“Ego servo a recendentia maioribus vinco quam meus superbia, Ego servo Verum.” (I serve a far greater Master than my own pride — I serve the Truth)
— Anonymous Latin adage.
Convenience is defined as a state of comfort, when things go on well in line with one’s wish. It is also called when one is in his/her comfort zone. However, the ability to wilfully forfeit the comfort zone in honest pursuit of advocacy for society’s welfare makes the difference between innovators and conservatives. Civil rights activists, revolutionaries, inventors etc who influenced the society positively choose this path. Such espousal may be in the form of economic, political, social, ergonomic and moral rectitude.
What you read today as The Concourse predated this digital age. As far back as 1996, I have started writing News commentaries to Radio Nigeria Enugu zonal station on varied topics of sociopolitical, moral or religious importance as you read on Concourse. It was radio equivalent of opinion columns in Newspapers. I will write and send via post office. Sometimes I will send it through commercial drivers plying Obollo-Enugu road who would deliver it by hand. I made no money from it. Instead I lose the token in my own pocket to the purpose.
What could have spurred me into such unremunerated venture? Nothing but the platonic need to correct the ills of of our time, and offer actionable solutions to the challenges of our world or lend support to admirable efforts/accomplishments of persons that solved contemporary global or national problems. I hate to see or hear injustice. I subscribed totally to the wits of St. Thomas Aquinas: “He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.”
In 2001, I won an award in the second anniversary of Coal city 92.8 FM (an offshoot of FRCN Enugu Natiional station). My article won the senior category competition for most innovative commentary, to mark the occasion.
I had written so much in this regard for years, even as a pupil.
Each time person(s) of interest, such as Governors, Chairmen of Local government, bishops etc visited our locality, I would elect to write the welcome speeches to be read at their respective reception ceremonies. I do it free of charge. Reason: I loathed town leaders read colourful addresses that obscured the social amenities gap and development challenges we face as a people. Even the entrance roadside stones were painted white; all in effort to drum sycophantic impression to the August visitor(s) that all is well with us.
My Dad, a brutal critic, may have spotted this unusual urge in me early on, and made me his speech writer. As Secretary of our church, I wrote his addresses at each visit of bishop or sendforth occasions of parish priests. While those speeches were being read, I will inconspicuously sit among the audience. And I try to pay attention to their silent responses. I feel their pulse. I try to palpate their feelings about what was being read out. I was barely 17 then.
From their countenance, I noticed that everyone has strong affinity for truth. People love to see factual representation of their facticities of life. But what they lack is the courage to say it. Since then, I sensed that the world is in acute need of men/women of courage, uncompromising integrity and precinct determination to unearth the truth about their scenarios.
Sometime in August 1998, His Lordship, Rt. Rev. Dr. F.E.O Okobo the emeritus bishop of Nsukka paid a pastoral visit to our parish. He was given a red carpet reception. Okobo had a fearsome reputation for harshness and behavioural discipline. No one dares him even from among his Presbyterium let alone the laity. So in his presence, everyone puts on the saintly garb.
But my Dad was to present the address. I was to put it together for him. Yet he was nervous knowing that my pattern of writing will serve it uncoated. He told me to get it ready a week before the event. I knew why. He wanted to sieve out whatever may irk his Lordship. I wrote verbatim, what was the pastoral challenges of our parish then, offered advice on the way forward, and pointed out where we feel the bishop needs to do better in his administrative role as a shepherd.
Dad ruminated on the scripts for three days. He wanted to censor it. But it was not easy for him. He too was an unbiased appraiser So he smartly came up with one idea. “I will not alter anything from what you wrote. But I won’t be the one to read it. I’ll hand it over to someone else and school him how to read it in our dialect, so his Lordship won’t get the message raw.”
So the D-day came and all were seated after pontifical high Mass. Okobo (the supposed guest) was directing proceedings by himself. Our parish priest who was to anchor the programme was turned into assistant. Okobo is always in-charge!
As the time came for address, my father’s surrogate stood up and began to reel out the speech in asusu Nsukka. After a while, Okobo interjected, and motioned for the microphone. He asked, “was that address written in English or Igbo?” The speech presenter answered “English, my Lord.” He then demanded a copy so he could see the original text. At that point my Dad knew that his plan had failed. Yet, he was a step ahead of the bishop. He printed only two copies; his own and that of the reader.
So the answer was “my Lord, it is only one copy that we have.”
But no one wins Okobo in his own game. He asked that they should run around and make photocopy. The Chairman of the Laity council got agitated and whispered to my Dad to save the day with his own copy.
Unknown to the chairman, Dad was hiding the script from allowing His Lordship gain access to its raw content. But he won’t understand. He took the copy to Okobo and Church agbasaa!”
The mask was unveiled!
However, we were all shocked that Okobo was not livid as excepted. His other less expressed attribute is his love for truth and men of courage. On a lighter mood, he said “whoever wrote this was smart. He soothes and bite me at the same time.” Everyone laughed exhilaratingly. He allowed the reader to finish his gimmicks. Then in his response, the Bishop said: “I have a better picture of what you people want than was read out here. You people dared me in broad daylight. Yet you claimed I’m ‘indefatigable.’ You think you can confuse me with grammar?”
Ev
Bishop Francis Okobo
Obliging the points raised lies on the onus of the bishop. My vocation is to say it out.
Why did I waste your time narrating this 23-year old story? Because it will help you paint a better image of what this piece was set to achieve, which is inter alia:
I have lived all my life as a disciple of truth, much before this cyber age. However, as JET age sets in, it became so easy to access information from far and near. So it became increasingly hard for one to hide in one’s library and author anything without immediate reaction from the public domain. My relatives; friends, and readers (fans if you choose) are getting nervous. They don’t want me to fall victim of the wicked world that detest truth. Most of them have, recently, been getting in touch with me with appeals that I should cease-fire.
Prominent among these are Favor Benneth and Kenneth Onyi, (who always end his comments on each edition with a prayer “Long live The Concourse, and may God protect you”). Ejiofor Nwodo is under excruciating pain of ill-health, but he keeps up the spirit. He spend quality time putting up serious advocacy as the need arises. He is another fearless stakeholder in The Concourse.
The last topic we mused on, in The Concourse, attracted uncountable reactions, majority of which was negative. Calls came into my phone in drones. Few were in praise, others were indifferent while vast majority of them were angry at why I wrote a letter to Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria on the scandalous Mbaka political imbroglio. But I am not moved by human chastisment, neither do I get carried away by their praises. Like José Mourinho: “I’m so experienced in this life that I’m not on the moon when people praise me; neither am I in the hell when they scold me”
For the past six years, there are three persons you cannot criticize in Nigeria without getting verbal injuries from their respective foot soldiers who patrol the social media highway. They are, Fr. Mbaka, President Buhari and Nnamdi Kanu. In fact if you want to generate traffic of comments on your social media handles, just criticize any of them or their utterance/actions.
In all, I laughed. I have come a long way. It is too late to be cowered off this road. This is a formal appeal to my well wishers who are genuinely concerned about my safety and welfare to relax and free their minds. I have paid prices for this cause. I have unfairly lost favours, saw doors of opportunities unjustly and brutally closed against my interest for the same sake. And then some ask, does it worth it? The answer is absolute YES. It does!
Like Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure would say: “…if then we do not experience the sweetness of Christ’s yoke nor the lightness of the burden of the cross, it must be because we have not yet made the denial of our will and completely given up our human outlook so as to consider things in the light of faith.” I have crossed the Rubicon in this regard.
The voice of truth can be switched off by malice, but its echo will continue to reverberate through time and space. In this crusade, no one is an enemy. Our only adversary is evil and abnormality in the societal order wherever they may be found.
May daylight spare us!
✍Eze Jude O.
At your leisure time, you can read up about me further here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10221674907357718&id=1105625150
