Reverend Professor Ibiladé Nicodème ALAGBADA, Director of the publishing house Éditions CLÉ in Yaoundé, was called to the Lord on the morning of February 6, 2023.
Born in 1959 in Takon, Benin, Rev. ALAGBADA was President of the Protestant Methodist Church of Benin from 2010 to 2017. He has also served as Vice President of the Cadre de Concertation des Confessions Religieuses (CCCR), President of the Board of Directors of the Protestant University of Central Africa (UPAC) in Cameroon, and member of the National Coalition for Peace in Benin.
A professor of the Old Testament, he is the author of several religious and theological publications, including the following works dealing with the fight against corruption in the church and in society.
Le prophète Michée face à la corruption des classes dirigeantes (The Prophet Micah and the Corruption of the Ruling Classes), Globethics.net, 2013. In this book, Rev. Alagbada recounts the socio-political, economic, and religious contexts of the 8th century BC that fostered the outbreak of multifaceted corruption in the kingdom of Judah. The prophet Micah, faced with the corruption of these leaders and animated by the breath of God, filled with courage, strength and a spirit of judgment, presents himself as a paradigm of the responsibility or prophetic authority of the Church in the face of these deviances of his time.
Résister à la corruption. Réflexions théologiques sur Michée 3.1, 8 (Resisting Corruption. Theological Reflections on Micah 3.1, 8), Editions Croix du Salut, 2020. In this work, the author presents the prophet Micah as a prophet of our century in the matter of resistance to corruption, impunity and iniquity in all its forms. The resistance of the believer in the face of corruption is an expression of the credibility and audacity of the faith that animates and revives the breath of God that fills him with strength, courage and discernment. To resist corruption by faith is to demonstrate knowledge of the law and to defend it so that social justice and righteousness are respected.
In April 2018, Rev. Ibiladé Nicodème ALAGBADA became Director of Editions CLE, succeeding Rev. Dr. Simon Kossi Dossou. Editions CLÉ (Centre de Littérature Évangélique) was created in 1963 by the Protestant churches of several African countries, becoming the first publishing house in French-speaking Africa. Located in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Editions CLE’s mission is to produce books dealing with general literature, theology and anthropology.
“His death leaves a great void in the LivresHippo consortium, the platform of evangelical publishers in French-speaking Africa,” says Georges Late, manager of Editions PBA in Benin.
“His death leaves a great void in the LivresHippo consortium, the platform of evangelical publishers in French-speaking Africa,” says Georges Late, manager of Editions PBA in Benin.
LivresHippo is a co-publishing platform in which Editions CLÉ in Yaoundé, Editions PBA (Presses Bibliques Africaines) in Benin, and CPE (Centre de Publications Évangélique) in Côte d’Ivoire collaborate to produce French-language reference books written by African authors. This was one of the many projects Rev. Alagbada was working on in the days before his death.
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