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Josfyn Uba
December 4, 2018, was a milestone for Very Rev. Father Jude Ifeanyichukwu Onyebadi. That day marked the 25th anniversary of his priestly ordination.
Now in his 50s, the resident priest of SS Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Issele-Azagba, Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State, has been a cleric for nearly half his life. For all who know him, he is a good priest.
Good priests are renowned for their humanitarian works. Father Onyebadi is no exception. For him, humanitarian work is a practical, everyday engagement; a never-ending assignment. That is why even in his various roles and responsibilities, he is perpetually exploring new ways of rendering further service to humanity. Recently, he was able to achieve that with the official launch of Petscholar Onyebadi Foundation “to help children have a great future and take charge of their life.”
In reality, it is something he has been nurturing for some time now. And characteristically, he is forging ahead without any razzmatazz.
“The foundation is something I would be doing gradually and quietly,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t want to make much noise about it. I kept this close relationship with my parish priest and then he said this kind of thing can’t be kept under the carpet.”
Helping people, Fr. Onyebadi believes, is his calling. “I remember an incident that happened when I was still in secondary school. That day, I was going to the church. Under one bridge around the railway, I heard the cry of a new baby, I went to see what was it and it was a baby girl. Instead of going to church, I took the baby to the police station.”
His passion for charity was further strengthened by his appointment to the Justice Development and Peace Commission, an arm of social justice for the church whose purview includes youth development.
When all the facts of his life are put together, one can see clearly that he is not an accidental priest. Born and raised in a Catholic home, he simply followed in the footsteps of other members of his family.
Perhaps more influential on the direction his life took was his childhood interaction with reverend fathers. “Particularly an Irish priest, Father O’Hara of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Ebute Metta, Lagos, who was quite close to my family, and we followed them to serve mass,” he reminisced. “It was not difficult for me to follow the reverend fathers to continue to pursue the vocation.”
His trajectory is a telling story. Admitted in 1978 into the St. Theresa’s Minor Seminary, in Ibadan, in 1983, five years later, he proceeded to teach in the Junior Seminary at St. Felix Seminary, Ejema Aniogor. In 1984, he entered spiritual year at St Peter and Paul, Ekpoma Campus. One year later, he was admitted into the Senior Seminary where he was until his ordination as a priest on December 4, 1993.
Like all humans, he has had his share of trials. He recounts: “We were in training when I was accused of the things that I wasn’t guilty of. I tried to defend myself and I thought no one was listening to me. Little did I know that the authorities knew that I was not guilty of the accusations. They would later reveal to me that they knew I wasn’t guilty.”
The accusation subsequently earned him a probation that delayed his ordination for one year. The accusation might, at first sound, trivial to the ordinary man but for a priest in training, it was a big cross to bear.
“The implication is that if you were not where others were, you would be held responsible for any bad thing done outside the school compound.”
He recalls with nostalgia the consequence: “I would have been ordained in 1994, but for the one-year probation. My junior became my mates. And even four days to the ordination, I was informed that my name wasn’t included in the list. When the good news came that I would be ordained, there was nothing more exciting.”
Looking back, the episode was no more than a challenge. “I actually overcame the challenge. If I didn’t overcome it, I wouldn’t be here today,” he says, observing that the trial prepared him for things that he was going to face in the future.
Then there was also the kidnap episode whereby he was abducted and held hostage for four days.
The result of his trials, many have said, is the increased milk of human kindness in him. Little wonder that, when he flagged off his foundation, those that know him asserted that he wasn’t venturing into a new terrain. He was simply institutionalising a facet of his calling that he has been doing informally for years.
