AN OPEN LETTER TO ARCHBISHOP MATTHEW MAN-OSO NDAGOSO,
ARCHBISHOP OF THE CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF KADUNA, NIGERIA.
BY FR OMACHI MICHAEL

NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: Your Grace, Rachael Weeps for Her Children
“A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachael weeping for
her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more”(Jer. 31:15).
Your Grace, I write to express my heartfelt gratitude to God almighty for his love, care and
protection during the course of the celebration of the memorial of the demise of my father, Sir
Clem Omachi and the anniversary of my priestly ordination, and to you for your immense
blessings and prayers. I have now, more than ever, come to the realization that my life is not my
own, from conception up until now. My existence, I must acknowledge, has been dependent on
the comradeship of fraternity from various quarters. I have safely returned to the United States of
America.
Your Grace, you have been through a lot, you have been in a lot. Painfully, many
of your sons and daughters have been kidnapped, maimed, buried in shallow graves,
sold as commodities. As others watched on the news, and read in the papers about the
disintegration of Nigeria, you are in the very scene of the destruction, experiencing the
horrifying outcomes of the bad choices of evil men and women, t VHrying desperately to
hold the pieces together. It has become a big task convincing people to go to church;

churches that used to be the safest places. People have been murdered while
worshipping God, priests kidnapped from rectories and highways, people bombed in the
markets , in clubs and in their houses. The physical and mental torture of living in
Nigeria, living in Northern Nigeria, is unbearable.You, your priests and people have
known indescribable sorrows. These are evil and dark days in Nigeria!
The terrorists/unknown gunmen, Boko Haram, ISWAP or whatever they are
called these days have given every Nigerian a complete sense of helplessness. Even
the supposedly most secure places have been targets of their attacks. They act with
impunity. They shot down Nigeria’s Alpha military jet in Zamfara/Kaduna airspace, , they
attacked the elite Nigerian Defence Academy, they massacred worshippers in St.
Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, and now the audacious attack on the
convoy of the president!
Nigeria is weeping, and as the true shepherd and churchman that Your Grace is,
you weep even more. I have seen you weep to God in prayer, seen you speaking truth
to authority, seen you fighting to keep it all together. You speak everyday for all
Christians, Muslims , and people of goodwill.
A Life of Sacrifice
While we remain thankful to God as our ultimate guard and keeper, it has
become pertinent to also openly say thanks to you for the leadership you provide in the
very eye and heart of terror. It is very obvious that the dioceses in Kaduna state have
suffered great persecution in the wake of terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping. When
Jesus says in John 20:18 “… but when you are old, you will stretch out your hand, and another will gird you and carry you where you will rather not go” I’m sure he was also
pointing us to the challenges that come with faithful Christian witnessing. More so Jesus
further warns that no one who puts his hand on the plough and looks back is worthy of
the Kingdom. Thus, you have steadfastly remained in the battle front to lead the Church.
Looking up to Jesus, I can say that sacrifice was the definitive character of his life and
message as it is yours, a true shepherd after the example of the Master. Be of good
cheers, for it is a conditio sine qua non for victory, as Jesus himself did not forget to tell
us that in this world we will have trouble. In the face of all the terror, you have been self
effacing, committing time and resources to countless dialogues and conferences,
consultations and discussions, funerals and condolences. You , your priests and people
have attended more funerals this year than you have had in all your priestly life put
together. The numerous mass burials come with shocking and heart wrenching figures
and memories. The priests and their Catechists are overwhelmed. It takes only a
considerate observer to note that the priests are broken, teary, distraught, terrified and
depressed. The social media is filled with pictures, gory pictures of priests and
Catechists leading a procession of corpses for burials. Some funerals take place at the
very scene of crime because of the number of mutilated, dismembered and burnt
corpses. Truly, our tears have become our bread. The priests who force themselves to
sleep dream of terror, are woken up my gunshots, and an advancing enemy. The
anticipation of death is worse than death. The Archbishop, the priests and the people
are traumatized. Should I wonder what goes through your mind whenever your phone
rings? Are you not terrified? Do you not say a shot prayer before picking up your calls?
Do you not tremble when there’s a knock on your door or office? I can only imagine your anxiety, the panic, the change of breath and the palpitations of your heart. Every day
you live in fear, fear of a phone call, because these calls most times do not announce
glad tidings.
In all of these, you have given us hope , and have taught us the act of self-
surrender. You have borne witness to Christ and taught us, your sons and daughters,
that a life that is truly surrendered must be a life that is shared and poured out for others
just as Saint Paul allowed himself to be poured out as an oblation to God and his flock
(cf. 2 Tim. 4:6, Phil. 2:17). You have maintained a peaceful disposition, and have
encouraged all your people to pray for the government as she struggles with the task of
confronting this challenge. This is indeed a test of our faith and witnessing. Hence,
Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI submits from a communio understanding that “becoming a
Christian means becoming a communio, and thereby entering into the mode of being of
the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, the Christian call is a call to the communion of grace and
love in truth.
The Wounded Heart of a Father
Thus, I hereby say thank God and thank you for your faith in God, in the Church
and in your presbyters. You have offered us sure support, presence and prayers. You
are indeed the chief mourner, the innocent victim , and the worse-hit. You have been at
the center of our sanity, fraternity and love. Over and over you have talked about the
gains of our common brotherhood, bond and support. In the face of the challenge of
insecurity that has confronted and confounded us, which has claimed the lives of gallant
men in the field of the service of God and humanity, we cannot afford anything short of brotherhood and unity. This, you have exemplified in the way you have fatherly held all
together no matter the difficulties. As a ripple effect of the compromised security
situation in Nigeria and Kaduna state in particular has heightened the difficulty of
pastoral leadership, anybody who is observant would understand that being a leader in
such a time of aggressive volatility in our land won’t be an easy task. However, it must
be acknowledged that as the Chief Shepherd of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kaduna,
you have displayed not just courage to remain standing and holding forth with
determination, but you have also shown that you have a heart that is tender. Though
this heart has been gravely wounded severally, it is a miracle that it can still beat with
the kind of rhythm that still holds the Archdiocese together. Words will fail me to capture
the depth of the pain in your heart while you sobbed at the final internment of Rev. Fr.
Vitus Borogo. You practically broke down in tears. Your Priests and people joined you in
tears. That soil bears witness to the tears, and I look forward to the day of
vindication. Let those episcopal tears mix with the blood of Fr Vitus, Fr Aketeh, Fr
Alphonsus. Let the cry and anguish of Fr Shekwolo, Fr Dawa, Fr Godwin, Fr Awesu, Fr
Jibril, mix with the inexpressible pains and sorrows that we have known, and plead to
God like the blood of Abel. May our killers be brought to repentance. May they be
converted through the light of our meekness, or through the heat of Gods impending
judgement.
Things are getting worse. You have been a major proponent of peace and dialogue.
You have preached many homilies on this. But it looks like the message is rejected
alongside the messenger. We now have more bloodshed, more banditry, more
kidnappings. A young priest, Fr John Gbakaan was butchered to death on his way from Benue state to Niger state. Fulani herdsmen are still crushing wheat farmers in Ondo
state. The roads are more unsafe, human life is still less valuable than that of cows.
The nation is on a downward rail, spiral anarchy is looming and it seems the darkness
will swallow us up. Things are falling apart, the centre cannot hold. We have only
ourselves to blame because we refused to listen. Your sermons and letters are warning
cries. You make us more alert, to stir us from our collective slumber and make us
realize that we can only test fate this far. There’s only so much one can take and no
more. Then much like the people in Jeremiah’s time who played politics with the
prophets warnings and even threw him into a well, we are now realizing that we left our
wounds to get sore to the point that they can no longer heal. As the Catholic Secretariat
noted sometime ago, this is not the time to sit on the fence., it is rather a time to choose
and stand by what we believe in. As a commentator noted , it should not be made to
look like a fight between the North and the south. This is rather a fight between truth
and lies, between freedom and oppression, between progress and regress. To be
neutral is not an option, for having chosen to be neutral we have chosen to be on the
side of the oppressor. We are in a mess. We wake up everyday to take a census of who
and who made it to the next day.
In life ,people react to situations in different ways. Some choose to be like the ostrich,
ostentatiously burying their heads in the sand while the prey closes in on them. Others
choose the path of cowardice, running away only to fight another day. Only if they are
courageous enough to face their challenges head-on, refusing to bask in ignorant bliss
or cowering helplessly in the face of an onslaught. The problems of this nation especially in the past 7 years are well documented. In the face of the many crisis many
Prophets lost their prophetic voices. The self-acclaimed prophets refused to prophesy. If
they did, it was only about the ABUNDANCE OF CORN AND NEW WINE. Who ever
enjoys a meal or prosperity with the house on fire? And now, not even the corn and new
wine get to their final destination. The farmer suffers in its ruin. The worker pays heavy
ransom for his life, same life is buried amid tears because the notorious kidnappers
have done their worse. This is shocking. Embarrassingly , how can a prophet speak
the truth when he or she is giddy with the wine from Herod’s table? So many churches
continue booming the resounding ‘Amens’! while the fields burn with the heat of battle
and the swamps overflowed with the blood of the very farmers who cultivated them. If
keen observers were shocked at the silence of the guests at Herod’s table, their shock
must have given way to dismay and subsequent horror at the vicious response of his
cohorts.
Bishop Kukah talked about this in his Christmas Message. His cohorts rushed to pick up
weapons of religious fanaticism, tribal bigotry and outright hatred to stone the prophet
who spoke truth to authority. Many from the North see Bishop Kukah’s beautiful
Christmas message as an attack on them. From the infamous Arewa Youths
Consultative Forum, to even Muslim clerics that should have known better. They
chanted a slogan of rejection. One of such, a sokoto based cleric ominously warned
Bishop Kukah to desist from criticizing the government. Noting that if he does not desist
from criticizing the government, he will be crucified. The AYCF volunteered to carry out
the crucifixion ostentatiously, giving the saintly bishop an ultimatum to leave the
North. The way they attacked the prophet, one would think he is the leader of Haram that has taken over a military base in Borno or the one leading the bandits
sucking villages in the North East . Are we not vindicated at this point? Sadly, only the
terrorist can confidently tell us where is safe and where is unsafe. But, no matter how
perilous the times have become, we can be sure of one thing: darkness will never
overcome light.
The Covenant of Brotherhood
Several times in the Gospels, Jesus told his disciples not to be afraid or faint
hearted. This already highlights the fact that Jesus knew that difficult and frightening
times were going to come. In the face of life-threatening situations that has enveloped
the Archdiocese, it is remarkable and a thing of pride that Priests with unflinching
resolve and determination have refused to turn their back on the gospel. To my brother
priests, I thank you for still standing together. Standing together is all we have got now,
for as the hawk lurks, the chicks must put aside squabbles, and band together or be
picked, one after the other by the predator. David in Psalm 23 prophetically prayed
“though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art
with me.” The God that is with us in these horrifying times is a familiar, friendly God;
God the friend of Abraham, Jesus the friend of His disciples. We need to be more of
friends now than just colleagues who share the same ministry!
The Responsibility of the State
Your Grace, you have heeded the exhortation of Pope Paul VI while addressing
the congregants at the World Peace Day of 1965 “even with those who oppressthe Church and harass her in manifold ways…we can and we should work together without
violence to build up the world in genuine peace.”
I must acknowledge how much the Church in Kaduna has done in engaging the
government with regards to the challenge of security of life and property in the state. As
a father whose children have become so endangered and vulnerable to inhumane and
barbaric treatment, it is difficult to imagine the weight of the burden you bear in this
regard. Thank you for all that you have done and will continue to do. The reality of these
killings is that politicians manipulate religions to achieve economic and political gains.
The government must be made to realize that they are not doing anything yet
worth acknowledging to halt this menace and must be called up to their responsibility.
Though it may not be easy to establish the claims of complicity on the part of the
government, their apparent helplessness surprises us. The Austrian-born British
philosopher of natural and social science, Sir Karl Raimund Popper hints on the danger
of wielding only the tool of martyrdom in the face of intolerance. According to him
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited
tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant
society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and
tolerance with them.” He further adjoins us that “We should therefore claim, in the name
of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement
preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement
to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider
incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”
constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria stipulates the freedom to right of
religion, which the state must defend.
The Church Matches on
While it may not be within the powers of the Church to directly engage with the
livid intolerance in our society against the church and her clergy, we can pray that God
will hasten to bring judgment for the blood of our brothers and sisters that cry from the
earth, and as we do so I want to quickly recommend the beautiful song by Bart Millard
“Stand up, Stand up for Jesus:” The first verse of the hymn is instructive, the second
supplies rich words of admonition and the third offers the words of hope.
I cannot forget to mention the admonition of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina who,
being a pious devotee of our mother Mary identifies the rosary as the weapon for our
time. According to Padre Pio the Rosary is the weapon of the Church in proclaiming
unity and peace. “The Rosary is the scourge of the devil,” writes Pope Adrian V. We
must now as legionaries of our blessed mother Mary advance into the battle front with
our rosary, for what we conquer spiritually we easily kick out naturally.
While we pray, being our brother’s keeper in the most practical sense of the word
is of essence. The priests must be acknowledged in this regard for how much they have
cushioned the burdens of one another. We may not all be able to work in the ‘safe’
places at the same time, some parishes may be more prone and vulnerable to attacks
than others, access to funds cannot all be at the same level but we have proven that
even in the deepest valley, that we are still brothers, distance has never been a barrier.
the early Church being one in heart and mind and sharing all that they had together
in love with one another, there’s practical and palpable love amongst us. One example
of this is the overwhelming love, fraternity and goodwill displayed in the love I received
from my colleagues during the anniversary celebration of my priestly ordination and the
memorial celebration of the demise of my father. I must confess that the love such as I
received helped to lighten the burden of my troubled heart and calmed my fears for the
future. This is exactly how we look out for each other. We have overtime, bonded
greatly, and have extended this to our different families . The enviable spirit is that our
families have become a part of our priestly fraternity. We are one big family. We stand
in solidarity with the families of our brothers in good times and in bad times.
The challenges of the time may appear to have been focused on the presbyters,
but of a fact the lay faithful are not left out. Directly or indirectly the priests that are
kidnapped and killed are from families with parents and siblings. There is an Igala
adage that says that for the mouth to whistle, the whistler must be able to fold the mouth
together in a certain way. This adage hinges on the idea of the importance and benefits
unity brings to the fore, and the importance of collaborative surveillance. While we
depend on God solely for safety, the truth remains that God has given us power to do
some things for ourselves. Insecurity and terrorism thrive on access to information. The
laity must therefore become oriented to be very discrete with information that may
compromise security and safety.
Finally, no matter how scary it gets, we cannot afford to lose hope. Together we
can achieve much. By the arm of flesh, we can do so little, but with Christ as our head
the Church must match on. Surely, we will all have to get robed up in the armor of our faith for desperate times will always call us to desperate measures. May Mary, our
Virgin Mother continue to intercede for us and may the angels of God come to our aid.
May I join in the many goodwill messages to congratulate you on the priestly ordination
of 11 young and vibrant men. May they bring joy and consolation to our beloved people
and Archdiocese.

Thank you!
Fr Omachi Arome Michael
On my birthday , 29th July, 2022