As Bishop Haruna passes on ....

Background of the Man Herbert

Bishop Haruna was born in 1924 at Okene, a town in Kogi state (then Kabba Province). His father was polygamous and therefore Mrs. Elizabeth Ibegu Haruna (mother of Bishop Haruna), was one of many wives in Yakubu family. Two interesting thing about this family are that; 1.it is a royal family and stood for all that Ebira arristocracy had to offer; the other two arms of the family tree being of course the Atta and Ochunu Onukoko forming the big royal family that produced Bishop Haruna 2. Papa Yakubu being a muslim accepted the tennets of Islam with regards to marriage and therefore warmly and willingly embraced polygamy but the point of interest here is that Herbert broke away from this strict family tradition to become a christian.
This gives crdence to the saying 'ce sera sera' (whatever will be will be).

One can see the rationale behind why the Herbert of later years, zealously held on to views he strongly believed in. From contemporary experience, one notices that there is greater 'fire of seriousness' in muslims who convert to christianity. They transfer into the new religion a disciplined mind and an almost morbid fear of God to the extent that they accept the 'word of God' to the letter, and would resist, with any vigour they can muster, any attempt to side track or violate any, or all of its provisions. One can smell a near-fanaticism in their worship of God and, in their personal practices and living. There are of course, a few (but only very few) bad cases of converts backsliding back into islam. They seem NOT to understand very clealrly the punitive provisions including the dangers of hell-fire for back-slders: "... No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.

Bishop Haruna was fostered early in 1934 to Archdeacon L.A Lennon. His level of seriousness soon manifested in the result he got in December 1942 and which was signed by the supervisor Ven Lennon and Mr. W.D. Thorp (the government educaation Officer). This certificate which was evaluated personnaly by two white 'white officers', one a cleric aand the other a colonial administrator and educaationist deserves to be recognized both in terms of its worth and its acceptability, in that "Education S 99", Herbert came eighth (8th) in a class of 51 pupils. This naturally attracted attention to the promising young man of 18. And therefore when in 1951, the idea of training for the ministry first crossed his mind, Herbert found ready and spontaneous encouragement from Archdeacon Lennon himself.

Herbert's parish priest was unwilling to recommend him for any ordination. He said that the man was too young for ordination. This constituted the first hurdle which had to be crossed. It was indeed the first in a succession of other life problems which this 'elect of God' had to cross to 'answer the call' into the Ordained Ministry.

Some of the many lessons which Herbert learnt consciously or unconsciously was that one must possess an imposing attribute that will command both the attention and the respect of one's congregation.

Late Bishop Herbert Yakubu also learnt that tough times do no last, but tough men do. These lessons contributed in maaking the man whose excellence in life deserved him a space in the Dictionary of International Biography (See here).

Adapted with slight modifications from the book, 'The Making of a Bishop, a Biography of Rev. Herbert Haruna' by Rev. S. O. Dare (M.A, B.S), Diocesan Education Secretary of Kwara State.