Nigerian cardinal’s brother says he could have chosen any career path

01 Mar 2013

By The Record

Michael Onaiyekan, whose brother is Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abjua, Nigeria, poses Feb. 24 at a restaurant in Tucson, Ariz., where he now lives. Onaiyekan talked with Catholic News Service about their childhood in a poor, farming family in Kabba, Nigeria. PHOTO: CNS/Patricia Zapor

By Patricia Zapor

Around their hometown of Kabba in the state of Kogi, Nigeria, Michael Onaiyekan is known these days not by his own name but as “aburo cardinal,” or brother of the cardinal.

He chuckles to consider — but doesn’t dismiss — the notion that within a few weeks his name in Kabba might, just might, become “aburo pope,” brother of the pope.

Onaiyekan’s elder brother, Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abjua, Nigeria, is one of the newest members of the group of cardinals who will convene in a conclave shortly to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI after his resignation Feb. 28.

In an interview near his home in Tucson with Catholic News Service, Michael Onaiyekan talked about his brother and what it means to have a cardinal in the family.

The word last fall that then-Archbishop Onaiyekan would be elevated to cardinal was not particularly a surprise, said his brother.

“There had been speculation many years back,” Onaiyekan said, in part because his predecessor as bishop in what became the Archdiocese of Abuja was also made a cardinal, the late Cardinal Dominic Ignatius Ekandem.

Beyond that, says the younger sibling, “my brother is a brilliant guy.”

The eldest boy in a family of seven children, the future cardinal was such an outstanding student that his 1962 graduation testing scores at Mount St. Michael’s Secondary School in Aliade continue to stand as a national record, Onaiyekan said. Though he might have pursued any career field, his goal, however lay in the priesthood.

“He could have done anything he wanted to do,” his brother said.

Michael Onaiyekan said that because of the eight-year age difference between them, by the time he got to know him, his brother was already in high school, far from home. Their father, a farmer whose children all helped with the crops when they weren’t in school, insisted that all of his boys and girls get an education.

Several went on to become educators, one’s a doctor and Michael had a business manufacturing equipment for people with disabilities before he moved to the United States a couple of years ago.

But in the 1960s when government leaders came around Kabba trying to persuade the brilliant young student to become a doctor or an engineer instead of a priest, the head of the family would hear none of it, said Onaiyekan.

Affinity for the church was strong in the Onaiyekan family. His father was considered the local head of the Catholic Church, having been the only man among the Catholic converts of the era who would agree to the church’s requirement that the leader be a man who was married in the church.

In a culture where multiple wives and the children they could bear was a standard of success, no other men in the village would agree to a Catholic marriage because it would limit them to one wife, said Onaiyekan.

The seminary decision was not his to make, however, their father believed.

“I remember it very well because of the type of visitors my father was receiving,” he said. “The government said they would send him anywhere in the world he wanted to study and they wanted my father to get him to change his mind about going to the seminary.”

John Onaiyekan instead did his seminary studies at Ss. Peter and Paul Major Seminary in Bodija and completed his theology studies in Rome before his ordination Aug. 3, 1969. He later went on to get a licentiate and doctorate in sacred Scripture.

His assignments have included terms as rector of St. Clement Junior Seminary in Lokoja and as vice rector of Ss. Peter and Paul Seminary before being ordained bishop of Ilorin in 1983. He was made coadjutor of the Diocese of Abuja in 1990 and took over as head of the diocese in 1992. Abuja was elevated to an archdiocese in 1994.

Cardinal Onaiyekan has served on the International Theological Commission, the International Catholic/Methodist Dialogue Commission and was named International Peace Laureate by Pax Christi International in 2012. He was made a cardinal Nov. 24, 2012, in the last group so designated by Pope Benedict. The pope named him to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Council for the Family at that time.

Through all his brother’s success, Onaiyekan said, the family has maintained their distance, respectfully trying “not to bother him,” he said. In Nigeria, Onaiyekan said, it’s common for relatives of anyone who’s successful in any field to try to benefit financially from that success.

“We have surrendered him to the service of God,” he said. “He always says he’s very grateful to us.”

Besides, said Onaiyekan, proudly showing off a photo of himself greeting Pope Benedict at his brothers’ elevation as cardinal last fall, “what more wealth is there than shaking the hand of the pope?” –  CNS