Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Nigeria's Igbos celebrate 10 years in Detroit
Nigeria's Igbos celebrate 10 years in Detroit
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
May 16, 2008
|
Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
Fr. Michael Nkachukwu holds a sculpture from his native Nigeria of a person enfolded in the hand of God,symbolizing that God is near. |
Detroit — Most Sundays members of the metro area's Igbo community will be found worshipping at a parish church near their homes, but they come together every first Sunday afternoon at St. Cecilia Church on Detroit's west side.
They celebrated the 10th anniversary of these monthly Masses at St. Cecilia May 4.
"It really kind of transports you back to where you came from," says Allison Ehiemere of the experience of hearing Mass celebrated in his native language (pronounced e-bo).
Of approximately 30 million Igbos in their native Nigeria and scattered throughout the world, about 110 families reside in southeast Michigan, mostly in Detroit and Southfield.
Ehiemere, 67, came to the United States from Nigeria to go to college in Iowa in the 1960s. He was first in Detroit for a summer job in 1969, and then returned in 1970 after graduation to take a job with the S.C. Johnson Co. (Johnson's Wax).
Here, he met and married his wife, Margaret, originally from South Carolina. Their three children were born in Detroit.
The company transferred Ehiemere to England in 1976, and then to Nigeria. He rose up to head their operations in Nigeria, then for all of Africa, and finally for the northeast Asia-Pacific region.
But after having lived in so many other places, the Ehiemeres returned to Detroit in 1991 and belong to Sacred Heart Parish, Detroit. "This is my second home," he says.
|
Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
Members of the choir at last Sunday's Igbo Mass at St. Cecilia wear Nigerian fashions. |
The Igbos also come together through the Igbo Cultural Association, which offers classes during the summer to teach their language and culture to children.
Of the Nigerian priests currently or formerly serving in the Archdiocese of Detroit, almost all have been Igbo, says Fr. Michael Nkachukwu, pastor of Good Shepherd Parish on Detroit's lower east side.
Igbos began coming to the Detroit area in the 1960s, drawn by opportunities for education and economic well-being, and by a desire to escape persecution by Muslims back in Nigeria, Fr. Nkachukwu says.
Igbos living in predominantly Muslim areas of Nigeria's north were being killed, and the people of the predominantly Igbo states of the country's southeast attempted to withdraw and form their own nation called Biafra, Fr. Nkachukwu explains.
|
Walter Warren | The Michigan Catholic |
Nigeria's very brutal civil war lasted from 1965-70, and ended after the Soviet Union and Great Britain sided with Nigeria's central government, and troops were sent in to subdue the revolt.
Had Biafra survived as an independent country, it would have been a majority Catholic country, Fr. Nkachukwu says, explaining that about 85 percent of Igbos are Christians, and about 60 percent of Igbo Christians are Catholics.
The conversion of the Igbo to Christianity was accomplished in the 1890s primarily through the efforts of Holy Ghost missionaries from Ireland and England. And it was a Nigerian priest of that order — Fr. Luke Nnamdi Mbefo, CSSp. — who was principal celebrant and homilist on May 4. Fr. Mbefo, former superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers' Nigerian Province, praises the Detroit Igbo community for their commitment to preserving regular celebration of the Mass in their native language.
|
Walter Warren | The Michigan Catholic
Fr. Jovita Okoli, Holy Ghost Fr. Luke Nnamdi Mbefo and Fr. Michael Nkachukwu last Sunday at St. Cecilia Church, Detroit. |
He notes that the Igbo language was the only African language used during the April 20 papal Mass at Yankee Stadium.
Fr. Nkachukwu says that, of those Igbos who came the U.S. for education and returned to Nigeria, some have come back if they could obtain permission for U.S. residency. This explains why so many Igbos are attorneys, physicians, engineers, or in business, he says.
Their generally high educational status was sometimes a point of friction with African-Americans, who often regarded Igbos as arrogant, Fr. Nkachukwu continues, adding that there has been considerable progress on this point in recent years.
|
