Follow Us On:
When I was born, I was said to be a replica of the brother of my grandfather called Ezekiel. Are you surprised that he had a Christian name?
A little digression: I come from the family that can be said to be the first family in Igboland where all extended family members were Christians. Many people believed that Ezekiel came back in me.
Remember, Ezekiel, my grandfather and Bishop Mark Unegbu were siblings. Ezekiel was one of the first people to be educated in our own part of Igboland. By the 1930s or so, he was already a teacher in Onitsha.
He was one of those who contributed financially to the building of the first secondary school in Onitsha. I was so happy to see his name in the Holy Ghost Fathers archives in Paris, France, among the list of donors who redeemed their pledges.
The archives documented also how a priest visited him at Arondizuogu when he was sick. He was a very devout Christian. He was the one who trained Bishop Unegbu in school. Thus the bond between the two was expected.
You can imagine his joy when Bishop Unegbu became a priest in 1944, and four years later his cousin Monsignor Edward Nwafo Unegbu became a priest too.
Ezekiel, my grandfather; the grandfather of my cousin, the late Father Elias Chims Unegbu, who was also named Elias; and the rest of the bishop’s siblings diěd before I was born. The bishop, their lastborn, was the only one of his siblings we knew.
I was born a week before Christmas, so when the bishop visited home for Christmas, he was happy to see a one-week-old child. He immediately arranged for my baptism and chose the name Angelo, which means ‘angel’, by himself. According to him, the child looked just like an angel. I had the privilege of being baptized by a bishop.
As I began to grow, many began to say that Ezekiel had reincarnated. Some elderly people would see me and call me his name. But I never heard my parents say that, perhaps because of our Christian background.
When I joined the junior seminary, I became very close to the bishop. As a junior seminarian, he would want to take me along each time he was driving out in the evenings. He told me a lot of stories, and I asked him a lot of questions.
There was nothing I would request from him that I wouldn’t get, even if he did it grudgingly. When I joined the senior seminary, he hardly took any personal decision without informing me. He was then already retired.
When he became sick before his děath, I stayed with him. The day I wanted to leave because of the reunion we used to have with our bishop every year, he was sad. I decided to stay and thus missed the reunion with my bishop.
Before I eventually left, he gave him his most cherished piece of clothing, the suit he uses for abroad travels. I can’t forget that gesture. When he dïed few weeks later, I wept bitterly. Till date, each time I remember him, I still shed tears.
Each time I reflect about the bond that existed between us, I ask myself: did the bishop actually believe, like many did, that I am the incarnation of his beloved brother? Or could it mean that I reminded him of him? Or could it be because of my character?
Of course anyone who knows Bishop Unegbu wouldn’t associate him with believing in reincarnation because his belief in the reality of heaven was crystal clear.
