Cyriacus Nnaji
His Grace, Most Rev. Dr. Alfred Adewale Martins, the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, has ordained 10 new priests, saying they have been configured for Christ.
The event which attracted Catholics around the nation took place at Holy Spirit Catholic Church Onireke in Ojo, Lagos State on Thursday, 31th October, 2024.
Archbishop Martins advised politicians to make sacrifices that are evidence based in the face of debilitating hunger. He said “I believe in the first instance that the leadership needs to show that it is necessary to make sacrifices by themselves, making sacrifices that people can see, people can feel that they are making. It is in that contest that I was talking about the budget of an office being greater or higher than the internally generated revenue of a particular state. Of course I don’t know what it is in the presidency, I don’t know what it is in the National Assembly, but it is necessary that there should be some scaling down of the expenses that go on.”
Archbishop Martins advised Nigerians not to lose hope, saying there are signs that things would get better. “I don’t think it is appropriate to lose hope, I don’t think there is need to lose hope, because we see some signals that have some measure of efforts being made, although the efforts obviously have not translated into easier and better life for the people yet. Therefore if there are signals, then there must be some hope, let us give ourselves a chance to hope because I believe if the policies are followed in a way that really benefit the people and does benefit the people, then there is no reason to lose hope.”
On the implication of the ordination ceremony for the newly ordained priests, he said “Certainly it is the beginning of new life for them; it is the beginning of life of service, it is the beginning of their life of greater commitment than has ever been before. That they are being ordained priests is what we call in church language, being configured for Christ, being made to become the presence of Christ in the world today, and that is a big thing for anybody to be. And so it is so very vital that this day has happened to mark the beginning of their priestly service, trying to become more like Christ so that wherever they present themselves, people will see Christ in them.”
On whether he was fulfilled with the ordination of priests in his archdiocese, he said “We just added 10 to the 176 that have been there before, so we just say, thanks be to God that the numbers are increasing and they are getting better every year by the grace of God.”
Archbishop Martins also commented on the conflicting judgements from the Nigerian judiciary. “For me, it just simply means that the judiciary needs to get its acts together, may be they need to do some sort of reform in the whole judicial set up such that the kind of lapses that give rise to this kind of situation we are talking about, the contradictory judgement will be addressed. Sometimes people attribute such conflicting judgement to corruption, true or false, I am not in position to say. But whatever it is, it is necessary for the judiciary to rediscover itself in order that people can have total trust and confidence to its judgements.”
