Homily at the Funeral Mass of Seminarian Michael Nnadi(Sokoto Diocese), on 11th February 2020 at Good Shepherd Seminary, KadunaMatthew Hassan Kukah, Bishop of Sokoto Diocese
We
have gathered around the remains of Michael in supplication but also as solemn
witnesses to the penetrating darkness 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
Almighty who created Michael and marked out this moment and pathway for him.
The greater honour goes to his immediate family whose devotion as Catholics
laid the foundation for his faith and vocation. To his grandmother, Mrs. Eunice
Nwokocha, a most simple, beautiful and devout Catholic woman whose devotion and
dedication saw Michael and his siblings, Chukwuebuka, Francis, Augustine and
Raphael brought up in all the fine principles and disciplines of the Catholic
faith.
The
way that Mama and her grandchildren 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 children 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 torments of the brutal, harsh and
senseless haranguing of the kidnappers who are totally empty of any show of
human emotions.
When
the worst finally happened, breaking the news to her and the grandchildren
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 telling 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 kidnappers said
they had dumped the bodies of both Michael and Mrs. Ataga but found no corpses.
This was the thread of consolation we held on to as a means of solace that
Michael was still alive.
When
we concluded the negotiations 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 simply going
to sit and wait out for the next call and the agonizing round of negotiations
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 second 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 break the news to Mama. Happily, two of our senior
Parishioners, Sir Julius Dike 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. Finally breaking the news opened a
different chapter in this ugly, painful but memorable 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 composure 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 tragedy belongs first, to the three surviving
colleagues of Michael, the entire Seminary community led by the Rector, Fr.
Habila Daboh, his team of formators and entire family of Good Shepherd
Seminary. All have lived through almost two months of trauma, agony, pain and
despair. 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, Archbishop 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. Michael 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 dedicated 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 emotional 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 emotionally and requested for information about the burial.
When
the Archbishop approved the date of the burial, I passed the information 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
persons 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 honour 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,
duplicity, fabricated integrity, false piety, empty morality, fraud and
Pharisaism have caught up with us. Nigeria is on the crossroads and its future
hangs precariously 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 something 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
citizen 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 attempt 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 moment and think. No one more than the President of
Nigeria, Major General Muhammadu Buhari who was voted for in 2015 on the
grounds of his own promises 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 border patrols to choke Boko Haram’s
financial 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 always act on time and not allow
problems to irresponsibly fester. And I, Muhammadu Buhari, will always lead
from the front.”
There
is no need to make any further 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 integrity and moral probity. No one could have
imagined that in winning the Presidency, General Buhari would bring nepotism
and clannishness into the military and the ancillary Security Agencies, that
his government would be marked by supremacist and divisive policies that would
push our country to the brink. This President 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 hegemonic interests of his
co-religionists and clansmen and women. The impression 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 associated
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 chokehold. 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 government has unleashed
on our country. The Fulani, his innocent kinsmen, have become the subject of
opprobrium, ridicule, defamation, calumny and obloquy. His north has become one
large grave yard, a valley of dry bones, the nastiest and the most brutish part
of our dear country.
Why
have the gods rejected this offering? Despite running the most nepotistic and
narcissistic government in known history, there are no answers to the millions
of young children on the streets in northern Nigeria, the north still has the
worst indices of poverty, insecurity, stunting, squalor and destitution. His
Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto, and the Emir of Kano are the two most powerful
traditional and moral leaders in Islam today. None of them is happy and they
have said so loud and clear. The Sultan recently lamented the tragic
consequences of power being in the wrong hands. Every day, Muslim clerics are
posting tales of lamentation about their fate. Now, the Northern Elders, who in
2015 believed that General Buhari had come to redeem the north have now turned
against the President.
We
are being told that this situation has nothing to do with Religion. Really? It
is what happens when politicians use religion to extend the frontiers of their
ambition and power. Are we to believe that simply because Boko Haram kills
Muslims too, they wear no religious garb? Are we to deny the evidence before
us, of kidnappers separating Muslims from infidels or compelling Christians to
convert or die? If your son steals from me, do you solve the problem by saying
he also steals from you? Again, the Sultan got it right: let the northern
political elite who have surrendered the space claim it back immediately.
The
persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria is as old as the modern Nigerian
state. Their experiences and fears of northern, Islamic domination are
documented in the Willinks Commission Report way back in 1956. It was also the
reason why they formed a political platform called, the Non-Muslim League. All
of us must confess in all honesty that in the years that have passed, the
northern Muslim elite has not developed a moral basis for adequate power
sharing with their Christian co-regionalists. We deny at our own expense. By
denying Christians lands for places of worship across most of the northern
states, ignoring the systematic destruction of churches all these years,
denying Christians adequate recruitment, representation and promotions in the
State civil services, denying their indigenous children scholarships, marrying
Christian women or converting Christians while threatening Muslim women and
prospective converts with death, they make building a harmonious community
impossible. Nation building cannot happen without adequate representation and a
deliberate effort at creating for all members a sense, a feeling, of belonging,
and freedom to make their contributions. This is the window that the killers of
Boko Haram have exploited and turned into a door to death. It is why killing
Christians and destroying Christianity is seen as one of their key missions.
On
our part, I believe that this is a defining moment for Christians and
Christianity in Nigeria. We Christians must be honest enough to accept that we
have taken so much for granted and made so much sacrifice in the name of nation
building. We accepted President Buhari when he came with General Idiagbon, two
Muslims and two northerners. We accepted Abiola and Kingibe, thinking that we
had crossed the path of religion, but we were grossly mistaken. When Jonathan
became President, and Senator David Mark remained Senate President while
Patricia Ette was chosen by the South West became a Speaker. The Muslim members
revolted and forced her resignation with lies and forgery. The same House would
shamelessly say that they had no records of her indictment. Today, we are
living with a Senate whose entire leadership is in the hands of Muslims.
Christians have continued to support them. For how long shall we continue on
this road with different ambitions? Christians must rise up and defend their
faith with all the moral weapons they have. We must become more robust in
presenting the values of Christianity especially our message of love and
non-violence to a violent society. Among the wolves of the world, we must
become more politically alert, wise as the serpent and humble as the dove (Mt.
10:16).
Every
Religion has the seeds of its own redemption or destruction. It is a choice
between Caesar and God. We cannot borrow the crown of Caesar without
consequences. The boundaries between faith and reason are delicate but they are
fundamental to how a society builds a moral code. Faith without reason breeds
the fanatic, the demagogue who genuinely but wrongly believes that he has heard
the voice of a god ordering him to kill another. Reason without faith produces
the ideologues who will also kill because the ideology of the state orders him
to do so. Societies can only survive when a Constitutional basis has been
established to create a balance between both extremes and to place our common humanity
at the centre of every pursuit.
My
dear brothers and sisters, Anger, the quest for Vengeance, are a legitimate
inheritance of the condition of unredeemed human being. Both have appeal.
Through Violence, you can murder the murderer, but you cannot murder Murder.
Through violence, you can kill the Liar, but you cannot kill Lies or install
truth. Through Violence, you can murder the Terrorist, but you cannot end
Terrorism. Through Violence, you can murder the Violent, but you cannot end
Violence. Through Violence, you can murder the Hater, but you cannot end
Hatred. Unredeemed man sees vengeance as power, strength and the best means to
teach the offender a lesson. These are the ways of the flesh.
Christianity
parts ways with other Religions when it comes to what to do with the enemy.
Here, we must admit, Christianity stands alone. This is the challenge for us as
Christians. Others believe in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or that
one can take either blood money or make some form of reparation one way or the
other. However, for us Christians, Jesus stands right in the middle with a
message that is the opposite of all that is sensible to us as human beings. Put
back your sword (Mt. 26: 52). Turn the other cheek (Mt. 5:38). Pray for your
enemy (Mt. 5: 44). Give the thief your cloak (Lk. 6:29). None of these makes
sense to the human mind without faith. This is why Jesus said the only solution
is for us to be born again (Jn. 3:3). The challenge before us is to behold the
face of Jesus and ask the question, Are we Born against hatred, anger, violence
and vengeance?
There
is hope, my dear friends. Are we angry? Yes, we are. Are we sad? Of course, we
are. Are we tempted to vengeance? Indeed, we are. Do we feel betrayed? You bet.
Do we know what to do? Definitely. Do we know when to do it? Why not? Do we
know how? Absolutely. Are we in a war? Yes. But what would Christ have us do?
The only way He has pointed out to us is the non-violent way. It is the road
less travelled, but it is the only way.
How
and why does God choose these young persons as our models? Leah Sharibu and now
Michael, all teenagers when they confronted evil and became martyrs. In a
recent report in Daily Trust on February 2, 2020, I read the story of one of
the Dapchi girls and their incredible show of bravery in the face of fire. They
were asked by their ferocious captors to point out the Christians among them or
they would all face death. In response, they said in unison that they were all
Muslims. Then, she continued, “when they intensified their threat to kill us,
Leah stood up and said that she was a Christian. She said they could go ahead
and kill her instead of killing all of us. So, they separated her from
us…before we were rescued, they told us that if Leah would convert to Islam, they
would free us, so we tried as much as possible to convince her but she refused
saying she would never renounce her religion for fear of death.”
We
have no evidence of what transpired between Michael and his killers. However,
for us Christians, this death is a metaphor for the fate of all Christians in
Nigeria but especially northern Nigeria. For us Christians, it would seem safe
to say that we are all marked men and women today. Yet, we must be ready to be
washed in the blood of the lamb. The testimony of the Dapchi girl above
suggests that our country has a future, a future based on the innocence of our
youth who have seen beyond religion. Leah Sharibu is a martyr for the faith and
so is Michael. St Paul has already said it well: We carry this treasure in
vessels of clay so that all this surpassing power may not be seen as ours, but
as God’s. Trials of every sort come our way, but we are not discouraged. We are
left without answers but we do not despair, persecuted but not abandoned,
knocked down but not crushed. At any moment, we carry in our person, the death
of Jesus, so that in life, Jesus may also be manifested in us (2 Cor. 4: 7-10).
Finally,
we praise and thank God that Pius, Peter and Stephen are alive and will
continue to bear earthly testimony of this horror. May God help them to all
heal. We join the family of Michael in their act of forgiveness while calling
on God give these killers their own road to Damascus experience deep in the
forests and highways. For now, we in Sokoto are at peace and feel mightily
honoured that we have been chosen for this task of being called upon to walk
the footsteps of the passion of Jesus Christ. We know that the Lord’s burden is
never heavy. We are humbled but not bowed. Although we are only a little flock,
we are pleased to offer from the little we have to the Master. Like the owner
of the donkey on which Jesus rode to Jerusalem, we are asking no question
because the Master has asked for Michael (Lk. 19:31). Like the Galileans (Lk.
13:1), we surrender the blood of Michael to the vicious Herods of today but we
know we will one day rise to a new life. The choice of our son Michael as a
Simon of Cyrene is a remarkable gift that we must embrace with both hands. We
feel as if our son has been chosen to represent us in the national team of
martyrs. Without fear, we will complete the journey he started because his
memory will give us strength.
We
know that Michael’s strength will inspire an army of young people to follow in
his steps. We will march on with the cross of Christ entrusted to us, not in
agony or pain, because our salvation lies in your cross. We have no vengeance
or bitterness in our hearts. We have no drop of sorrow inside us. We are
honoured that our son has been summoned to receive the crown of martyrdom at
the infancy of his journey to the priesthood. We are grateful that even before
he could ascend the earthly altar, Jesus the high priest, called Him to stand
by His angels. He was a priest by desire but he is concelebrating the fullness
of the priesthood beside His Master. He was lifted up even before his hands
could lift up the sacred chalice. May the Lord place him beside His bosom and
may he intercede for us. If his blood can bring healing to our nation, then his
murderers will never have the final say. May God give him eternal peace.
