Text of a Sermon preached at the Funeral Wake Keeping of Mrs. Clara Oshiomhole, on Thursday 16th December, 2010.
BY MSGR, MATTEW HASSAN KUKAH
We must even boast of our sufferings knowing that suffering brings endurance, endurance brings character and character brings hope and this hope does disappoint us because the love of God has been poured into our hearts (Rom 5 vs 3-5).
The story of Clara's life will be told and retold from the perspectives of the many people who knew her. However, most people will remember her for her deep faith as a Catholic, her simplicity, charm and graciousness which marked her life. Whereas I had known Adams by his trademark of trouble and protest, I had actually got to know Clara earlier as a parishioner of St. Augustine's Parish in Tudun Wada, Kaduna. Adams and I did not meet formally until the late 80s. Clara was a very active member of the Parish and was quite close to my very good friend, Fr. Godwin Goni who was then the Parish Priest. When he first introduced her to me, my first reaction was a feeling of genuine pity over the contrast between husband and wife. Although, I always asked after Adams, he was never around something I told him when we finally met for the first time.
It is impossible to meet Clara and not wonder what would have attracted her to a man like Adams, a man who was at best a moving box of live wires and nails. She was almost everything Adams was not: calm, simple, polite, shy, unassuming, prayerful, and self-effacing. Given the firepower that surrounds Adams now as a Governor, I will rather not speculate about his contrasting qualities. But, this was a marriage made in Heaven, the type that St. Paul's contemplated when he enjoined Christians to carry one another's burden (Gal 6 vs 6). Adams was Trouble with a capital T, but Clara had the shoulders and dedication to absorb it all. Having surrendered to a national call, he was never around, but her prayers and love sustained him. The result of her labour of love is what we now see today; her husband whom she nursed from an anti establishment scorpion to the seat of power as the Governor of Edo State and her five children who have now come of age as professional in their chosen fields of life.
Adams himself was later to tell their story when he turned 50 and asked me to be the Guest Speaker at his birthday lecture. Clara kept reminding me that her husband was relying on her to finally persuade me to deliver the lecture. In the course of his vote of thanks, Adams revealed some details of how he had seduced and conscripted this genuinely innocent girl to serve his renegade army of Textile Labour Unionist rebels at that time. Poor Clara, a Secretary in one of the factories innocently started out secretly typing protest statements at night, surreptitiously working against her employers at the instance of this reckless and skinny young man who seemed to love nothing but trouble. As things turned out, from typing protest literature, Adams wanted Clara to type the remaining scripts of his life. The rest as they say is history.
An idealistic, fearless Adams would cut his teeth as an activist and then go from there to be one of the nation's most cerebral and noted contrararians, speaking truth to power, taunting authority and rallying ordinary citizens to stand for their rights. While the world knew Adams, the heavens smiled on a quiet but simple woman whose commitment to family life enabled her to remain faithful to an absentee husband while holding on as both father and mother to their children.
As we gather to pay her our last tributes today, I will like to draw attention to two key points. First, the irony of the redemptive meaning of suffering and what lessons we Christians must learn from the suffering in our lives. In the course of this, I will use the story of one of our African saints to illustrate the faithfulness of God in suffering. Secondly, I will try to ask what lessons our First Ladies and other women so close to power can learn from Clara's life in managing power and family.
First, we must note that suffering is not a punishment as many a Pentecostal Pastor would now want many gullible Christians to believe. None of us want to suffer in life, but when it comes, the Lord wants us to embrace it with faith and hope in him. We were told that God said of Job- No one on earth is as blameless and upright as he, a man who fears God and avoids evil (Job 1 vs 8). Satan argued with God, that Job's faithfulness arose from what the devil called, a wall of protection which God has built around Job by virtue of his stupendous wealth (v9). To prove Job's faithfulness, God proceeded to tear down this wall as Job loses his children, cattle and wealth in quick succession. Job is finally struck with a disease so terrible that it left everyone who saw him in utter shock. When his three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar) travelled to come and console him, they simply stared at Job in shock because they had never seen such suffering. Dumbfounded, we are told that: for seven days and nights, they spoke not a word (Job 2 vs 13). The rest of the story of Job is well known to us but I am often struck by the fact that these three friends saw something that the Hausas refer to in a proverb when they say, Ki gudu bai gan sa gudu ba (The one who says I refuse to run has not seen what will make him run).
For the believer, pain is not some anomaly, the manifestation of a helpless God, or the result of some human infraction by a sinner. Our incomprehension should rather be an opportunity to surrender to the supremacy of the will of God, a chance to echo the word of the Psalmist who has enjoined us to …Be still and know that I am God (Ps 46v100) or, in our innocence, listen to loving God who says, Do not be afraid (Lk. 1 v 30) and answer Him: I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me as you have willed (Lk. 1 v 38). When Jesus was told of the sickness of his best friend, Lazarus, rather than go to heal him, or order his healing as he had done for many others, Jesus said: This sickness will not end in death, rather it is for the glory of God and the Son will be glorified through it (Jn. 11 v 3). It is our weak human nature that has made suffering look like punishment. The climax of the redemptive message of suffering is to be found on the salvific cross of our redemption. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the cross has become, not a symbol of humiliation, defeat or shame, but a symbol of redemption and triumph for the Christian. Let me illustrate Clara's equanimity with the story of the first African woman saint of modern times, Saint Josephine Bakhita.
Not many Catholics know much about this incredibly great woman who was canonized in 2000 by the late Pope John Paul 11. She was born in a small village called Olgossa near present day Darfur, Sudan around 1869. At the age of 12, she was kidnapped by Arab traders and sold five times between the markets of El Obed and Khartoum. She was so traumatized by her torture that she forgot her own name. She was named Bakhita (Arab word for Lucky) and forcefully converted to Islam by one of her masters. As a mark of ownership, she was beaten and tortured so badly and left with vicious brutal scarifications which left her with over 60 scars on her breasts, belly and arms. She was finally sold to an Italian diplomat who made her a nanny to a friend's daughter. Both were sent to a Convent in Venice, Italy.
It was there that she found solace, love and peace. She got good education and became a Catholic. When her Italian master and his friend went to collect her back to his house, the nuns, fearing she was going to return to the life of slavery, informed the local authorities. The matter went to court and the court ruled that since the colonial state had outlawed slavery in Sudan even before Bakhita was born, and since she was now an adult and Italy did not recognize slavery as an institution, she was a free person. She gained her freedom and remained in the Convent. She went on to become a nun and worked in Italy for 45 years. She was known for her charm, gentleness, sanctity, smile and warmth. Her final days were characterized by pain and suffering but she bore all with cheerfulness, always saying, as the Lord pleases.
Pope John Paul took up her case almost immediately he became Pope in 1978, declaring her Venerableon December 1, 1978, Blessed on May 17th, 1992 and a Saint Josephine Bakhita on October 1st, 2000. She is today the Patron Saint of Sudan, and a model for slaves and all oppressed people of the world! Clara reminds me of Bakhita in a different context but their equanimity in the face of pain, their common love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, is worthy of note. Comrade Adams could never have wished for a better patron saint himself and I pray he keeps his rosary close by.
In this regard, Clara was a model in the way and manner she and her husband took simplicity to government. Even as Governor, the Comrade believes that wives of Governors should not be subjected to extravagance and opulence. I will narrate one little incidence. One day, I called Adams to complain that I have been having trouble getting Clara on the phone number he had given me. He insisted that he had given me the correct number. Luckily, one night, I got her on the phone, but the connection was rather bad. She returned my call and I could barely hear her. The ding-dong went on until we got a clear line. I was about to blame MTN when she interjected; Father, sorry, it is my phone. It is broken and I am holding it with rubber. Tell your friend o, he doesn't want to buy me a new phone. You have a broken phone? I asked, sounding like a father in law about to scold his son in law. Yes, she answered, she herself sounding like a nursery school child complaining about the size of her school bag. Is Adams at home? Yes, she answered. Ok, take the phone and let me speak to him. She took the phone to Adams with the innocence of a child reporting a bully. I asked how it was that Clara had a broken phone and a whole Governor could not buy a new one? Don't mind her Father, she will get a new phone tomorrow, I promise. Almost childishly, she called me much later to say that she had finally gotten a new phone.
Clara neither lost her sense of simplicity and courtesy nor was she overwhelmed by the paraphernalia and trappings of power. It should be a lesson to many First Ladies today. The success and failures of many leaders depend on the kind of wives they have, not even their paid advisers. Power can be seductive when a woman focuses on appropriating her husband's power, it is likely that sooner than later, something will give and often, it is the stability of the home and family. Women whose husbands are in power must secure and consolidate a protective shield around their husbands and children. A trusted wife is the assurance that a husband has that he will always be guided and helped to make the right choices. A man in power requires the wise and timely counsel of a faithful and simple wife to protect him from the ravenous wolves that appear in sheep's clothing as friends. Contractors will entice, praise singers and sycophants will sing the songs they have learnt to sing to your predecessors and will also sing long after you are gone. Men and women, old enough to be your grand parents will swoon around, calling you Mummy, Mummy. Power will come and go, but your family will remain and it is all you have when all is said and done. To keep a steady head, you must learn to pray, embrace modesty, learn contentment and have the Blessed Mother as your model. You will never ever go wrong. Your husband and family will grow.
In this case, Clara was exemplary. Without much money and with a husband who had taken up the working conditions of workers with a missionary zeal, she was the one left to raise up their five children. Today, her life of prayer, modesty and love of God has placed her husband and children on the pinnacle of their lives. It is a manifestation of what Jesus Himself said: Seek first the Kingdom of God and all else will be given to you (Matt 6 v33). Clara must be smiling now because her job, now fully accomplished, God has granted her the crown of eternal life which He promised.
They married in the Catholic Church while Adams was a Muslim. She did not only have all her children baptized and raised as Catholics, she ended up bringing Adams, her husband into the Catholic fold! This was unprecedented but also a mark of the character of the two persons involved. Whereas other Muslims in other parts of Nigeria like Edo and the South West have come to live with and respect the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens to make their religious choices based on convictions, elsewhere as in Northern Nigeria, many men, in the name of religion but based on ignorance, believe that it another form of haram to contemplate the fact of a woman holding on to her faith in marriage to a Muslim. This is the product of patriarchy and Muslims are not alone in this heresy. Men of other faiths also believe that, as the dubious and heretical saying goes, that women have no religion! Clara has proved them wrong by the strength of her convictions and faith. She lived a true Christian life, belonging to the Legion of Mary and subsequently, a member of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in her Parish. It is this honesty and the quality of her life that drew her husband to her faith. Did you see a photograph of Adams decked with his rosary the day after her demise? That must be Clara's gift!
In conclusion, the timing of the deaths of Clara and that of Pa Michael Enahoro, the father for our struggle for democracy reminds me of the case of the deaths of Princess Dianna and that of Mother Theresa. The similarity is rather uncanny.
It was said that when Princess Diana died and got to the gates of heaven, (August 31st, 1997), Peter told her that she really could not get into heaven. She protested, claiming that she had been a good Christian, been to Mass many times, has done a lot of good work and also had a good friend in the Catholic Church known as Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa was your friend? A bewildered St. Peter asked her. Yes indeed, said the Princess confidently. If she were here, she would testify to that. St. Peter then ordered an angel to go and fetch Mother Theresa and bring her to heaven. Mother Theresa was summoned on September 7th, 1997, one week after Princess Diana's death to testify to Princess Diana's faith and to hasten her admission to heaven.
Similarly, on getting to heaven, a few elders of a luta generation must have must have wondered how Clara could be admitted as a heroine of Democracy. She must have reminded them that she had a grandfather, himself a Catholic who could really testify to her democratic credentials. Do you know Peter Enahoro, Chief Awolowo must have asked? Yes, Clara would have answered shyly. We are from the same Diocese, State and are also Catholics. In that case, Awolowo had pleaded, insisting on procedures and truth: Please, Peter, send for my brother Peter, your namesake to tell us about this young lady. Her husband's credentials we know, but she, we heard nothing of involvement with the struggle. Clara may actually have sent for Pa Enahoro t testify to her contributions to democracy and freedom at least in Edo State, a fact that may have been hidden in her gentle frame.
Strange, both Mother Theresa and Chief Enahoro died one week after the death of their daughters! Clara has also enjoyed unprecedented spread in the size of her spiritual umbrella. Prayers for her have spread over three Archdioceses (Kaduna where she spent most of her life, Abuja where she died, Benin where she reigned) and the dioceses of Auchi where she married and Uromi where she was born and will be buried). I am truly jealous. Well, truly, Clara, you lived by your name which translates as: clear, bright and famous. Rest in perfect peace.
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