*Introduction:*

his write-up is about an event that took place in my hometown, Aguleri, in Southeastern Nigeria. This event which occurred in 1892 was a brutal war of the British against Aguleri, because of my people’s revolt against British colonial exploitation. The Aguleri man at the centre of the whole drama, Onwuerume, was one of the warlords of the town, that among others that the British sought and insisted on arresting. When this event of the oil spillage occurred, when Onwuerume mistakenly and perhaps, out of curiosity, punctured one of the British Royal Niger Company’s (R.N.C.), oil drums to obtain a little quantity of oil for his roasted yam, the incident provided the British Royal Niger Company an opportunity, to send their soldiers to Aguleri from Asaba, and they razed down a whole village (Ivite Aguleri, the village of Onwuerume), and the surrounding villages and communities. They equally arrested Eze Idigo, the traditional ruler of the town, and other prominent chiefs and elders of Aguleri town, imprisoned them for over a year at the R.N.C headquarters in Asaba. Among those arrested and imprisoned was the father of the future saint (Blessed Michael Iwene Tansi.) It was a very destructive and humiliating. We shall come back to this.

This event is in the British and Nigerian Archives, also written about by late M.C. Meze Idigo in his book, “The History of Aguleri” (Yaba, Lagos 1955); and by the Church historian, Rev. Father Celestine A. Obi (ed.), “A Hundred Years of the Catholic Church in Eastern Nigeria 1885-1985” (Onitsha 1985).

The incident is of such sad and great historical significance, that it’s neglect and continuing watering-down is a serious disservice to Aguleri people, Ndigbo, and Africans in general. It still remains the first and one of the biggest incidents of British imperialism and cruelty against the natives in South-East Nigeria. Therefore, it was not just a conflict. It was a full-blown war, and a then brutal British trade mark of violence and colonialism worldwide that they have successfully whitewashed by rewriting history and hiding it. And which unfortunately, some of our local authors, including church historians are themselves, relying on the sources they obtained from those watered down Western scholarship on our African colonial history.

The Aguleri town is found at the Anambra/Ezu Rivers confluence in “Iduu land” (the original name of Igbo speaking people of Nigeria); a lovingly stretch of Nigerian countryside-scene of rural peace and rustic charm. Aguleri therefore, is a confluence town situated within the valleys and River Basins of Anambra and Ezu Rivers, tributaries of the great River Niger in Eastern Nigeria.

With a land area of about 520sq.km and a recent population count estimated at about 800,000 inhabitants, all known tropical crops are produced in abundance. The rivers, lakes, and ponds contain all types of fresh water fishes and its wild life is as varied as in the East African game reserve. Water navigation was and is still the major means of transportation in the area. All this explains why Aguleri was the second Igbo town after Onitsha to attract European “explorers, commercial companies,” and Christian missionaries at the beginning of the European colonial invasion (exploration) of Eastern Nigeria.

*Palm Oil: British Imperialism and the Aguleri Revolt in 1892*

Again, some authors, including our local church historians, approached this story from the missionary perspective and salvation history, which in itself, has its own immeasurable value and significance. However, we must guard against the temptation of playing into the hands of the European colonialists modern hagiographers who have been doing everything to rewrite the history and water-down the evils of the British brutal imperialism and colonial plundering that this singular incident of the British Royal Niger Company Palm Oil and Onwuerume incident in Aguleri, represents.

Our highly respected, and renowned local church historian, Celestine A. Obi, was cautious, trying to be economical with words, when he said, “The history of the Church in [Eastern Nigeria] can be more meaningfully understood only in the context of Divine Intervention in the history of the Black People of the Lower Niger. Christ’s becoming man has been the greatest and most significant event that changed human history. Christ came into the world to fulfil the prophecy. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Isaiah 6). (C. A. Obi, “A Hundred Years of the Catholic Church in Eastern Nigeria 1885-1985 (Onitsha 1985, p. 3).

Father Celestine A. Obi goes on to say, “God works in a mysterious way’, in our lives and history, as individuals and as a people.” (Ibid.). It is therefore not surprising that it was at the height of the British colonial imperialism, plunder and impunity in Eastern Nigeria, that the event that led the father of the future “Saint” (Blessed Michael Iwene Tansi), to send his son (Iwene) to the Whiteman’s school (though for a different motive), was formed and materialised.

*Onwuerume’s Roasted Yam, British Imperialism and the Making of A Saint*

Blessed Iwene Tansi of Aguleri (Anambra State, Nigeria), was born, few years later after that unfortunate incident, of Onwuerume’s saga and British Colonial Invasion and War against Aguleri. It was precisely at that time of Aguleri history, few years after it happened that Iwene Tansi was born.

Again, Onwuerume was an Aguleri warrior, one of the warlords of the town, who had been a nightmare to the British colonial plunderers along the Anambra River basin and the town! The Colonialists had been looking for an opportunity to deal with him, and that opportunity eventually came, however with a great price for the man himself and the entire Aguleri town and people! The rest is now history!

At first, when the oil spillage occurred and Onwuerume found himself drenched by the spilled oil, he tried to run away and wanted to hide himself from the R.N.C. British guards and soldiers. However, the company’s workers easily detected him and detained him. His detention rang a bell and the Ivite Aguleri village where he hailed from, a community, which were used to protracted war, ran to his rescue and released him. In the process, some rascals looted the properties of the R.N.C. on the argument that they will never brook oppression in their own fatherland especially by strangers. The Company’s chief at Aguleri raised alarm, sent for military re-enforcement from the Company’s headquarters at Asaba. The Company’s military forces came in full force. The soldiers marched to the Christian Village Aguleri, which was the only well organized (westernised) and inhabited spot around.

At the Christian Village, the colonial soldiers arrested the famous traditional ruler and first baptized Christian of the town, Chief Onyekomeli Idigo of Aguleri. From there the soldiers went to ‘war’ against the entire Aguleri town and people. The whole of Aguleri-Uno was attacked. Houses were burnt and domestic animals were shot. People were beaten up, wounded, but not killed intentionally even though there were many deaths.

However, the Catholic missionaries at Aguleri and the remaining elders of the town were outraged that a matter that would have been settled in an hour’s discussion meant that three important villages were pillaged and burnt, the inhabitants put to flight, and Chief Idigo as well as 12 of other leading chiefs, who had come to negotiate, were taken away as hostages and imprisoned. One of the hostages and imprisoned elders was the father of Blessed Iwene Tansi. The hostages were imprisoned at the R.N.C. headquarters at Asaba.

The profound impact of this imprisonment of prominent Aguleri men on the people of the town was tremendous, devastating and humiliating. For instance, the father of Blessed Iwene Tansi, when they were eventually released from prison after almost a year in Whiteman’s captivity, gave the name Iwegbunam (Iwene) to his newly born child (that is, the would be Blessed Iwene Tansi). This Igbo name, Iwegbunam, literally means, “May revenge (or anger) not consume (or rather overpower) me.”

*The Victim of British Colonial Brutality Turned-Saint and a Reconciler*

Thus, when the young Iwene reached school age, his father took him to his uncle Orekyie who was a teacher at the Catholic mission school at Aguleri, so that the boy when he eventually graduates from school would be equipped with the education to revenge what the White people had done to the father. However, things did not go as Iwene’s father had wished. For while in school the young man, Iwene Tansi met his vocation to the Catholic Priesthood. This changed his life forever.

Instead of toeing the path of revenge as his father had wished for him, God had another plan for the young man, Iwene Tansi. He was to become a Catholic Priest in the order of a new reconciliation, love and forgiveness as taught and lived by the Master, Jesus Christ. Little wonder then that from the moment he was ordained a priest at Onitsha in 1937, Fr. Tansi made reconciliation the focal point of his priestly ministry and life.

In fact, in contrast to the wishes of his father, Fr. Tansi as one of the pioneer indigenous priests in Eastern Nigeria, became number one collaborator of the White missionaries. In the seminary, for instance, he studied under the supervision of the expatriate priests. There, he was entrusted with the most delicate function, the procurator, which he discharged creditably to the admiration of his superiors and fellow students.

Both in active and contemplative life, be it as a busy Parish Priest in Nigeria or a contemplative Cistercian monk in England, Fr. Tansi spent his himself entirely for God through the ministry of reconciliation in the church and society in all the places he had worked as Parish Priest. He spent hours and hours in the ‘Confessional”, helping the people and reconciling them. He helped many people who were experiencing difficulties in living together whether as husband and wife or as neighbours, to reconcile, first with God, with oneself, among themselves and with the created reality.

As a curate (assistant parish priest) at Nnewi, Fr. Tansi lived in the company of both African and European priests. He hadn’t any problem with any of them nor did he manifest any sign of animosity against the expatriate missionaries. He mixed up very well with his fellow African priests as well as the expatriates with whom they shared the presbytery at Nnewi.

Again, in the pastoral ministry, he spent himself entirely, to helping the people in the area of penitential reconciliation in the “Confessional.” Fr. Tansi is also highly remembered for having helped neighbouring towns that share the same Parish to accept a common name and center for their Parishes. This he did especially, at Dunukofia and Ufesiodo (Orumba Aguata) Parihes. The names and choice of Parish centers of these two large Parishes were as result of Fr. Tansi’s effort to promote good neighbourliness and peaceful co-existence among the people of different towns and villages that make up the Parishes.

In addition, Fr. Tansi had a great sense of respect to Nigeria’s diverse ethnic, cultural and religious identities. Imbued with cultural sensitivity, he never spoke ill of other people, their cultures, religious or ethnic identity. For instance, in 1946 he visited Kaduna in Northern Nigeria for holidays. During the Mass at St. Joseph’s Church, when he was about to preach, knowing that the bulk of the congregation was made up of Igbos, he asked permission of the others to address his people in their own mother tongue. He told his people to respect their hosts as well as every other person, irrespective of our differences in ethnic, cultural or religious identities.

Furthermore, addressing the entire congregation in English later, he said the same thing, while charging them to respect also the White people. Jokingly, he said to the congregation, “Do not be imitating the Whites in everything, strive hard to gain the Kingdom of God. The Whites are already in heaven in this world, but you are suffering every want. Are you going to suffer also in the next world?”

Moreover, as a Cistercian monk in England, Father Tansi was at the beginning of his sojourn there, the only African amidst the large community of European monks. He never had problem of living together with the White folks at the monastery.

As a Monk, Fr Tansi chose the name ‘Cyprian’, in honour of the great, First Centuries' North Africa’s ascetic theologian and Church Father, St. Cyprian of Carthage!

*Some Important Lessons*

The story of Blessed Tansi – circumstances surrounding his birth, the colonial plunder in his hometown Aguleri, and how he responded to all these challenges of his time, have one great lesson for us today. It teaches us how Blessed Tansi himself, has become a beacon of Christian teaching on love and reconciliation. It shows, us also, that Africa, indeed, the Africans, have chosen the path of love, kindness, and forgiveness, towards all those, who had visited them and their ancestors, with the evils of imperialism and Colonialism.

This is the African humanity and spirit, the world should try to imbibe and learn in the present dispensation, where violence and racism have continued to characterize the attitude of the outside world to the peoples of African descent and the continent. The heart of a typical African is not that of revenge but of love, blessings and forgiveness! It is only to God, revenge, if necessary, belongs.

This is the basis of the ‘African resilience’. That, whatever happens, there is God, who oversees the deeds of men and women, and will judge each one accordingly. Judgement and justice, belong to God. No matter how hard men may try to suppress the history and truth, the African believes that we can never cheat God, the Creator of the Universe and Humankind! Truth must one day, make itself known.

There is time for everything under the sun, the Holy Scripture teaches. Time for falsehood, and time for truth. God, is Truth, and Truth is life – ‘Ezi Okwu bu Ndu.’ ?

*Conclusion*

All said and done, the British colonial brutal plundering and destruction that occurred in Aguleri in 1892, because of a mere oil spillage, remains one of the sad legacies of British colonial imperialism and colonialism in South-East Nigeria, Africa and the worldwide. And certainly, a humiliating and devastating for my town Aguleri, to this day.

This is why it is a great disservice to the people of Aguleri for anybody, to try to whitewash its significance, by rewriting its history or hiding it. The humiliating and destructive effects of that incident for my town Aguleri, is one that Aguleri people won’t forget easily. As a high school student at Father Joseph’s College, Aguleri, I still remember how an elderly Aguleri man who was the night-guard watchman of the college, had during one of our evening recreations after dinner, told us, students, this story as a “Never ever forget” story. He was telling us the story as if it just happened yesterday. And we have never forgotten. Just like the Biafran War.

Fr. Francis Anekwe Oborji is a Roman Catholic Priest, is Professor Ordinarius of contextual theology at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, Rome.