Daily Trust

The road to Aliade was not macadamized; it was long and dusty, forsaken and tough, and a trip along it not unlike hell on earth; but neither dust nor distance could dissuade the determined VIP entourage. Those were the days when it was recognized, encouraged and rewarded by a leadership that had it.

The year was 1962, and a son of the North, a student in Mount St. Michael Secondary School in Aliade in Benue Province, had done the region proud by coming out tops in the final secondary school examinations in the whole of West Africa. Accompanied by his ministers, the Sardauna himself decided to undertake the grueling 500-kilometre journey from Kaduna to Aliade in Benue Province in person to congratulate the boy. And it was in order that this should be done.

The boy, whose name is John Onaiyekan, had broken all records, obtaining the highest overall score in the sub-region and the highest in every individual subject taken. And now, with the world at his feet, a choice of jobs just for the asking or scholarship to any corner of the world and the Sardauna himself for a visiting patron-saint, little John could have become whatever he wanted to be in post-independence Northern Nigeria; but this boy had already made his choice: he turned his back on this material world just as he was on the verge of conquering it--he chose priesthood. And thereafter, little John dedicated all his physical strength and intellectual power to the cause of God.

Born January 29, 1914 in Kabba, Kogi State, John Onaiyekan was ordained priest on August 3, 1969; and from the year of his ordination to 1973, he was variously a teacher, a vice rector, a rector and Licentiate of Sacred Scripture; and in 1976 he received his doctorate degree in divinity.
And he saw service at all levels of the priesthood. In 1980, he was appointed to the Pontifical International Theological Commission for a five year term by Pope John Paul II, whose strategy and method he would later adopt in his own outreach to Muslims in this country. He also served on the International Catholic-Methodist Dialogue Commission. He was ordained bishop on Jan 6, 1983, and became president of the Catholic Bishop Conference of Nigeria in 2000. In 2007 he became president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN.

Here is a man before whom many must feel little and belittled; for, there is nothing nobler and more difficult in human conduct than to have the power and use it responsibly, to have the power to cause trouble but to refuse to do so, or to be hurt and to forgive. Onaiyekan has eschewed the urge—and no, doubt, the urging—to engage in holy demagoguery to demonize the other in order to attain personal popularity with the flock, and achieve temporary, partisan-sectarian advantage.

According to CAN Secretary General Engr. Samuel Salifu, Onaiyekan is a peaceful person who does not believe in spitting fire when presenting Christian issues. And, one might add, it was precisely because of this that he was able, perhaps more than any CAN president before and probably even after him, to bridge the unnecessary, violent rift created between Christians and Muslims in the country today.

The truth is that anyone can be a spitfire, because doing so is not difficult; all it needs is ability to misuse language.  But fire-spitting doesn’t achieve anything except a little, temporary, cheap popularity, the spitting of more fire; and, after that, instead of a little more light, there is a lot more heat—and the more difficult and intractable the crisis becomes.

The tragedy of Nigerian Muslims and Christians is that they don’t really have that many men of God; what they have are only so many men of Mosque and men of Church. Whenever religion is invoked, the mood becomes one of war rather than that of peace, of fragmentation instead of fellowship; and religious leaders create parties of men instead of inculcating piety in them, they engender confrontation instead of fostering cooperation among men. Instead of teaching their followers to see opportunities in their encounters with the Other, they teach them to see only threats. And they nurture people who can kill the in the Name of God but cannot live according to the dictates of His religion.

In Nigeria it is as if the Crusades are being fought all over again. Christians behave as if they have drunk out of the devil’s Goblet of Hatred instead of the Lamb’s Cup of Christian Love. Muslims appear as if they have launched a jihad whose goal they don’t understand, against an enemy they don’t even know, and on behalf of a religion they don’t represent.

This Archbishop is one Christian leader who isn’t afraid of peace or forgiveness and can offer both with the confidence and spirit he expects to receive them. He is a true Christian warrior who has eschewed fire-spitting and is genuinely interested in establishing enduring peace between faiths and true fellowship among all peoples. No doubt, among the very few leaders who must be counted as true men of God by the common consent of people of all creed and sectarian persuasions is Archbishop John Onaiyekan.

Muslims in Nigeria see parallels between the Pontiff and the Prelate:  Onaiyekan’s presidency of CAN was in many ways like the Pontificate of His Holiness Pope John Paul II. They were times of energetic defence of Christian interests without giving unnecessary offence to non-Christians.
His Holiness Pope John Paul II showed the world by how much example was better than precept.  The Pontiff had just finished a successful outing but it was no time for self-congratulation; there was one act of the highest nobility that remained for him.

He broke off from his official engagements; and, with heavy steps and misty eyes, he went into the prison cell of his Muslim Turkish attempted killer, pulled a chair and sat facing him, broke into that genuinely sweet, fatherly trademark smile of his, bowed his head to his failed assassin and forgave him.

And then he rose calmly and triumphantly left, with nothing in the world left for him to prove or conquer.  In the face of the greatness of this act the world itself must, no doubt, have felt so little and utterly dwarfed. A thousand years of preaching homilies on the Catholic ethic would not have brought home the reality of the Christian concept of the forgiveness of sinners half as eloquently or as unforgettably as that single, almost unbelievable, act of the Pontiff. No religious person in the world will have failed to notice it.

Certainly, if the Pontiff had lived longer probably the world would have witnessed unprecedented cooperation between Islam and Christendom in the effort to fight secularism, moral decadence and injustice throughout the world. And in the same token, if Onaiyekan’s presidency has lasted longer, Christians and Muslims in Nigeria will have finally set firmly on the path towards genuine reconciliation and healing.

And as he handed over CAN’s presidency to his successor, his counsel to the flock with regard to living with non-Christians was Romans’ harmonious living:  “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peacefully with all men.”  And with his brethren, it was Ephesians’ ecumenical fellowship: “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”
Surely, if healing the Christian-Muslim rift is the one of more important items on the agenda of a CAN president—and if it is not, it should be—then Archbishop Onaiyekan is arguably the most successful president of the Christian body. Without the understanding, respect and dialogue pioneered by Onaiyekan, which must be reciprocated, it is to be feared that someone removed from the scene of the crisis and informed only by media reports that are sometimes part of the problem may lead us into a whirl pool of religious disaster.

That is why today the challenge on the shoulders of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Pentecostal Federation of Nigeria and the new CAN president, is a heavy one, indeed, especially in view of the fact that at times of crises in the past, some of the most unhelpful comments have issued from Pentecostal pulpits, unfortunately, including his own. While wishing Pastor Oritsejafor every success, it is to be hoped that he will take a leaf out of the Book of John Onaiyekan.