DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAITY

The People of God that forms a particular diocese is canonically divided into the Clergy, the Religious, and the Laity. Thus having outlined a history of the development of the clergy and the Religious, I must now explore the development of the Laity in the diocese of Lokoja since 1955. What I have done above concerns only the numerical strength of the Clergy and the Religious, without suggesting the qualities of those institutions, a task I believe is both complex and difficult, and certainly beyond the scope of this paper. It then means that I will follow the sample pattern as the above here.
The lack of reliable statistical data in Nigeria also adversely affects the church. It is not only difficult, but impossible to be anywhere sure of the number of lay members of the church in Lokoja diocese, or any Nigerian church for that matter, both at the birth of the diocese and now. According to E.P.T. Crampton (1975, pg 156), the Catholic population of Lokoja Diocese between July 1963 and June 1965 (quoting from the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria’s official directory of 1967) was 21, 791. This included the section of the diocese that later became Idah Diocese. On the other hand, the Missionary Society of St. Paul Gwagwalada in its 2004 Catholic Diary and Directory put the Catholic population of Lokoja Diocese at 36,507 and that of Idah Diocese at 89,112. How reliable these figures are is debatable.

The best approach then will be to use certain indices that may be suggestive of the numerical growth of the church in Lokoja diocese. I am thinking of indices such as the numerical strength of the clergy and the Religious that I have sketched above in addition to the number of parishes and educational institutions that have emerged since the inception of the prefecture of Kabba in 1995.