- We have gathered around the remains
of Michael in supplication but also as sol-
emn witnesses to the penetrating dark-
ness that hovers over our country. I have
the rare honour of being considered the
principal mourner in this ugly tragedy.
It is not an honour that I am worthy of
receiving. The honour belongs to God Al-
mighty who created Michael and marked
out this moment and pathway for him.
The greater honour goes to his immedi-
ate family whose devotion as Catholics
laid the foundation for his faith and vo-
cation. To his grandmother, Mrs. Eunice
Nwokocha, a most simple, beautiful and
devout Catholic woman whose devotion
and dedication saw Michael and his sib-
lings, Chukwuebuka, Francis, Augustine
and Raphael brought up in all the fine
principles and disciplines of the Catholic
faith.
- The way that Mama and her grand-
children handled this family tragedy has
shown clearly the depth of their faith. I
got to know Mama only after the sudden
death of her daughter, Caroline, who had
been a devoted Lector in our Cathedral.
On the day we learnt that Michael and
the other Seminarians were kidnapped,
breaking the news to Mama and the chil-
dren was not an easy task. She took the
news with equanimity and we focused
on praying for their release. She and the
grandchildren lived through the tor-
ments of the brutal, harsh and senseless
haranguing of the kidnappers who are
totally empty of any show of human emo-
tions.
- When the worst finally happened,
breaking the news to her and the grand-
children proved to be one of the most
emotionally challenging moments for me.
She had called me three days earlier to say
that the kidnappers had told her that they
had killed Michael. I dismissed it by tell-
ing her that first, I had discouraged her
from taking their calls, and secondly that
this was part of the psychological warfare
by these evil men. On Wednesday 29th,
Peter Paul, the brave young man who had
served as the main negotiator with the
kidnappers, had already told us that they
had gone to the village where the kidnap-
pers said they had dumped the bodies of
both Michael and Mrs. Ataga but found
no corpses. This was the thread of conso-
lation we held on to as a means of solace
that Michael was still alive.
- When we concluded the negotia-
tions with the kidnappers on Thursday
evening, I was in the Seminary to receive
the three Seminarians and, although we
received only two, I was still confident
that Michael was still alive. We were sim-
ply going to sit and wait out for the next
call and the agonizing round of nego-
tiations again. I left for Abuja that same
evening to continue my trip to Sokoto the
next day. It was on my way to the airport
to catch a flight back to Sokoto on that
Saturday morning that Fr Daboh called
to tell me that the corpse of Mrs. Ataga
had been found and that there was a sec-
ond unidentified corpse which they were
being asked to come and identify if it was
Michael. My heart sank.
- After the call, I switched off my
phone in denial, but hoping for some
reprieve to enable me board my flight
with some sanity. I arrived Sokoto and
refused to switch on my phone for some
time. When I finally did, I refused to read
the text messages, but then, Fr Habila’s
call came through at about 1pm with the
news that, sadly, they had identified the
corpse as that of Michael. I did not know
where to start and how to breakthenew-
stoMama.Happily,twoofourseniorPa-
rishioners,SirJuliusDike and Mathews
Otalike, were on hand and I summoned
them to my house. It took us the better
part of seven hours to negotiate how to
break the news because, first, Mama was
in the market and I felt she should at least
finish the day’s business in peace. Final-
ly breaking the news opened a different
chapter in this ugly, painful but memora-
ble tragedy. Like the death of Lazarus, it
would become clear to me that Michael’s
death would bring glory to God.
- Later that evening as I sat down to
try and console Mama, she looked up at
me and said tearfully, “My Lord, you said
Michael was still alive. Is he really dead?”
Before I could say anything, she provided
a moving answer: “My Lord, but Michael
entered Seminary with all his heart and
body, all”, she said with finality. From that
evening, I watched her regain her compo-
sure and right up to Saturday, the evening
before I left Sokoto, she had become a
consoler and an inspiration to others.
- The depth and impact of this trage-
dy belongs first, to the three surviving
colleagues of Michael, the entire Semi-
nary community led by the Rector, Fr.
Habila Daboh, his team of formators and
entire family of Good Shepherd Semi-
nary. All have lived through almost two
months of trauma, agony, pain and de-
spair. They have been held together by
the glue of deep faith, hope and family
solidarity. I commend all the Formators
for standing together and guiding the
Seminarians through this dark tunnel of
emotional pain in the days that turned to
weeks, and weeks that turned to months.
The entire Catholic community in the
Province, led by our Metropolitan, Arch-
bishop Matthew Ndagoso, all shared in
this burden. His Grace and the Rector
will both speak to us at the end of the
Mass.
- The third layer of pain has been borne
by the entire country and the Catholic
world. The national and international
reactions to the death of this young man
have made me step back and ask what
message God has for our country. Mi-
chael is the first Seminarian to carry the
mark of this brutality and wickedness.
Priests have died in the hands of these
wicked human beings. Michael was only
a Seminarian in his first year of training.
I had seen him in his cassock which he
wore in my presence, not with pride but
with dignity. Why would the tragic death
of a young man such as him elicit such
an unprecedented level of emotions here
and around the world?
- Maria Lozano, a staff of the Aid to the
Church In Need, an organisation ded-
icated to the cause of the persecution of
Christians around the world, called me
frantically immediately after the news of
the kidnapping of the Seminarians went
out. The next day, she sent me an emo-
tional voice message to say that she heard
that Michael was an orphan and that
since the kidnappers will be looking for
money might his life be in danger if they
realise that he is an orphan? Could she
mobilise especially mothers to become
parents for him, to keep him and others
in their hearts and to continue to pray for
him? Maria remained with us emotion-
ally and requested for information about
the burial.
- When the Archbishop approved the
date of the burial, I passed the informa-
tion to her immediately. By the next day,
February 5th, she sent me a message to
say that when she asked people around
the world to light a candle for Michael on
the date of his burial, 2, 436 persons from
Afghanistan, Pakistan, United States of
America, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia,
Madagascar, South Africa, Congo, Mali,
Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia responded.
Germany alone had a total of 3,305 per-
sons in a matter of hours. In the light of
this, I wondered, who are we to mourn?
Who are we to refuse this crown of hon-
our and glory? We ceased to mourn for
Michael thereon.
- Your Grace, my brother Bishops,
Rev Fathers, Rev. Sisters, and all the good
people of God, I therefore bring you only
greetings and praise to God from all of
us in Sokoto Diocese. This is a solemn
moment for the body of Christ. This is
for us the moment of decision. This is
the moment that separates darkness
from light, good from evil. Our nation
is like a ship stranded on the high seas,
rudderless and with broken navigational
aids. Today, our years of hypocrisy, du-
plicity, fabricated integrity, false piety,
empty morality, fraud and Pharisaism
have caught up with us. Nigeria is on
the crossroads and its future hangs pre-
cariously in a balance. This is a wakeup
call for us. As St. Paul reminds us; The
night is far spent, and the day is at hand.
Therefore, let us cast away the works of
darkness and put on the armour of light
(Rom. 13:12). It is time to confront and
dispel the clouds of evil that hover over
us.
- Nigeria is at a point where we must
call for a verdict. There must be some-
thing that a man, nay, a nation should be
ready to die for. Sadly, or even tragically,
today, Nigeria, does not possess that set
of goals or values for which any sane cit-
izen is prepared to die for her. Perhaps,
I should correct myself and say that the
average office holder is ready to die to
protect his office but not for the nation
that has given him or her that office. The
Yorubas say that if it takes you 25 years to
practice madness, how much time would
you have to put it into real life? We have
practiced madness for too long. Our at-
tempt to build a nation has become like
the agony of Sisyphus who angered the
gods and had to endure the frustration
of rolling a stone up the mountain. Each
time he got near the top, the gods would
tip the stone back and he would go back
to start all over again. What has befallen
our nation?
- Nigeria needs to pause for a mo-
ment and think. No one more than the
President of Nigeria, Major General Mu-
hammadu Buhari who was voted for in
2015 on the grounds of his own prom-
ises to rout Boko Haram and place the
country on an even keel. In an address
at the prestigious Policy Think Tank,
Chatham House in London, just before
the elections, Major General Buhari told
his audience: “I as a retired General and a
former Head of State have always known
about our soldiers. They are capable and
they are well trained, patriotic, brave
and always ready to do their duty. If am
elected President, the world will have no
reason to worry about Nigeria. Nigeria
will return to its stabilizing role in West
Africa. We will pay sufficient attention
to the welfare of our soldiers in and out
of service. We will develop adequate and
modern arms and ammunition. We will
improve intelligence gathering and bor-
der patrols to choke Boko Haram’s fi-
nancial and equipment channels. We will
be tough on terrorism and tough on its
root causes by initiating a comprehensive
economic development and promoting
infrastructural development…we will al-
ways act on time and not allow problems
to irresponsibly fester. And I, Muham-
madu Buhari, will always lead from the
front.”
- There is no need to make any fur-
ther comments on this claim. No one in
that hall or anywhere in Nigeria doubted
the President who ran his campaign on
a tank supposedly full of the fuel of in-
tegrity and moral probity. No one could
have imagined that in winning the Presi-
dency, General Buhari would bring nep-
otism and clannishness into the military
and the ancillary Security Agencies, that
his government would be marked by su-
premacist and divisive policies that would
push our country to the brink. This Pres-
ident has displayed the greatest degree of
insensitivity in managing our country’s
rich diversity. He has subordinated the
larger interests of the country to the he-
gemonic interests of his co-religionists
and clansmen and women. The impres-
sion created now is that, to hold a key and
strategic position in Nigeria today, it is
more important to be a northern Muslim
than a Nigerian.
- Today, in Nigeria, the noble religion
of Islam has convulsed. It has become as-
sociated with some of worst fears among
our people. Muslim scholars, traditional
rulers and intellectuals have continued to
cry out helplessly, asking for their religion
and region to be freed from this choke-
hold. This is because, in all of this, neither
Islam nor the north can identify any real
benefits from these years that have been
consumed by the locusts that this govern-
ment has unleashed on our country.
