About Us / The Foundation's Official Documents

Rev. Fr. Okwudili Ossai Foundation

Welcome to the

Rev. Fr. Okwudili Ossai Foundation. 

It is an NGO with the pivotal aim of helping people, especially the youth, to help themselves achieve self-reliance in life. It is a Foundation praying for growth in the sowing, in the harvesting, and in the capacity for altruistic charity. Help us, at least through your prayers and good wishes to be and concretely remain a “Father of Perpetual Help” for a brighter future for the poor, especially the youths.

About the Founder: Rev. Fr. Dr. OSSAI Mellitus Okwudili:

Brief Self-introduction:

I was told that I was born to Mr. and Mrs. Alfred and Cecelia Ossai on the 16th of July, 1950. I was also told that I was at birth given the name Okoye, being a male child burn on Oye-market day and baptized 14 days after my birth day – my baptismal certificate attests to that. One day in 1970, my elder and only brother was almost dying of a mysterious sickness he was suffering for more  than a year. In the hysteria that ensued in the family looking at my dying brother, somebody told us who, he alleged, was behind the sickness. I was so infuriated that I began to contemplate a murderous retaliatory action if ever my brother died of that sickness. But the spirit of the forgiving God to whom retaliation, if need be, belonged shortly thereafter came into me and told me to hand over the case to God. I calmed down, dropped that murderous intention welling up in me and said: Let the case be over to God (Okwudilichukwu - the Igbo translation of that which I said). From that moment and day, I dropped Okoye as my birth name and changed it to  Okwudilichukwu (shortened to Okwudili). The pardon was so total that the man’s children were among the first to benefit from my subsequent life of charity.

I finished my primary school education in 1965; entered St. Theresa's College in 1966 but the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War in 1967 interrupted my secondary school program. At the end of the war in 1970, I entered the Seminary, All Hallos Seminary, Onitsha, from where I, with other seminarians of Enugu Diocese, came down to the diocesan junior seminary, St. John of the Cross Seminary, Nsukka, the following year to continue my training for the catholic priesthood until my ordination by Bishop Michael Ugwuja Eneja in my home town, Amalla-Egazi, on the 8th of August, 1981.

I worked, after my ordination, as the Assistant Parish Priest to Very Rev. Msgr. Gregory Emehelu in St. Paul's Parish, Awkunnano, Enugu, from October 1981 to May, 1985 when I was sent to the Catholic University of Belgium, Louvain-la-Neuve, for further studies in Philosophy in view of a seminary apostolate. In February 1992, I successfully defended my doctoral thesis, “Marx Scheller's Criticism of Kant's Ethical Formalism”, and came back finally from Belgium in December, 1992. After a few months as an ad hoc Parish Priest of St. Martin de Pores Parish, Obollo-Eke, I joined in 1993 the Formation Staff of Bigard Memorial Seminary, Ikot-Ekpene Campus, to lecture and groom seminarians for the Catholic Priesthood. In 2007, I was called back from Ikot-Ekpene to the mother seminary, Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, to continue with the seminary formation apostolate. With the introduction of the age-limit for the formative apostolate in the seminary by the seminary Proprietors in 2018, I ended my seminary apostolate at the end of 2020 and returned to my home diocese, Nsukka, to continue my priestly life and ministry. Currently, I am officially helping out in the pastoral work in my home Parish, St. Theresa's Parish, Amalla-Egazi (as a priest-in-residence) and functioning from there as the Diocesan Coordinator of Health Services and the Chairman of the Diocesan Hospitals Management Board.

Looking back after my priestly ordination in 1981, I saw that I was in my town factually the first in almost everything significant in a community's development: I was the first to ever go to a secondary school (1965), obtain a WAEC certificates (1973), to be ordained a Catholic priest (1981), obtain an academic degree (BD, 1981), obtain an academic PhD (1992), and the first to build a storied house in flagrant defiance of a deity (Ezugwu Amalla) said to have forbidden such a building under pain of death for any person who would dare it – a retrogressive superstition that hindered housing development in our town for generations long: men were not birds that lived aboveground, it was said in justification of that superstition.It was interesting to see the speed with which storied buildings began to mushroom in my town after I did not die from my defiance of that deity. The killing of twins and triplets at birth in our past culture was also based on the superstitious belief that women were not animals that birthed more than two babies at a time. And it is equally interesting to see today the pride people take in living in a storied building or in being parents of twins and triplets.

Instead of taking pride in all those breaking records, I rather pitied my town for being so backward compared with the neighboring Igbo towns like Obollo-Afor, Obollo-Eke and Enugu-Ezike. That patriotic pity triggered my passion,after my priestly ordination, to help,financially and otherwise, to lift my town from the dungeon of abject indigence, academic backwardness, cultural primitivity, and retrogressive superstitions. My town, Amalla-Egazi (simply called Amalla), has a population of morethan twenty-one thousand (21,000).

Birth History of the Foundation:

Scholarship Program:

My decades of charity birthed my Foundation of perpetual charity. How? Thus: That my burning desire and passion since after my ordination to lift my people from the dungeon of academic backwardness, cultural permittivity, and abject poverty translated into concrete actions shortly after my ordination when I took the first person up, Mr Christopher Agbo, whom I began to sponsor in a tertiary institution (Community Health, Oji River). In addition to that, I began also giving out money for small businesses for self-sustenance – and I was doing all that from my private financial gifts, savings, and bank interests therefrom. It was a humble beginning limited to my meagre resources with no reliable assurance of a brighter future. But God continued all along to sustain my passion in spite of records of poor or even bad investments.

Initially, as mentioned above, I was investing more in parents by giving them money to do business from which I thought and hoped they could grow to support themselves and their children. That did not materialize as I envisaged and wished – the money, in most cases, ended up not in self-sustaining business but in solving family problems. Taught by such unpalatable experiences, I diverted to investing more in younger people through scholarship programs and sponsorship of apprenticeships in handworks. It was a “Help to self-help”, an“Empowerment to self-reliance”.  That turned out to be a better investment.

 Presently I can no longer say or remember the number and the names of all I have helpedsince 1981 to become who they are today. But I remember very clearly that in 2009, I had in my computer a record of 109 beneficiaries of my charity work. And the work has been continuing. Today, with gratitude to God, I can point at medical doctors, veterinary doctors, university lecturers and professors, electrical engineers, nurses, midwives, primary and secondary school teachers, police men, military men, Rev. Fathers, Rev. Sisters,different types of hand workers, successful business men and women, who attribute to God’s intervention in their lives through me what they are today. To God be all praises and thanksgiving for that!

The help I was giving was completely altruistic, gratis and therefore devoid of any personal interests or hidden agenda whatsoever as its motivation. Built-up beneficiaries were, however, expected to take it as an obligation in conscience, when they could, to also help to build up at least one poor child as they themselves were helped.

In addition to my scholarship programs, I have also singlehandedly sponsored development projects in communities far beyond my town, to wit: Breme, Ogurugu, Ogbuzo, and Ibagwa-Ani.

 I thank God for his inspiration, sustenance, providence, and especially for making me a steward of his love and kindness to the poor and needy around me. 

Eligibility: The scholarship program was originally conceived primarily for the children and the youth in Amalla-Egazi who did not have anybody capable of sponsoring their post-primary school education. But my help extended practically beyond my town. In addition to obvious poverty, the candidate must alsobe intelligentenough, medicallyfit, and of sound socio-moral character. Religion or sex did not play any determinant role in eligibility. My four elder sisters did not go to school simply because they were girls, not because my father could not afford the cost – it was still then in our part of the globe generally seen as a waste of resources to invest in female children. Their destiny was to marry as early as possible and bear children. I wanted to join the few in my area who had begun to break that taboo and genderdiscrimination.

Unfortunate Limitations: As a Catholic Priest in this part of the world, I had not and still have no salary or any other source of a stable substantial income. Hence, my ability to help any person was from and dependent on my savings and on helps I got from philanthropic people most of who were not rich financially but incredibly rich in goodwill and in the readiness to make sacrifices for the poor. I thank God that there were and are still such people. To fight my financial limitations, I also opted for a lifestyle that would help me avoid prodigality and frugality in order to save money for my works of charity.

Charity Assured and Insured: I had a bank account into which every financial help I got in view of the works of charity went. The financial help I got for the school fees of any student or for the training of any person in any hand work went into that common account. From there, I took care of all, dictated by the relativity and peculiarity of the needs of each student – some needed more; some needed less. From experience, girls cost me more than boys. And that, I think, was understandable. One very-much trustedbeneficiary was a co-signatory to that account such that, in my absence or incapacitation, that person would have seen to it that all that were then stillunder my sponsorship completed what they were being sponsored in. All were in that way assured of and insured for the help promised. 

Any financial or material gift froma benefactor/benefactressmeant personal for a child in addition to the child’s bursary went untouched to the child. AndI always sent back to such benefactors/benefactresses acknowledgement letters or videos of the delivery of such personal gifts. Such gifts from benefactors/tresses were, however, not an obligation and, therefore, were not part of a child’s legitimate expectations or rights.  

The basic amount I requested per capita for secondary school students who had benefactors/tresses could suffice for all it took to attendnearby schools from their homes but not up to half of what it took to maintain a student in a boarding school far away. I sent students to such boarding schools only with a promise of complementary supports from benefactors or parents/relations or on the basis of theextra-ordinary intelligence and moral probity of such students. The same applied to university students.

End of Scholarship: For those in the secondary schools, the scholarship ended with my payment of the final term’s school fees and the W.A.S.C. and N.E.C.O exam fees.  They were told that no student would be given money to repeat any failed class or final examination, i.e., the W.A.S.C examination.That I would sponsor a child in a tertiary school after his/her secondary school education was neither automatic nor obligatory. That depended on my financial possibility and on how good the child was during the sponsorship of his/her secondary school education. “Uzo di mma, a gayanganabo.” (If a road is good, it will be taken a second time). 

Like those in the secondary schools, no bursary was given to those in post-secondary Institutions to repeat a year; likewise, their scholarship ended with the payment of the fees for the last session/year of their studies.

Forbidden: Those hoping to be sponsored further after their secondary school education were told to never unilaterally choose the course they intended to do or the tertiary school/university they wished to go to. The choice must be in consultation with me and with my explicit approval. The reason was that some lazy ones wanted to go to the university and read anything at all simply because they were tired of staying at home. I considered it not fair to spend my money or that of any benefactor/tress for such lazy people. Hence, my sponsorship of university education became only for those who got admission to do courses that could give them easier possibility to get a job or be self-employed after their graduation – courses like medicine, pharmacy, medical laboratory science, nursing, law, or education majoring in such subjects as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, Igbo, English, or French. Even though the basic pass mark making one eligible for a university education in Nigeria was then 200 over 400, I demanded a little higher than that bench mark to qualify for my scholarship program. I had zero tolerance for lazy children. 

Obligations: Every student must submit a photocopy of the termly/sessional school results (and their originals for cross-checking) before I released the fees for the next term or session. Any excuse for any delay in the submission of results must be officially from the school.

During holidays, especially summer holidays, students must not leave their village for holidays anywhere without my knowledge and understanding. This was because it was required of those of them that had benefactors/benefactresses to submit photocopies of their results and write appreciation letters that would be sent to them. The results and appreciation letters served as concrete evidence that they were still in school and as a basis for my request for the stipends for the next school year.  

Encouragement and Incentives:Scoring “As”, “Bs”, and “Cs” in subjects taken in exams attracted not only public praises and material rewards but the assurance of the school fees for the next term. Students were told that scoring “Ps” and “Fs” would not be encouraging to me and that to have a “P” in all subjects taken in an examination could attract a penalty of less pocket money for the next term.  To have more than two “Fs” in a result could attract the forfeiture of the next term’s school fees as a penalty, and if there was a consecutive repetition of such a bad performance, the scholarship award could be withdrawn.

University Education: My sponsorship of any studies in a University was always in agreement and partnership with the parents and or relations of the children to whom the rules and regulations to be observed by the children as well as the limits of the sponsorship and bursary werealways made clear.  To encourage hard work, the students were told that only a “Two-One” average grade point and abovewould qualify one to get the next bursary in its fullness.  Any score below “C” in any course would attract a penalty of a less pocket money in his or her next bursary.

Non Academic Bursary: I was also sponsoring young boys and girls who after their secondary school education wanted to enter a technical school or learn a skill. I advised them that with the high rate of unemployment in our country, wise youths should reduce their ambition for academics and white-collar jobs and focus rather on something that was pragmatic, ensuring self-employment and self-reliance.

Religious Life: Vocation to a religious life also received sponsorship.

General Admonition: All were urged to be of good moral and social behaviour wherever they would be - in the school, at home, anywhere at all. At home, they were to be of much help to their parents and siblings. Reports of good behaviour always attractedencouraging rewards from me. In short, they were urged to be children I would be proud of. And I am happy to say that many of my wards have won prizes in academics and as best behaved in their schools.

Benefactors/Sponsors:

In addition to receiving annual reports on the children they were sponsoring, they could also have possible direct contact and relationship with them, if they so wished. They could also pay visits to see things for themselves. Many have done so; some more than twice or three times. All did acknowledge that my humanitarian activities all around me were more than what I used to narrate to them. 

The Birth of the Foundation: After some years but especially in the last two years, the question of how the flame of altruistic philanthropy I had lit especially in my town would continue to burn even after my death came more frequently and strongly to mind. I was also asking myself from time to time what would happen to my savings for my works of charity after my death.  The question of perpetuating my works of charity came up very strongly during last year’s Christmas-Get-Together with the beneficiaries of my charity who were in town and could be there. With their encouragement and inspired by the Paul and Susi Foundation (Paul und Susi Stiftung), Schweinfurt, Germany – one of my benefactors - I stamped my decision to found a Charity Foundation. The legal and due processes involved in the founding of the Foundation were successfully concluded on the 5th of July, 2024, with the opening of the Foundation’s Bank Accounts and my deposition of a sacrosanct base capital the interests from which the Foundation would continue perpetually its constitutionally defined aims and objectives. That was how my passion and practice of charity grew to birth a Charity Foundation unlimited in time and space. Surely, the Foundation’s capacity for charity will grow as its base capital hopefully grows.

Objectives of the Foundation:

The Foundation has two main objectives:

1. Helping intelligent and talented children and young people through scholarship programs to acquire formal education and skills for self-reliance in life;

2. Empowering indigent but capable and reliable people for self-sustaining businesses through guaranteed and appreciable non- interest loan-schemes.

Introducing the Trustees:

Rev. Fr. Dr. OSSAI Mellitus Okwudili (Founder& Signatory)

 AGBO Victor Chidiebere (Signatory)

ABA Gloria Ukamaka (Signatory)

EZE ChekwubePaul (Secretary)

ODO Daniel Okwudili (Member)

ABAH ChukwuemekaFrancis (Member)

I am happy and proud to say that the above Trustees are all past beneficiaries of my scholarship program, very eager to contribute their quotas in keeping the flame of the Charity Foundation brightly burning. 

Personal Assurances:

The Foundation is a personal, not a group Foundation. As such, I take personal responsibility for any illegalities and or immoralities that may arise from the running of the Foundation. This responsibility will be inherited by the Trustees and their subsequent successors in the event of my death or incapacitation as enshrined in the Charter of the Foundation. 

Modus Operandi:

I envision a simplified running of the Foundation:

The Trustees shall meet at the end of every fiscal year:

1) To know the interest yielded by the Foundation's base capital in its bank accounts;

2) To consider constitutionally applications and requests for the Foundation's financial help;

4) To vet accounts and reports to the Government on the Foundation;

5) To discuss matters arising and a way forward.

Donors and the Growth of the Foundation:

As the Foundation is not a business organization, the growth of the Foundation can only be through the growth of its base capital which in turn will mean greater bank interests for the Foundation. The greater the bank interests, the greater the capacity of the Foundation for its objectives! Donors are therefore requested to pay directly into the Foundation’s Bank Account and never into any personal account whatsoever, not even mine.

Obligations to Donors:

Donors shall receive official acknowledgment of their donations unless otherwise wished. 

Founder's Prayer:

I pray that God may bless and reward all who will give moral and material support to the Foundation.

Long live Rev. Fr. Okwudili Ossai Charity Foundation!

The Foundation's Official Documents