Nigeria Completes Africa's First Sign Language Bible

For the first time ever, deaf communities across Africa can read the Bible in their own language. The Bible Society of Nigeria has completed Africa's first Sign Language Bible, a groundbreaking achievement that places the nation alongside only the United States worldwide.

Pastor Samuel Sanusi, the society's General Secretary, announced that translators are now working on the full New Testament in Nigerian Sign Language. The Book of Matthew is already complete, giving deaf readers their first direct access to the gospels without relying on interpreters.

The project has been years in the making. Since opening a dedicated translation center in 2017, the society has produced 222 Chronological Bible Stories in sign language. The work hasn't been cheap, costing over 105 million naira (about $68,000) in the past year alone, but the team is committed to completing the entire Bible within 20 years.

Patrick Ohakawa, who chairs the 60th Anniversary Planning Committee, calls this milestone a celebration of faith and resilience. Despite decades of challenges, the society has continued serving Nigeria's spiritual and cultural life.

The Ripple Effect goes far beyond religious access. This translation preserves Nigerian Sign Language itself, documenting and standardizing signs for future generations. Pastor Sanusi emphasized this point while addressing recent federal policies that removed indigenous languages from school instruction. "The death of a language is the death of a culture and the people," he warned.

Nigeria is home to an estimated 3.5 million deaf people, many of whom have never had direct access to religious texts in their native language. Now, they can engage with scripture the same way hearing Nigerians read it in Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and hundreds of other local languages.

The society is celebrating this achievement throughout February with events including a Bible exhibition featuring rare handwritten texts and a 15.4 kilogram Legacy Bible written in five Nigerian languages. Former President Goodluck Jonathan will chair the Founder's Day event, and the society will commission a second studio dedicated specifically to deaf Bible translation.

This historic project proves that real inclusion means going beyond accommodation to create full access in the languages communities actually use.