Nigerian Diplomat Thanks CRC Missionaries

Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher,  Nigeria's top-ranking diplomat to Canada, says he would not be where he is today without the Christian Reformed Church missionaries who were his teachers at a Christian boarding school.

Recently appointed High Commissioner (ambassador) to Canada, Hagher visited the CRC office in Burlington, Ontario, to bring greetings, meet old friends and thank the church for the moral and educational foundation that brought him success as a university professor, author, politician and diplomat.

"I sit here as a testimony to your faithful work and witness," Hagher said in a meeting with CRC staff in Burlington.

"I come to say thank you to the CRC for what you did, what you're doing and what you will do tomorrow to serve Christ in the world."

Al Karsten, North American director for Christian Reformed World Missions, had invited Hagher to meet with people and see the operation of the CRC at its office in Burlington.

As a boy growing up in Nigeria, Hagher attended W.M. Bristow Secondary School, a boarding school formerly operated by the CRC and now run by its Nigerian sister denomination, the NKST.

Under the tutelage of missionary teachers such as Geraldine VandenBerg and Gordon Buys, he learned about the life-transforming gospel of Jesus Christ. In addition, he said, his teachers served as models for how to live out the message of love and service that Christ brought into the world.

"I am an example of what she gave her life to produce," he says of VandenBerg, whom he refers to as "my mother."

Hagher says he and others who attended the school are now living out the lessons they learned there. "That is the heritage you have planted in other parts of the world."

Buys, a retired CRWM missionary teacher and pilot, said he recalls Hagher as one of the many young people who had good potential to learn and succeed, and it was the privilege of the teachers to help them develop that potential. "We were dedicated to the task of teaching and of exemplifying the truth," says Buys.

In a 2004 interview with a Nigerian newspaper, Hagher said his father was a primary school headmaster "and he was my first teacher. My mother was an illiterate housewife, but she learned how to read the Bible. Ours was a humble family."

Hagher first became involved in politics in 1983 when, as chairman of a local arts and cultural council, he was encouraged to run for a seat in the Nigerian Senate. He was successful in his bid. More than a decade later, as the country recovered from military rule and sought to re-write its constitution, he was selected to participate in the constitutional conference. He went on to become minister of state, power and steel, where he focused on getting energy into the rural areas, according to news accounts.

A long-time university lecturer, Hagher has a Ph.D in theatre and drama – experience he brought to his political work years later when, as minister of health, he introduced theatre and song as a grassroots means through which to teach Nigerians about HIV/AIDS.

In 2004, Hagher was named ambassador to Mexico where he created educational and cultural exchanges between the two countries, created business and investment ties, and helped Nigeria open an embassy in the country. As High Commissioner to Canada, he now lives in Ottawa and attends a CRC congregation there.

"To have him there (in Canada) with his background is a Godsend," Buys says.