By Lekan Bilesanmi

Birthday celebrations, especially for most special children worldwide, are usually made memorable in different ways. And for Chief Louis Izuchukwu Carter Onwugbenu, a household name in international business circles, born 61 years ago to the Catholic family of Augustine and Cecilia(aka Omakaa) Onwugbenu of Ndiojukwu village, Uruagu Nnewi, it was a day for sober reflection he usually spent amidst children and the physically and mentally challenged at the RECDOTS Centre, Ozubulu in Ekwusigo council area of Anambra State.

Onwugbenu

Nurtured early in life in the precepts of Christianity, the young Louis imbibed solid abiding and deep-rooted faith in God which has remained his lifestyle. He was also made to stay with and serve priests, the early missionaries, when they arrived Nnewi in those days.

As a young boy, it was a rare privilege to come close to priests or teachers, let alone dwelling with them. Louis lived with them and that contributed to shaping his life of service to humanity and God. He became a constant face at the local block rosary prayer group. All these contributed in attracting divine favours in life, he acknowledged.

Born into an environment of biting challenges, the intellectually promising Louis had to forgo his education midway due to the Nigeria-Biafra civil war of 1967. But in what looked like a divine providence, he was now well rewarded in business enterprise later in life. The period of 1972 to 1977 marked major turning point in his life. That was when he commenced his regular weekly shuttle to the Lagos motor and motor cycle spare parts markets at Idumota under the Carter Bridge. As a result he was christened ‘Carter Bridge’, a name he earned as a result of his routine weekly business trips to Lagos. His watchword had remained honesty, diligence and hard work, inculcated in him by his parents and the Catholic priests.

Rev Fr Louis Kettels, the famous Irish missionary who was in Nnewi at the time, had foretold a future full of hopes for the child, Louis. Kettels baptized him with the name of Louis on September 13, 1953 and left a legacy of service in Nnewi, mentoring many sons of the community who later in life became prominent and very successful in their chosen endeavours.

Today, after years of dogged business experience that is already very well favoured by the Almighty God, Onwugbenu, who turned 61 on August 15, has become the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of a business empire. His firm is into manufacturing, agro-allied industries, agriculture/ mechanized farming, real estate, oil/gas and food processing amongst others.

Onwugbenu, at his birthday party, took out time to reminisce on his life of growing up amidst lack, struggles through early days, and then now that favour has clearly smiled on him. He brought some significance in the celebration when he took it to the location where he began his life of service to God and man from- the local block rosary prayer group of Ndiojukwu unit. Flanked by family members, children, friends, the clergy, business associates and parishioners at the premises of St Louis Catholic Church, Uruagu which he donated to the diocese alongside a nursery, primary and secondary school complex, Onwugbenu danced, rejoiced and made merry.

In a remark, Onwugbenu, the Okpata Ozuo-Ora of Nnewi’s life of abundant successes, achievements and accomplishments disclosed:  “My mother had always celebrated my birthday for the block rosary members by cooking foods and providing drinks for them whether I was around or not, on every August 15.” This, according to him, began in 1961 and Mama continued until she passed on a few years ago. He has now resuscitated the idea. The birthday uniquely coincided with the Assumption day of August 15-a sacred day among Catholics, a day when the body of blessed Holy Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, assumed into heaven. He urged the children to remain steadfast in their chores and religious activities, stressing that God never fails, because he is an example of what God can do to a committed person.

While he was still speaking, words came that a poor woman, Mrs Chiamaka Ezeudenyi, from Nnobi, a nearby community, in Idemili South Local Government Area, had just put to bed a set of quintuplets at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi and were facing challenges of funds. It was her maiden delivery, having lost an earlier pregnancy.  One of the quintuplets died, leaving the family with four new little mouths to feed- two males, two females. Unfortunately what the family had prayed and anticipated for to celebrate quickly turned to sadness as the reality of the new heavy responsibility of feeding four extra mouths dawned on them.

The children in hospital

It was at this point of depression and nagging confusion that Onwugbenu came to the scene and restored hope to the disconsolate mother of the quintuplets.  He had to abandon the birthday party to attend to the poor woman and her new babies. He instantly picked their hospital bills, provided for some immediate needs and offered scholarships to all the four surviving babies up to the university level.

He extended his birthday benevolence to three other patients earlier discharged but held against their will by the hospital for failure to raise N400,000 being their bills. He described his gesture as a way to glorify God’s abundant blessings on him, saying, “I was nothing when this hospital was commissioned in 1991. I therefore have every reason to thank God for being exceptionally kind to me. August 15 is my birthday and I want to celebrate with these new children who share the same date of birth with me since God has endowed me with the resources. I have awarded scholarships to the children as the spirit directed me to touch the lives of the less privileged”

His sojourn into the business sector took off in 1972 with the selling of bolts and nuts, oil filters and plugs at Nnewi, with the capital from his parents. Remarkably, he kept diversifying into areas he saw as moving well, including motor parts at one point or another, till he was able to establish a foothold. It was only sheer determination and resilience that propped him on and on till he much later graduated into the importation of auto spare parts. It blossomed and from then there was no looking back. He became a  name in the sector and began to expand and diversify into other lines of trade including manufacturing and estate management.