienated the greater number of the native peoples and they refused to become members. Nonetheless, prominent people like John Okenla, Balogun of Abeokuta and Chief Idigo of Aguleri were converted. Catechists, catechist-teachers and lay people played immense role in the spread of the faith during this period. Both they and the foreign missionaries showed heroic faith and endured trials to help the church establish in southern Nigeria.

The evangelisation of Northern Nigeria was more difficult because of the implantation of Islam and its system of government, the initial mistakes of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), its link to colonial ambitions in the north, and the application of the Lugard exclusion from preaching to Moslems. Catholic presence was recorded in the north in the 17^th/18^th century in Gobir (Sokoto) and Bornu. The kingdom of Kororofa was said to have had well nigh 100,000 Christians and a sixty-bed hospital built by a priest. Contact was through the caravan route linking Bornu/Sokoto and Tripoli. And the Emirs were reported to have shown hospitality to the priests involved in this presence. Attempts by the SMA to establish in Lokoja in 1884 did not yield lasting fruit, despite the fact that a Christian enclave was established with 30 purchased slaves and a house for the nuns (Our Lady of Apostles) who worked alongside the SMA. Reports indicate that the CMS who preceded the Catholics showed hospitality by allowing Catholics to use their church for worship. The Holy Ghost Fathers in their struggle to contain Islam and slavery followed the system of Christian village as a method of evangelisation establishing one in Dekina but were forced through frustrations to withdraw in 1904.

From the foothold established in Shendam in 1907 the prefecture of the immense area North of the river Benue was established in 1911, but the centre was relocated to Jos. Further SMA forays into missions in the North led to the creation of the prefectures of Jos and Kaduna in 1934. Shanahan and his successor Heerey had been joined by German Holy Ghost Fathers who worked along the Benue region as far as Yola; this led to the creation of the prefecture of the Benue in 1934 with Makurdi as headquarters. Other missionary groups that arrived from the 1930s to the time of political independence in 1960 include the Augustinians (Adamawa region) and Dominicans (Sokoto). One must not forget the impact of southern Christians on Catholic presence in the North. These constituted about 50% of Catholics before the civil war. These and other lay assistants made significant contributions to the evangelisation of the north. It is remarkable that Catholics, firmly united around the clergy and having liturgy in the same language before Vatican II, did not break up along ethnic lines for their worship, as was the case with Anglicans and other Protestant groups.

The first native priests from the north, Aloysius Makozi and Joseph Ohieku were ordained in 1961. From these difficult beginnings there are now three ecclesiastical provinces in Northern Nigeria - Kaduna, Jos, and Abuja.

Today there are 49 dioceses and 9 provinces in Nigeria. The emergence of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria as an organ of unity of the local churches makes concrete the remarkable co-operation that existed among the bishops of Nigeria before 1950 when a local hierarchy was established. Institutions like the Catholic Secretariat, the regional Major Seminaries, the National Missionary Seminary of St Paul, and the Catholic Institute of West Africa are all aspects of strengthening the "catholicity of the undivided church" and testify to the maturity of the Nigerian church. The late Dominic Ekandem was in 1954 ordained the first bishop in Anglophone West Africa and made a Cardinal in 1976. And in 1985 Francis Cardinal Arinze President of the Secretariat of Christian Unity became the second Nigerian cardinal.