The Shitta-Bey Mosque launched on 4 July 1894, at a ceremony presided over by the Governor of Lagos, Sir Gilbert Carter. Others in attendance included Oba Oyekan I, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Abdullah Quilliam (who represented Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire), and prominent Lagosian Christians such as James Pinson Labulo Davies, John Otunba Payne, and Richard Beale Blaize. Quilliam brought a letter accredited to the Sultan of Turkey asking Lagos Muslims to embrace Western education.[16]