DON'T FORGET MARY SLESSOR,STOPPED THE KILLING OF TWINS IN NIGERIA.

                                                                                                        There was these argument on who abolished the killing of twins,after watching and re-watching one early 2000 Nigerian movie titled ''Amadioha'',featuring Saint Obi and Regina Askia.Some visitors said the film is the history on how twins were abolished while others had their own cooked up history story that can blow your mind.I told them it was Mary Slessor and there were missed response to my theory about Slessor.Then i began a quest to read any book/search on the net to help me get the real facts of who actually helped to abolish twins.During my research,i realized over time,the Nigerian history is not been taken seriously at all,so here are my findings.Mary Mitchell Slessor was born December 1848 in Gilcomstom,Aberdeed,Scotland in a poor working class family.She was the second of seven children of Robert and Mary Slessor.Her father was a shoemaker by trade.Slessor was 27 when she heard that David Livingstone,a famous missionary and explorer had died,and because she admired the explorer so much,and she is passionate about being a missionary,she decided to apply to the United Presbytarian  Church Foreign Mission Board,so that she can be trained to become a missionary.She recieved her training in Edinburgh and immediately set sail in the S.S Ethiopia on 5 August 1876 and arrived in West Africa just over a month later.Slessor who was 28years old when she arrived Nigeria was described to have red hair,blue eyes and she was first assigned to the Calabar region in the land of Efik.She was warned thar the Efik people believed in Superstitions in relation to women giving birth to twins.Slessor lived in the missiossionary compound for 3 years,working first in the missions in old town and creek town.She wanted to go deeper into Calabar,but she contracted malaria and was forced to return to Scotland to recover.She left Calabar for Dundee in 1879,and after 16 months in Scotland,Slessor returned to Calabar,but not to the same compound.The birth of twins was considered a particularly evil curse.Natives feared that the father of one of the infants was an evil spirit,and that the mother had been guilty of a great sin.Unable to determine which twin was fathered by the evil spirit,the natives often abandon the both babies in the bush.Slessor adopted every child she found abandoned,and sent out twins missioners to find,protect and care for them at the mission house.Slessor once saved a pair of twins,a boy and a girl,but the boy did not survive.Slessor took the girl as her daughter and called her JanieSlessor helped heal the sick and stopped the practice of determining guilt by making the suspects drink poison.Slessor was a driving force behind the establishment of the Hope Waddell Training Institute in Calabar,which provided practical vocational training to Efiks.The superstitious threat against twins was not only in Calabar,but also pread to a town Arochukwu on the far west of Calabar.Both Calabar and Arochukwu share some common cultures and they are in southeastern Nigeria,in Cross River state and Abia state.In August 1888,Slessor traveled north to Okoyong,an area where previous male missionaries had been killed.For 15 years,Slessor lived with the Okoyong Egik people,and she lived a very simple life in a traditional house with Efiks,and she can speak their language..Slessor who is popularly known as the ''White Queen of Okoyongs'',did not forcus on evangelism but rather on settling disputes,encouraging trade,establishing social changes and introducing western education.In 1892,Slessor became Vice Consul in Okoyong,presiding over the native court.In 1905 she was named Vice President of Ikot Obong nnative court.In 1913 she was awarded the order of St John of Jerusalem.Slessor suffered from malaria fever,in which the fever eventually weakened her to the point where she could no longer walk long distance in the rain forest,but had to be pushed along in a hand cart.While at her remote station near Use Ikot Oku,she suffered a particular severe fever that killed her.Slessor died on 13 January 1915.Her body was transported down the Cross River to Duke Town for the colonial equivalent of a state funeral.Even sir Frederick Lugard,telegraphed his ''Deepest regret'' from Lagos and published a warm tribute in the Government Gazette.More photos below.