US-based Nigerian Catholic Priest Chooses Death Over Returning To His Home Country

By Adesina Soyooye

“My heart is broken. It is not my wish to return to Nigeria now”

For Nigerian-born Catholic Priest based in the United States of America, death is better than being returning to his home country. So, he chose death, and, allegedly, committed suicide. “My heart is broken. It is not my wish to return to Nigeria now”,  he wrote in a post.

The Roman Catholic Priest, Rev. Fr. Benjamin Madu, from Nigeria, had been billed to leave the United States over visa issue, and had been preparing for his departure.

But that was not to be. For, now, he would either be sent back to Nigeria in a body bag or buried in the United.

Church officials in Massachusetts, USA,  where he had  been serving as a  Chaplain in a hospital, for years, said Rev. Madu, who was  of the Diocese of Abakaliki, before he travelled to the US, died Thursday last week.

An announcement made by   Rev Father Jim Achadinha of the Catholic community of Gloucester and Rockport,  described Fr. Madu’s death as a “devastating loss.”

Madu, said Achadinha,  “served Holy Family Parish and Our Lady of Good Voyage Parish with true joy, kindness, and generosity.”

Not much details have been released by either the church or local law enforcement officials but a representative of the Essex County District Attorney’s Office ruled out foul play.

An autopsy report is being expected and efforts to officially contact his family and home Diocese in Nigeria, underway.

NBC News quoted a source familiar with the case as saying that Madu died by suicide. Yet, another source speculated cardiac arrest. An autopsy will sort it out.