After the war South Africa administered the territory under a League of Nations mandate and Nelson Fogarty began to think of ways of making the Anglican presence more permanent by evangelising the local people.

George Tobias, a missionary priest, went to Ovamboland and established St Mary's Mission at Odibo on the Angola border.

This also led to divisions in the church, where some Anglicans wanted a separate diocese of Ovamboland, which would consist, in effect, of the "homeland" designated by the Odendaal Plan.

Ovambo nationalists who supported the "homelands" policy, led by a deacon, the Revd Petrus Kalangula, and encouraged by South African government agents, broke away to form the "Ovamboland Anglican Church".

David de Beer, the diocesan treasurer, was asked to speak to a student group at the University of the Witwatersrand (his alma mater) on Namibia.

A group in Walvis Bay, after hearing the broadcast, wrote to other contract workers all over the south of Namibia, suggesting that they should take "the boer Jannie de Wet" at his word, and all go home.

In 1972-02 twelve contract workers from Windhoek appeared in court, charged with being ringleaders of the strike and Bishop Colin Winter arranged for their legal defence.

At about the same time, four members of the congregation of St Luke's Church, Epinga, were shot dead by South African security forces after a Sunday service.

To ensure that episcopal ministry would still be provided a priest, Richard Wood was elected and consecrated as suffragan bishop, but was himself deported on 16 June 1975.

By that time James Kauluma, who had left Namibia 12 years earlier to study overseas, had been elected and consecrated as suffragan bishop to replace Richard Wood.