At a time like this when all that comes to mind when Nigeria, the self-acclaimed giant of Africa, is mentioned is the title of the late Professor Chinua Achebe’s last book, There was a Country, one cannot but wish for a different narrative, a different kind of story. Every well-meaning citizen of the country that is not worried about where we are and where we are headed must be living in the moon. Many Nigerians believed, and rightly so, that the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan was clueless and didn’t have the capacity to take the country to the next level, and, therefore, clamoured for regime change.
But more than six months after realising its dream, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is yet to put its acts together. The economy is in a free fall. Nigeria seems to be on a standstill and, in recent times, the constituency of those the government disingenuously branded the “wailing wailers” is getting larger. Those who are complaining today are no longer only the “corrupt Nigerians that are haunted by their sordid and avaricious past” to whom the Buhari presidency had become the ultimate nemesis, but also some of those that hitherto hailed Buhari as the messiah Nigeria desperately needed.
One of Nigeria’s “wailing wailers” is Monsignor Theophilus Ibegbulam Okere, who celebrated his 80th birthday last August. In a country where life expectancy still hovers around 50 years, 20 years below the biblical three score and 10 years graciously granted man by God, attaining the good age of 80 is a remarkable feat that calls for celebration. The real tragedy of the Nigerian situation is that octogenarians like him are not convinced that we are making progress. He is sad about what has become of Nigeria, and more so what has become of Igboland.
Asked if he thinks the country is making progress, he answers quietly, trying unsuccessfully to mask his frustration. His words: “If you think that we had made progress, can we not see today how much we had gone down the hill again? Not only on superstition but the things like armed robbery and kidnapping, robbery and thieving were such a taboo in a typical Igbo society. But today, it is the in-thing. The only sin is being caught. If you can steal us blind, even as a governor, then just don’t get caught. They get away with murder. They get away with massive embezzlement. Nobody asks any question. With these things, you just wonder where we are heading.”
He can’t understand why Nigerians, with their overt religiosity, find it difficult to walk their religious talk.
“The thieves of today are all virtually baptised Christians. And since most of us here in Igboland are Catholics, most of the thieves are Catholics,” he laments.
He talks about what he calls “the lacuna that had been left in our work, especially as priests”.
“The seeming intransigence of the world that we live in, enmeshed in evil, in not making the effort to be better. That can be frustrating and it frustrates me a lot. I think of it a lot as I get older.
“I ask myself: Is it that we have not put in our best? If so, is our best so bad or so poor that we haven’t made any significant difference? And when I say ‘we’, I am not just referring to priests but all Christians, because we are there together. Priests are only specialised in certain areas. But all of us, Christians, our job is really to Christianise the world, and is that it? And when I ask this question, I feel a dissenting sense of defeatism,” said the cleric.
His frustration is gradually translating to regrets. He said that much in an interview with the Vanguard newspaper. “You can see my regret because as I go now into the evening of my life, I begin to wonder what I achieved in the morning of my life. What has it come to? Of course, I can always console myself as I often do with Jesus. But there would be another generation of church. Let us be responsible for the time we are in. Let us do all that we can, while we are here, hoping that another generation may stand on our shoulder and stand higher and do better with the world.”
But it goes without saying that Monsignor Okere has done his bit.
Born on August 2, 1935 in the bucolic village of Nnorie, Ngor-Okpala, Imo State, he has left indelible marks on the sands of time.
As was noted by one of his students, Professor Obi Oguejiofor, a Catholic priest, and lecturer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka, Monsignor Okere “is indeed a great theologian, in any case, one of the greatest we ever had in Nigeria. He is also one of the few Nigerian philosophers repeatedly quoted in internationally published works both in discussions and in bibliographies. There is indeed hardly any comprehensive work on African philosophy, especially from the United States, which omits a mention of his name.”
He had his elementary education at St. James School, Nnorie (1942-46), St. Finbarr’s School, Okpala (1947-48) and St. Desmond, Mbutu Okohia (1949). In 1950, he enrolled at the Holy Ghost College, Owerri, for his secondary education but a year later, he proceeded to the St. Peter Claver Seminary, Okpala, as one of the pioneer students. In 1956, he proceeded to Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, and was ordained a priest on August 5, 1962 by the then Bishop of Port Harcourt, G.M.P. Okoye. He later read English Language and Literature at the University College, Dublin, before bagging a doctorate in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain in 1971.
He returned to his alma mater, Bigard Enugu, in 1972 where he taught Philosophy for four years before crossing over to Bigard Memorial Seminary, Ikot Ekpene (now St. Joseph Major Seminary, Ikot-Ekpene), in 1976. He later became the Rector of the school in 1981, a position he held for two years when he founded the Seat of Wisdom Major Seminary, Owerri, where he was between 1983 and 1992. A man adept at multi-tasking, as the Rector of Seat of Wisdom Seminary, he equally served the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers. He was also the founding editor of Journal of the Catholic Theological Association of Nigeria (CATHAN) and its first president.
On leaving the seminary system after 21 years of service, in 1992, he taught Philosophy at Jesuit University in Philadelphia, United States of America.
Since his return to Nigeria in 1999, he has been the initiator as well the first president of Whelan Research Academy for Religion, Culture and Society founded in memory of the first diocesan Bishop of Owerri, Joseph Brendan Whelan (CSSP).
A measure of his greatness can be gleaned from the fact that out of the 16 Catholic dioceses in the old Eastern Region made up of nine states, only the Archbishop of Owerri and bishops of Nnewi and Abakaliki, did not pass through his tutelage. The other bishops, including Archbishop Valerian Okeke of Onitsha, Archbishop Joseph Ekuwem of Calabar, Bishop Callistus Onaga of Enugu, Bishop Godfrey Igwebuike Onah of Nsukka and Bishop Lucius Ugorji of Umuahia were all his students.
Again, Prof. Oguejiofor weighs in: “Okere’s voice has been heard in many forums and in different contexts. That voice sounds louder in philosophical studies. Internationally, he owes much of his reputation to his ground-breaking thesis, ‘Can there be an African Philosophy?’ part of which was published as ‘African philosophy: A Historico-Hermeneutical Investigation into the Condition of its Possibility’. These two works belong to the most influential writings in contemporary African philosophical discussion. They became the foundation of the hermeneutical current in African philosophy. Its view that the philosophy of a people, and a fortiori, African philosophy should emerge from the hermeneutics of their culture, became the rallying point for such thinkers as Tsaney Serequeberhan of Eritrea, Ntumba Tsahiamalenga and Nkombe Oleko of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“In his recent book, Brief History of African Philosophy, Barry Hallen gives this current and Okere himself a special place among the important philosophy movements in the African continent in our time. Hence, Okere’s prowess in philosophy has earned him a special place on the pages of the history of African Philosophy.”
An intellectual giant, Monsignor Okere, who delivered the Odenigbo Lecture in 1997 and Ahiajoku Lecture in 2007, published a collection of all his writings over the years, Theophilus Okere in his own words. A fitting tribute to a man who has lived his 80 years on earth and still counting for others.