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In 1945, a year after his priestly ordination, Fr. Mark Unegbu was posted as parish priest to Dunukofia to replace Fr. Iwene Tansi, who later left to England to join the monastic life.
In Dunukofia parish, one of the natives, Francis Arinze, was one of Unegbu’s house boys. Having spotted Arinze as good mannered, smart, quiet, and intelligent, Unegbu asked him if he would like to be a priest. “Yes Fr”, said Arinze.
Happily, Unegbu then asked him to inform his parents, but Arinze’s parents, especially his mother, stood vehemently against the idea.
At that time, Arinze’s elder brother, Christopher, was teaching at the parish school. Unegbu had also gotten admission for Francis Arinze’s second brother, Linus, into St. Charles Catholic Training College Onitsha.
Unegbu invited the two brothers. He told them that he “was going to withdraw them from the teaching service and from the college, respectively, if Francis was not allowed to enter the seminary.”
“The threat worked. They put pressure on their parents,” Unegbu remarked in later years. According to him, it was only an empty threat.
In 1946/47, Francis Arinze joined the minor seminary. Arinze succeeded in becoming not just a priest but also the first indigenous archbishop of Onitsha when his master (as he use to refer to him), Unegbu, was still a priest.
With the expulsion of the missionaries in 1970, after the end of the Nigeria-Biafra (genocidal) war, Rome appointed Unegbu the first indigenous bishop of Owerri. The person who informed him of his appointment was Arinze.
Exactly 54 years ago, on September 20, 1970, Fr. Mark Unegbu was consecrated a bishop at Mount Carmel Catholic Church Emekuku by his former houseboy, Archbishop Francis Arinze.
Lessons: Treat everyone who comes your way with love and kindness. That househelp, nwa boy, junior colleague, pauper or than “nobody” may tomorrow head that meeting where you will be the subject of discussion. Nobody is nobody.
