Baptist Academy was founded in 1855 by a Baptist Missionary, J.M Harden, who started a School shortly after his arrival in Nigeria on a piece of land situated at 24 24A Broad Street, Lagos purchased from King Dosumu of Lagosto house the duo of First Baptist Church, Broad Street Lagos and Baptist Academy. Baptist Academy, whose motto is Deo Duce (God Or Leader) is an evidence of life and growth from little beginnning, On February 9, 1957, the school moved from 24A Broad Street Lagos to Mile7, Ikorodu Road, Yaba, its present location. The founding fathers of Baptist Academy sought to build a school that guides her students in paths of coordinated studies, that influences right thought for acceptable and honourable conduct, teaches her students their own rights and the rights of others and makes her students have respect for law and order both of government and of God. More importantly, it was the dream of the founders to have a school that will reveal the beauty, glory, power and majesty of the life of Jesus Christ and of an individual life that is totally transformed through faith in His atoning death. The founders desired that Baptist Academy would always seek to prepare her students not only for life on earth but also for life beyond the portals of life. Baptist Academy was taken over by the Lagos State Government, Nigeria, in 1979, but was returned in 2001, by the Lagos Government under the leadership of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu to the Baptist Mission like other schools returned to their original owners.