Column
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| By C. Don Adinuba |
IN the 1980s most television watchers in old Anambra State were struck by the engaging perspectives of Father (as he was then called) Obiora Ike on the two philosophical programmes of the two television channels in Enugu then, the Nigerian Television Authority Channel 8 and the Anambra Broadcasting Service Television (ABS TV). Fr Obiora was the newest guest on the programmes, but his contributions were particularly arresting. It was self evident he was a prodigious intellect; he was at home with theology as he was with philosophy and languages. In no time, he became a professor at 37 years and was elevated to the status of Papal Chamberlain. He speaks nine languages fluently, including Hausa, Arabic, Latin, Greek, Latin and German as well as French. He is a member of the European Academy of Science and Arts as well as New York Academy of Science and Arts. He has published some 117 articles in learned journals in five languages. In addition, he has certificates in journalism and economics from British universities, apart from two doctorial, three masters and two bachelor’s degrees obtained from institutions in Italy, Germany and Austria.
In 2002 or 2003, I attended a mass at Holy Ghost Cathedral in Enugu to mark the 80th birthday of Anthony Aniagolu, a highly respected retired Supreme Court justice, where Ike delivered the homily. It was an exercise in biblical exegesis which Kayode Eso, an outstanding jurist and non-Catholic, described as most penetrating. Monsignor Ike delivered it in such a way that even congregation members who could not be regarded as intellectuals understood it very well and joined the endless interruptions of the homily with applause. A middle aged women sitting by my side could not suppress her emotions as she kept on screaming “nwa Ezeagu!”, that is, “a worthy ambassador of the Ezeagu community” in Enugu State. Though the homily was fairly long, no one wanted it to end. When it did end, the audience started to demand “Continue! Continue! Encore!” they momentarily forgot they were at a Catholic mass known for solemnity.
I immediately saw a dramatization of the point Bishop Hilary Okeke of Nnewi Diocese, himself a brilliant academic, made in his first pastoral letter in 2002 when he stated that he would continue to play the role of a teacher in his new role as bishop because every priest is by definition a teacher. Christ admonished his apostles to go the world and teach the gospel (Matthew 28:16). Admonition and teaching are two essential parts of the apostles’ ministry (cf: Colossians 1:28).
For some reason, throughout these years my path and Msgr Ike’s did not cross till about five years ago at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos when the senior priest came for the public presentation of a series of multidisciplinary books by Peter Alex Egom, better known in the Nigerian media as Ashikiwe Adione-Egom, the motor park economist, a sobriquet he adopted in his eccentric days. It was no surprise that Egom and Monsignor Ike had struck up a relationship so deep that the erstwhile eccentric economist had become a director of the Umuchinemerem Ltd, the flourishing microfinance bank in Enugu founded by the Catholic multitalented priest. They were intellectual and spiritual soul mates. Egom, who once toyed with Pentecostalism and even became a pastor, had returned fully to the Catholic Church and attended the mass everyday for years before he died of prostate cancer in Lagos in March, 2013. He was an alumnus of Cambridge University.
Not long after the book launch, I found myself in Enugu on a Sunday. Though lodged in a hotel in New Haven, I made efforts to worship at the church in the Federal Housing Estate in Nike where Ike was the pastor or parish priest. As expected, it was a rewarding liturgical experience. But more important was the lunch in his residence, even though he did not know I was coming. I did not see any domestic aides, suggesting that he may have prepared the meal himself and was perhaps carrying out the domestic chores personally in this fairly expansive house. Though he does not eat food with salt, he quickly prepared my own meal with salt and served me diligently. I savoured it all! How many times does one get a person older in age in Africa and highly accomplished by any standard in the world to serve one?
Ike is not just a parish priest. He was then the vicar general, that is, the second in command in the whole of the Catholic Diocese of Enugu. He is also the leader of the highly influential Catholic Institute for Development, Justice, Peace and CARITAS (CIDJAP), a role which casts him in the mould of a liberation theologian in his own right. A liberation priest is in this context a person who is in practical terms fighting social and economic injustices against mostly the marginalized in society in the firm belief that the struggle is consistent with the spirit and letter of the gospels. In other words, if Christ were to appear now in a typical third world setting marked by poverty, hunger, malnutrition, corruption, abuse of power and oppression of the poor, would he stay aloof or be on the side of the establishment or lead the struggle for a more humane system?
As Ike and I were eating and chatting over some philosophical issues, especially the influence of the preeminent German philosopher Nietzsche on American higher education, I quickly remembered an account Fr Raymond Arazu, another exceptionally brilliant theologian and philosopher, gave on his 56th birthday in November 1995 which also marked the 29th anniversary of his priestly ordination. It was a moving testimony about what is now popularly called servant leadership involving the late bishop of Enugu Diocese, Reverend Michael Eneja. Eneja was already by April 1966 the parish priest of Fegge in Onitsha where Arazu, a deacon about to be ordained a priest, was staying; Eneja had some priests and domestic servants under him. Yet, on the eve of Arazu’s ordination, he personally carried a bucket of water on his head in the dead of the night from the ground floor to the would-be priest in his room which was on the third floor. In a very low tone so that he would not attract the attention of others or disturb the peace of those already asleep, the parish priest explained that he did so because the tap might not run in the morning when Arazu would be preparing for his ordination!
“I stood speechless”, Arazu was to write 29 years later. “In God’s presence, that was ‘priesthood’ presented to me in concrete terms, as a model, the night before my ordination. I usually do not see visions. My lessons are in real life situations. I wish I could become something like that!”
Msgr Ike is in the category of servant leaders like the late Bishop Eneja whose canonization is just a matter of time. He is an authentic minister of the gospel in the order of Melchezedec, a polyvalent scholar par excellence, an enthusiastic campaigner for a better Nigerian society, a dedicated worker for the poor and the oppressed, a priest with stupendous energy and a wonderful social mobiliser. On his 60th birthday on April 7, I say to a great friend “ad multus annos”.
Adinuba is head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting in Lagos.
— Apr 18, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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