BY IDUH ONAH
THERE are moments when a celebration transcends the ritual of cake, balloons, music and congratulatory messages. There are occasions when a gathering becomes a testimony; a public acknowledgement of a life whose quiet impact has been felt by many. Such was the 60th birthday celebration of Pastor Onoja Innocent Ella at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Resurrection Power Assembly Parish, Hilltop FHA Phase 2, Karu, Abuja on Sunday, August 16, 2026.
It was a surprise in every sense of the word.
The church had meticulously planned the celebration without allowing the celebrant, his wife or their children to know what was coming. His brothers, sisters, in-laws, relatives and those particularly close to him were discreetly contacted and drawn into the plot. I learnt of the arrangement through Mrs Justina Attah, one of Onoja’s younger sisters.
Anybody who had encountered Pastor Onoja would have one way or the other benefited from him – from his immediate family including his siblings, extended family members and friends, fellow pastors and church members. Onoja’s goodness is not a recent acquisition that began when he gave his life to Christ. Those of us who knew him long before now know that the inclination to give, to sacrifice, to accommodate to feel for others, and to help when not asked were already deeply rooted in him.
By the time Pastor Onoja walked into the church, the surprise had become a carefully orchestrated celebration of a life.
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“When I saw the balloons, I didn’t know they were for me. I was surprised,” he recalled. Even more astonishing to him was how the church had managed the secrecy. “I didn’t know how the church communicated with my extended family, and my whole community,” he said.
There was, however, something more fundamental about the occasion. It was not merely a birthday celebration. It also marked the close of another significant chapter in his life: his exit from the public service.
Onoja retired from the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) on June 16, 2026, the very day he clocked 60. The church’s celebration, therefore, came exactly two months after his retirement; a fitting pause to honour both the milestone of age and the completion of a career of public service.
I have known Onoja, whom we all call Brother Inno (short for Innocent), since childhood. Our acquaintance goes back in time; to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he and his immediate younger brother, Francis, alongside a couple of dozen others, were uprooted from Kaduna, separated from their parents with the sole purpose to enable our village to qualify for the establishment of LGEA Primary School.
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It was a huge sacrifice by both parents and children, all of whom were under ten years of age. The parents surrendered the everyday comfort of having their children around; the children surrendered the comfort of city life and the reassuring presence of their parents. They did so for a purpose. That chapter of our collective story deserves a column of its own.
But even from those early years, there were traits that would become unmistakable hallmarks of Onoja’s character.
By the time I arrived at the church, a location that offered an expansive view stretching eastward as far as the eye could see, many people had already spoken. Yet it was easy to discern a common thread running through their testimonies.
For those of us who have known Onoja for decades, every expression of gratitude, every eulogy and every appreciation, was a perfect illustration of virtues we had long witnessed: his goodness, humility, large-heartedness, gentle disposition, often shy or reserved mien, and quiet philanthropy.
Anybody who had encountered Pastor Onoja would have one way or the other benefited from him – from his immediate family including his siblings, extended family members and friends, fellow pastors and church members. Onoja’s goodness is not a recent acquisition that began when he gave his life to Christ. Those of us who knew him long before now know that the inclination to give, to sacrifice, to accommodate to feel for others, and to help when not asked were already deeply rooted in him.
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There are several dimensions to this goodness, and some of them are captured in stories that go beyond the tributes told on Sunday at the church, like that of the woman who said despite the social and economic status of her family, her children were able to receive a decent education courtesy of Pastor Onoja’s personal interventions. Her story offers a glimpse into a form of generosity that did not merely provide temporary relief but helped create opportunities for a better future.
At 60, and at the threshold of a new chapter after public service, Pastor Onoja Innocent Ella has earned the rare privilege of having people tell his story while he is still here to hear it. For a man whose life has been defined by giving, perhaps the greatest gift was to discover that his goodness had not gone unnoticed. The balloons were meant for him after all, and so was the love.
Another story was once told to me by Thaddeus, a junior staff member at the NEPC, who is now late. He recounted how, on a number of occasions, many junior staff members got their lunch through Onoja’s benevolence. They did not have to beg. Onoja simply had the unusual ability to read their faces, to notice when someone was genuinely hungry, and to quietly respond to the need.
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Onoja’s goodness goes beyond material generosity to what I will describe as an extraordinary compassion, restraint and an unwillingness to hurt others, even when doing so might appear justified. In 1994, when he invited me to spend that year’s Christmas holiday with him in Abuja, I was told a story about a man known to him who had been caught by staff stealing eggs from a poultry farm he (Onoja) was managing. The staff told Onoja that they had long suspected the man and urged him to come and confront him. Onoja vehemently declined. His reason was striking: he said he was not capable of confronting the man because he feared that the humiliation might drive him to commit suicide.
Mrs Gracious Ochanya Ella, his spouse, in her vote of thanks, provided, for me, the perfect sentence that perhaps best illustrate her husband’s characteristics: “My husband is a good man”, and she qualified this by saying: “I am not saying this because he is my husband; he is really a good man.”
There are stories from his days at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, of a young student whose instinct was to give even when he had little to nothing. He is the sort of person who could give away his last meal and retire to bed hungry rather than watch someone else go without.
That is perhaps the simplest way to understand the man being celebrated.
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Onoja said he had been a pastor for 22 years. Looking back on the journey, he could barely contain his emotion.
“I cannot forget this day. I have shed tears of joy and this day will be joyfully etched in my heart for the rest of my life,” he said.
But, characteristically, he did not allow the praise to settle entirely on himself. For Onoja, goodness has a spiritual source. “Being a good man is linked to Jesus,” he said, adding that no man is good but Jesus reflecting in the person. This statement perhaps captures his understanding of his own life better than any tribute could.
His younger brother, Elayuwon Stephen Ella, offered another deeply moving dimension to the story. He said Onoja ensured that they did not grow up feeling the absence of the father they lost as kids. Their father died before he reached 60, and, in Stephen’s words, God came to their rescue through Onoja.
That was more than sibling affection. It was an acknowledgement of responsibility quietly assumed.
Onoja himself spoke with profound gratitude about reaching what he called the “sixth floor”; a milestone neither of his parents attained. He lost his father while preparing to enter university and his mother while he was being mobilised for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Yet, through the vicissitudes of life, he survived, endured, served and became a pillar to others.
And perhaps that is why the celebration at Resurrection Power Assembly was so emotional poignant to him as his wife had to give him a handkerchief when he could no longer contain the tears of joy upon the surprise celebration by his church.
It was not simply a church celebrating its pastor. It was a community saying thank you to a man whose goodness has often been expressed without noise or publicity.
At 60, and at the threshold of a new chapter after public service, Pastor Onoja Innocent Ella has earned the rare privilege of having people tell his story while he is still here to hear it. For a man whose life has been defined by giving, perhaps the greatest gift was to discover that his goodness had not gone unnoticed. The balloons were meant for him after all, and so was the love.
Onah is the Editor-in-Chief of NATIONAL RECORD and writes this column every Wednesday. Send reactions via email to: nationalrecordng@gmail.com, onahiduh@yahoo.co.uk. WhatsApp: +234 8033209749
