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IN MEMORIAM
Elizabeth [dang Njang
ELIZABETH IDANG NJANG 1928—1983
Elizabeth Idang Njang was born on 30 July 1928 in a village near Calabar in Nigeria. Having lost her parents at a tender age, she was raised by relatives and became a dedicated member of the Church of Christ. Her first marriage, to a man who developed a serious drinking problem, was doomed to failure. However, a son born of this union eventually embraced the Bahá’í Faith, serving as a Local Spiritual Assembly secretary before his death in the Nigerian civil war.
In 1956 Mrs. Njang met her future husband, Mr. O. E. Njang, who is at present a member of the Auxiliary Board in Nigeria. They were both attending a ceremony at which palm wine, the traditional alcoholic beverage, was being served. She noticed that he alone was abstaining from the drink. Her curiosity about the Faith was aroused as she heard him telling others about Bahá’u’lláh. She began to attend deepening sessions conducted by Mr. Njang 'and three other friends. Within a year she embraced the Faith and returned to her former church where she audaciously
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announced to the congregation that Christ had returned in the Glory of the Father. This event, while earning her an immediate expulsion from the church, marked the beginning of a quarter century of dedicated service to the Bahá’í Cause.
In 1958 Mrs. Njang.was appointed a fulltime teacher by the then National Spiritual Assembly of North West Africa and in the same year she and her husband brought the Message of Bahá’u’lláh to the Ejagham tribe in southeastern Nigeria. Finally, at the Annual Convention in Victoria, Western Cameroon, in 1960, she so impressed the delegates with her devotion and dynamism that the attending Hands of the Cause of God referred to her as ‘the Táhirih of Nigeria’.
She was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of West Central Africa in 1967. Prior to this she had served as chairman of the National Teaching Committee of the Bahá’ís of Nigeria and as Local Spiritual Assembly chairman for many years. In 1979 she organized a Bahá’í women’s conference in the Calabar-Mamfe area which was attended by more than one hundred Bahá’í women.
Eventually Mrs. Njang decided to return to her home village to engage in farming to help feed her orphaned grandchildren and to deepen three new Local Spiritual Assemblies in the area. Finally, on 17 March 1983, she passed away after a brief illness and was laid to rest in the presence of approximately one hundred of the friends.
In a country where the ministry is frequently viewed as a means of attaining material enrichment, Mrs. Njang was often ridiculed for being a ‘woman pastor’ of a ‘church’ which did not remunerate its workers. She would reply to such derision by explaining that she and her husband were in reality the wealthy ones; although perhaps not in a material sense. On a continent where women are only beginning to develop their latent potentialities she is remembered as an outstanding example for the Bahá’í women of Africa, and elsewhere, to emulate.
On learning of Mrs. Njang’s death the Universal House of Justice sent the following cable to the National Spiritual Assembly of Nigeria on 28 March 1983:
DEEPLY GRIEVED PASSING DEVOTED HAND
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MAID BAHAULLAH ELIZABETH IDANG NJANG. HER SPIRIT DEDICATION HER ACTIVE SERVICES FAITH WORTHY EMULA'I’ION HER COWORKERS AND RISING GENERATION PROMOTERS GODS HOLY CAUSE. CONVEY RELATIVES LOVING SYMPATHY. ASSURE FERVENT PRAYERS HOLY SHRINES PROGRESS HER SOUL ABHA KINGDOM.
