13/08/2026
A TRIBUTE TO A FATHER TO MANY
Today, the body of our beloved Archbishop, Most Rev. Augustine Obiora Akubueze, is laid to rest. His remains are being committed to the earth, but his legacy, his impact, and the beautiful memories he has left in the lives of many of us in this spatiotemporal world will remain undying.
Most Rev. Augustine Akubueze was a true shepherd of Christ's flock. Following the example of Christ, the Chief Shepherd, he was always laying down his life for the flock entrusted to his care. He exhausted his energy, sacrificed his time, and spent his treasures for the good of God's people. He had a remarkable way of touching individual souls through his calm, amiable, unassuming, and deeply fatherly disposition. Hardly could anyone encounter him personally without coming away with a smile on the face. There was something about his simplicity and calmness that made you feel welcomed. He had a way of making people feel that their concerns mattered.
He was a man who looked more for opportunities to give than to receive. His generosity was not restricted by boundaries. Catholics and non-Catholics, priests and lay faithful, people of different backgrounds and circumstances, all have stories to tell about his fatherly heart and magnanimous spirit.
His concern for the wellbeing and welfare of priests was particularly remarkable. Because of this concern, Most Rev. Augustine Akubueze placed the priests working in the interior places on a monthly salary of about ₦120,000 each, and he was very faithful in paying them. He understood that priests who are adequately cared for are better positioned to give themselves generously to the service of God's people.
Many poor parishes in the Archdiocese of Benin today have gigantic and beautiful churches because of his generosity and personal commitment. Thanks to our late Archbishop, who singlehandedly sponsored many of these projects. Just meet him with a genuine pastoral project, and you could almost begin to see its realization. He was a man of action when it came to the advancement of God's work.
He believed that when you take good care of priests and support them in their pastoral work, they become pastorally more effective and efficient. For him, priestly welfare was not merely an administrative responsibility; it was part of building the Church.
My tribute to him is not based only on what I saw from afar or what others have said about him. I write this also from personal experience. When I was kidnapped in 2023, the fatherly care and magnanimous gestures I received from Archbishop Akubueze will forever remain engraved in my heart. His sacrifice of time, his calm counselling, his presence, and his generosity contributed immensely to my recovery from that traumatic experience. At a moment when one could easily feel overwhelmed, his fatherly disposition became a source of strength.
That experience gave me another perspective of the man many people knew as Archbishop Akubueze. Behind the ecclesiastical office was a father. Behind the dignity of the Archbishop was a man with a heart that could feel the pain of another.
And perhaps, to the very few among Benin people who sometimes allowed tribal sentiments to stand in the way of appreciating goodness, spirituality, and humanity, the departure of this great shepherd may make us understand more clearly what we had in him. Sometimes, we do not fully appreciate the shade of a great tree until the tree is no longer standing.
A true man of God is gone.
A committed and patient shepherd is gone.
A father to many is gone.
A generous servant of God's people is gone.
But our Christian faith does not permit us to end this story with tears alone.
Death is an inevitable and inscrutable reality of our human existence. But for the Christian, death is not the final victory. Our hope is in the Resurrection. We believe in Christ who died and rose again, and we believe that those who die in him shall also share in his glory.
This was the Resurrection our late Archbishop preached. This was the hope he proclaimed. And this was the eternal destiny for which he lived and laboured.
Therefore, as we bid him farewell, we do so with sorrow, but also with Christian hope. We commend him to the merciful hands of the God whom he served. May the Lord receive him into the eternal company of the saints in light. May the good he did continue to speak. May the lives he touched continue to bear fruit. And may his priestly and episcopal legacy continue to inspire us to become, in our own little ways, more generous servants of God and humanity.
Goodbye, dear and beloved Archbishop.
Goodbye, our father and shepherd.
You gave much, you touched many, and you left something of yourself in the hearts of those you encountered.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, whom you loved and served, accompany you to the eternal embrace of the Father. May your soul rest in perfect peace. Amen.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
Fr. Raymond Chikaodo ISch.
