The truth that God’s faithfulness is ever constant and His grace ever assured is validated and verified by the life of Lucky Chinedu Godwin Adimike. Notwithstanding the variables of circumstances, one’s cooperation with grace determines the output. As such, success is measured by one’s cooperation with the grace of God. In several ways, His hand directs our pilgrimage to the eternal homeland through little steps, constant engagements and intermittent results of success or stillborn successes. Since nothing escapes the reach of God’s grace and nothing falls outside His providence, human life thrives in thanksgiving to God and flourishes in active cooperation through daily work. By that, the deployment of our bodies in quotidian existence writes our biographies and prints the same in colours. Lucky Adimike’s biography bedazzling with gold demonstrates that God motorises whoever surrenders to Him and accepts His grace. He is etching his grace history in the precious stones of time in his golden age. During his later childhood, which coincided with the autumn of his family’s material success, he demonstrated that what happens to us meets us as passive recipients.
At the same time, our response makes us active participants and measures the degree of success. Given the prevailing circumstance at the time, and one thing leading to the other, he could not follow to the zenith his passion of being one of the most educated in the world. However, he chose to be an instrument for promoting his passion. Instead of dying in regret or denial, he accepted the situation, used its lesson well, and transformed the would-be pain into a fecund and productive grace experience. Indeed, pain accepted not only becomes suffering but sacrifice. Lucky transitioned from suffering through sacrifice and love to life. True and selfless sacrifice inserts him into the divine intercourse of love, resulting in the abundance of grace. In his life, love always wins! Surely, God wins because God leads (Chinedu). The story continues. Each chapter of his golden existence is a fascinating and stunning narrative of the triumph of grace and testimony of hard work, creativity and tenacity, godliness and generosity, determination and singleness of purpose in the race to success, excellence and greatness. Lucky is not just lucky but blessed because he appreciates that God’s blessings are divinely operated and humanly cooperated. Therefore, he recognises no path to success other than developing and deploying his gifts with an enviable commitment to duty.
In other words, he lives the philosophy that greatness is the function and product of the perfect alignment of grace and required effort. It comes from the right balance of God’s operation and human cooperation. Hence, amid the uncertainties that becloud the horizon of business and the lacklustre performance of the institutions that support entrepreneurship, Lucky stayed the course, breaking through the obstacles, deploying positive energies and investing them to the desired end. Moreover, because he is a man of faith driven by hope, with great determination he contributes to creating a favourable future. Without a doubt, success in business in our time and clime has to navigate and bulldoze through the complicated structural phenomenon that feeds poverty. Some factors and enablers to success and growth include but are not limited to access to capital, the question of capacities and opportunities, institutions of wealth creation, the rule of law and social coexistence.
The combination of the God factor, right passion, effective skills and strategies, honesty and accountability, networks of value, tenacity, ceaseless drive, commitment to task, sense of responsibility, leadership and management prowess has aided his foray into the Nigerian economy. The guiding spirit is never to settle for less when more is possible. According to Lucky, the value of our lives should be the measure of our impact in serving God and humanity through our work. The ramifications of this understanding include living the life of grace, expressed as gratitude by working to create a free, just and prosperous society for all. It is a life committed to an ongoing self-gift for the common good. Yes, when it comes to worship through charity, Lucky does not hold back because he understands that Christianity obliges too beyond the fact that nobility obliges (‘noblesse oblige’). Lucky lives his Christian obligation by works of religion, charity, wealth creation and human empowerment. As is often the case, true thanksgiving produces thanks-living. In other words, gratitude breeds a life of beatitude and distinguishes great personalities. Mindful that his life is filled with clear pieces of evidence, testimonies and marvels of God, whose mercies have been beyond measure, Lucky struggles to make his life a hymn, which endlessly echoes with grace and gratitude through his response to the spiritual and social responsibilities.
With and through his business interests, which range from electronics/electricals to real estate and finance, he stays the course of goodness, creating and multiplying dividends of values and charity. He gives life to others, combining a financial discipline that is nothing short of legendary with generosity, wealth creation, selfless community service and attention to his family. A few instances will walk us through the pages of these golden prints of grace. He supports evangelisation through sponsorship of many Church programs and projects. He trained over a dozen priests, and many seminarians are still under his sponsorship. He singlehandedly built a fathers’ house and Grotto of the Infant Jesus at St Joseph Parish, Awka Etiti. What is more, he was one of the major donors for the Holy Family Youth Village, Amansea, and Shanahan University, Onitsha. Also, Lucky sponsors free medical care to the pregnant women till after delivery at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, Awka Etiti, and finances health insurance for some poor elderly people in Awka Etiti. Furthermore, he gives yearly financial support to Blessed Tansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, since 2004, and All Hallows Seminary, Onitsha, since 2015. He provided a lawn tennis court for Blessed Tansi Major Seminary and a borehole for All Hallows Seminary. During the Covid-19 lockdown, he gave palliatives of rice, noodles and money to 500 families, three Catholic parishes and one Anglican parish all in Awka Etiti, among many other ways of contributing to the work of God and human development in Lagos, Onitsha, Awka Etiti and elsewhere.
Lucky lives his life serving God and humanity with the resources God makes available to him. Married to Lovelyn Chizoba with four lovely and promising children, Lucky inspires many generations of young families. He considers everything that happens in his life as grace to be transformed into capital for the glory of God and the good of humanity. As Mr Lucky Chinedu Godwin Adimike celebrates his birthday on Thursday, 6th October, may I join thousands of family, friends and well-wishers to pray for many more happy, healthy, and fruitful years ahead. Happy birthday.
• Rev. Fr George Adimike is a priest of the Archdiocese of Onitsha.
