As a pupil of Madonna Primary School now known as Handmaids International Catholic School, two indigenous names regularly featured in our indoctrinated form of learning, these names I recall we would either occasionally hear in our then dreary Friday Morning Assembly, where we would be taught a new Catholic hymn and receive some new form of religious instruction under the blazing Friday Sun, which perhaps realizing that it was our last day at school for that week would most times come out with scorching fury. The woes would be yours, if you exhibited some sort of discomfort or attempted in some form of escapism to distract yourself or others! You would immediately be fingered out and given some form of corporal punishment, in addition to this, one may also have been baptized with some worldly appellations such as “Devil” or “Stubborn goat”.
Away from my nostalgic drifting into the past, the two indigenous names were the then Archbishop of Lagos and later Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie who visited the school in 1991 and addressed us as pupils. The second name then was Francis Cardinal Arinze, who we were told was a big servant of God in hallowed Rome, I cannot recall him visiting our school but we could see how most of our teachers spoke about him in deep admiration.
Fast forward to 2012, sometime in November and I had joined a serving senator in attending an event held in honour of the Eziowelle born Cardinal. I think it was a double barreled celebration, marking his 80th birthday and his 54th year of ordination as a priest. Speaker after speaker at the event extolled Cardinal Arinze for a number of reasons; his humane persona, his immense devotion to the spread of Christianity and Catholicism, and his fondness for prayer, I recall one of the priests who spoke stated that Cardinal Arinze could avidly point out the time in minutes it took from one point within a number of seminaries to another point owing to his practice of taking walks while praying.
Cardinal Arinze was born on the 1st of November 1932 in Eziowelle which is situated in Idemili North of Anambra State. Like many families then, Cardinal Arinze who’s real name is Anizoba was born to parents who were worshippers of the pantheon of gods and go-betweens seen as the vicarious links to Chukwu, the Igbo depiction of the Supreme Being as seen in a number of Monotheist religions such as Judaism and from which Christianity and Islam did take their roots from. Despite this, they took advantage of the opportunity to learn of the ways of the colonizers by sending Cardinal Arinze to school which was then run by the missionaries. At age 9, Cardinal Arinze was baptized taking the name of Francis, he eventually was to complete his primary education in Dunukofia and was noted for his scholarly attitude.
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His educational trajectory saw him attending the junior seminary in Nnewi and then onwards to the Bigard Memorial Seminary where he assiduously undertook his studies while preparing to answer the call into priesthood. However the road to his becoming a priest was indeed fraught with a sort of obstacle which was obtaining his parents blessings to become a celibate. Even in present times, I have heard stories of how many families have vehemently objected to the idea of one of their own taking the vows of Celibacy and Obedience, one can then imagine how such an idea would have sounded to Cardinal Arinze’s parents who must have wondered what sort of priesthood would have their son become an “okokporo”(Igbo word for Bachelor) without siring any children to carry the family name. Cardinal Arinze’s father was said to have even called the bluff of the Catholic missionaries who had threatened to revoke the scholarship of Cardinal Arinze’s other siblings who were then in missionary schools by telling them that he needed more hands in his farm. The impasse would later be resolved and Cardinal Arinze would begin his journey unto the Vatican with a Bachelors Degree in Theology in 1957, masters degree in 1959 and the doctorate degree in 1960.
Returning to Nigeria in 1961, Cardinal Arinze was to lecture on philosophy in the same Bigard Memorial and then became Secretary for Education in Enugu.
By 1965, he had become co-adjutor Bishop of Onitsha and following the death of Archbishop Charles Heerey, Cardinal Arinze was appointed as Archbishop of Onitsha in June 1967.
Those conversant with the history of Nigeria will note that Cardinal Arinze obtained his Bishopric while the nation was on the fringe of fighting its civil war, matter of fact within days of his ascension to the seat of Archbishop, Lagos would order troops into Garkem in the three year bloodbath which was aimed at keeping the country one.
Under the madness and the din of warfare, Cardinal Arinze and his fellow Christians waged their own war, it was unlike Gowon and Ojukwu’s war of superiority and for territory, Cardinal Arinze’s war was like the overlying theme of Mike Deakin’s Tom Grattan’s war; that of strength, courage, duty and lastly the need to rekindle hope in a population that was suffering so immensely from the effects of the war. Together with a number of foreign agencies, Cardinal Arinze despite his own status as a refugee ( He fled to Adazi Enu and then to Amichi ) helped bring the much needed succour to those who were also at the receiving end of the war. Matter of fact, he was very much the unsung hero of the relief distribution during that period, helping save thousands of men, women and children in a war where the starvation of civilians was justified as a legitimate weapon of war.