Fr George AdimikeFr George Adimike
Existential journeys need guide and light. Such journeys could be precarious without these elements. One could only imagine traversing a dark sea without lighthouses. Each epoch survives on the luminaries who guide, direct and illuminate its path. Our time is privileged to have Father George Ehusani as one of the beacons of illumination, who illuminates our existential pathways and waterways with his life as a prophet and priest.
Since my first encounter with him, he has remained a candle burning brightly, a voice in the wilderness and auditorium, and a leader who goes to the frontlines to exemplify his message. In leading, he shepherds, serves and stewards. Father George demonstrates that the Gospel is not just history but a powerful spell that changes lives in many and several ways. By responding to the Gospel invitation, he has shown by personal example that the Word of God does not only inform but performs in such a way as to transform the recipient. He has let the Good News bear its dynamic power to change lives in him.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelEssaying on Father Ehusani’s ministry proves an amazing fascination for the inspiration it awakens. Each chapter of the ministry holds a stunning narrative of a Pastor, who, through his multiple talents, reminds the world what it was to be a human person redeemed by Christ and inflamed by the Spirit. He reminds the world that true faith informs ethics, hope inspires politics, love drives economics, and art and science express redeemed humanity. In doing so, he accentuates the fact that the whole existence is an ongoing liturgy and, indeed, never-ending worship. In other words, to serve man’s meaning and mission adequately, these dimensions have to focus beyond their frontiers and scope to appreciate their supernatural connection relative to man.
The narratives on his life are largely imperatives for meaningful Christian existence in an African context. For Fr George, being in Christ does not deny identity but educates and transforms it. Hence, while we belong to the universal family of God as ontological siblings, we are particularly enriched and endowed as Africans and Christians. These particularities require no less but rather call us to a higher responsibility. Primarily, it leads to the recognition of the other not as an object to be used and exploited but as a brother with whom we are called to steward the estate of God, creation. What is more, as Christians, we have a responsibility to help people to discover God of our Lord Jesus Christ through interiority and self-awareness. Through that path, we grow in virtues, which enable us to exemplify the true meaning of life and contribute to the transformation of society. Ehusani has spent decades of ministry traversing the airwaves, auditoria, pulpits, and crossing fountains and mountains with this message, which he typifies.
His life and ministry these forty years bear eloquent testimony to the centrality of the human person in our existential enterprise. The redeemed man, who is capable of entering into and sustaining friendship with the Lord and fellowship with his co-pilgrims in the journey of life, enraptures the intellectual, spiritual and emotional dimensions of Father George.
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It is a great joy that one George writes on the great George. I walked into George Ehusani as a young seminarian in early philosophy days so passionate about Pro-life, the Church and God, and he became a mentor. He did not only welcome the young George, but this great George offered me unlimited access to the extent that it registered to my consciousness that I meant so much to this great man. It was nothing unique because of his principle of ozovehe (the human person is life) that affirms the dignity of every human person. Indeed, he neither knew me nor my capacity. Still, he was willing to father this seminarian from a distant ethnic nationality. My Igboness mattered the least! I never thought of Ehusani as a Kogite or Ebiraman except that his Ozohvehe introduced the ethnic nationality to me. I saw him living beyond the ethnic faultline to appreciate the ontological fraternity and the Christian communion. Calling him a Father George was real. He gave me words of God and wisdom. He gave me books, food and money. Pa Aiyemo was ever ready to lead me to him whenever I showed up. No previous appointment is needed. That’s Father George for me. That’s the man I am proud to call a mentor.
His philosophy of ozovehe accentuates the human person’s lordship of creation. According to him, man makes the difference as the central and ultimate resource. This philosophy informs his vision of man – a vision focused on God-man, Jesus Christ, expressed with the idiom of his ethnic Ebira concept of ozovehe. Because man is fundamental, Fr George focuses on the human formation and human capital development in order to build capacities of the agents of historical progress. He founded the Lux Terra Leadership Institute, Abuja, Nigeria, to prepare the kind of leaders that will drive the transformation necessary to build a free and virtuous society.
In addition, to give an excellent foundation to the crop of leaders and humans, he instituted the Institute for Psycho-Spirituality to drive healing of emotional, psychological and spiritual wounds, hurts, memories to be disposed adequately for a good life. Because many persons carry unhealed wounds and unresolved hurts and complexes, they tend to exacerbate the challenges in society. All healings start from reconciliation – with Christ, self and others.
His scholarship is unstated, so his award as the best thesis of the year from Howard University, USA, is not surprising. The profundity of the book is so stunning that one will treasure this stroke of genius. He set to inaugurate a new regime of afro-Christian humanism that respects the sacredness of every life and the dignity of the human person. Indeed, he fosters society and religion that place man at the centre of its reach towards the ultimate meaning of existence, towards God.
Excellence is always the style and substance of Fr George. He leaves no stone unturned in working for the true good of the human person. He leaves no turn unstoned in staying the course of discipleship. Ever illuminating in his words and deeds, his sermons are alluringly arresting. In every age, saints are always the shining lights that radiate the horizon of existence. Father George enlightens by offering perspectives, often ignored; he lights up life paths and gives hope for forging ahead. He is a light-bearer and a light-bringer. A lighthouse which illuminates and transforms is Fr George Omaku Ehusani’s priesthood these forty years. George brings light, hope and strength; he is undoubtedly a luminary for the times, illuminating dark paths of existence and alleys of life.
Fr George Adimike
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