A Vision of Expansion and Growth

The Eastern West African Episcopal District of the AME Zion Church is a beacon of growth and hope in a country that has been infiltrated with numerous challenges including poverty, governmental corruption, increased transnational criminal activity, money-laundering, violent religious wars and illicit social concerns. According to the most recent statistics, Nigeria is a country of 150 Million People, 250 Languages and 36 States. One-third larger than Texas and the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria is situated on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. Its neighbors are Benin, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad. The lower area of the Niger River flows south through the western part of the country into the Gulf of Guinea. The economy is heavily dependent on the oil sector, which accounts for approximately 95 percent of the country’s total export revenues.

On April 21, 2007, Nigeria held presidential elections, marking the first time in Nigeria’s history that the country passed control from one civilian government to another. During the 16 months preceding the election, militant activity in the Niger Delta severely impacted Nigeria’s oil production potential. With challenges seeming insurmountable, Bishop Samuel Chukukanne Ekemam, Sr., has taken them on in a way that has spirited great expansion through efforts in reaching the hurting, lost, desolate, mistreated, needy and downtrodden. His proactive purposed-driven approach and passionate mandate to his officers have introduced and ignited new converts to Christ and to the church.

Bishop Ekemam calls the Church to reflect on church expansion and growth after the model of Bishop Clinton and the North Carolina Conference.

Of Bishop Clinton, the expansionist bishop, it was said - "In May, 1864, Bishop Clinton arrived in New Bern. Great was the joy of the people at being permitted to see a bishop of their own race, and especially a bishop who was willing to become all things to all men, that he might by all means gain some, ready to do whatever necessary."

Bishop Ekemam, through the purpose on his life and the zeal he embodies for the lost, is reaching out to this great Connectional Church with a compassionate message to proactively take on that expansionist mantle through church planting and new church development in Zion. Bishop Ekemam implores that cultivating this mission to “expand the work and organize new conferences”, is the disciplinary duty and constitutional mandate of the Church as identified in the 2004 Book of Discipline, Art. 242.7, p. 93, “To expand the work”. To this Presiding Prelate of the AME Zion Church, church growth should be Zion’s top priority. As a top priority for bishops and those aspiring to be bishops; membership recruitment, church planting and organization of new conferences must be the energetic focus. “Growth is possible and needed, even in the so-called dry areas of the United States and the World, if we put our mind to it”, voices the Bishop.

Through his leadership, Bishop Ekemam oversees his directive in Nigeria with a zeal for growth.


Born: June 27, 1942 in Owerri, Eastern Nigera to Chief J. A. and Catherne Ogoma Ekemam

Married: Mrs. Stella Adannaya Ekemam

Children: Seven children



Educated at the A. M. E. Zion Teachers College, Ndon Ebom Uyo, Nigeria. He earned an A. A. from Clinton Junior College, a B. A. from Livingstone College and the Master of Divinity from Yale University Divinity School; a M. A. in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and an Ed. D. from Columbia University. New York City.



Bishop Ekemam's pastorates include served as an Assistant Pastor of Okporowo, Rivers, 1964; Assistant Pastor, Doggetts Grove and Harris Circuit, Lincolnton, NC, 1969-70; Assistant Pastor, Varick Memorial, New Haven, Connecticut, 1970-71; Pastor, Evers Memorial, New Haven, Connecticut, 1971-73; Assistant Pastor, Mother Zion, New York, NY, 1973-1975; Pastor-Moderator, Sound View United Presbyterian, Bronx, NY, 1976-1980. Served as Presiding Elder of the Aba District, Central Nigeria Conference and as the Bishop's Deputy-Field Superintendent, 1980-88. Elected and consecrated as the 83rd Bishop, August 5, 1988 at the 43rd General Conference. Served as Bishop of Liberia and Nigeria in 1988-1992.



In 1991, Bishop Ekemam started and helped build the Hood-Speaks Theological Seminary in Nigeria, and organized the Lagos-West Nigeria Conference in 1991 and the Mainland Nigeria Conference in 1992.