This project is a heritage mission and a tourism undertaking. We aim to recreate the essence of the life of Mary Slessor and to help Akwa Ibom people, Nigerians and visitors from foreign nations alike to relive her experience in the sense both of Tourism and humanitarianism.

Project Background

Mary Slessor Heritage Project leverages on the life and legacies of a Scottish Missionary, Mary Mitchel Slessor of the Church of Scotland, now Presbyterian Church, to Nigeria. She first set her foot in Nigeria in September 1876 and devoted her life to missions, self-sacrificing service and social work in communities that make up present day Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ebonyi and Abia states.

Mary Slessor was an evangelist, a teacher, an arbitrator, medical aid worker and relentless crusader for the preservation of human life and dignity. She famously stopped the killing of Twins and babies of multiple birth and the banishment of their mothers, the application of poisonous “Esere beans” on people accused of witchcraft, human sacrifice and other obnoxious customs among the Efiks, Ibibios, Igbos and other tribes. For the success of her works, she earned the title “The White Queen of Okoyong”, as she came to be known in Great Britain.

She enjoyed the unreserved friendship and confidence of the people she worked with and has much influence over them. She learnt and spoke their language, sang and wrote with the regions’ dialect fluently. Their food became her delicacies and dressed in their fashion. By sheer faith and courage, she overcame the threat posed by their wildlife. While at her remote station at Use Ikot Oku in present Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, she suffered a severe fever and died as a ressult on January 13, 1915. The remote station where she breathed her last has been chosen as the primary site for this project.