“And who is my neighbour”? This interrogation came from a lawyer, who came to tempt the wisdom of Jesus Christ on the issue of love. The entire encounter is recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Luke 10: 25-37. We shall come to that story later. But now, let me tell you a personal story that gave me a very pragmatic definition of neighbourliness. Some years ago, I was in my hotel room in one of the states in the South-East on an official assignment. My mobile phone rang around 2.00 a.m. I struggled out of sleep to check who the caller was. Alas! It was my elderly neighbour, Reverend Amadin Obakpolor. What? Reverend? 2.00 a.m? Jesus! I was alarmed. I picked the call, my heart palpitating, I waited. The old man, who happens to be the Odionwere of my street, said he heard some noise in my compound, and knowing that I had travelled, he decided to call me to find out what was amiss since he did not have my wife’s number. I was a bit relaxed and thanked him. I immediately put a call across to my wife and I asked her what was happening. Her response was that the baby of the neighbour at the boys’ quarters had convulsion and only the two of them were at home, the young father of the baby too having travelled. She assured me that the baby had stabilised and that he would be taken to the hospital at daybreak. I called the Odionwere back and thanked him for his concern. By 5.30 am, my wife called back to say: “Daddy (the Odionwere) is here”. The old man woke up that early to check on them before dashing out to pursue the day’s assignments. I will never forget that act of friendliness and commitment to good neighbourliness. That incident brought back my Anglican rhymes of “whosoever you have the capacity to help is your neighbour” (Eni kéni tí’wo bá Nipa láto se ìrànlówó fún o, òhun na lenìkejì re, tójú rè). The rhyme is encapsulated in the Bible passage above, which our children’s teachers at the All Saints Anglican Church, Oke-Bola, Ikole Ekiti, tagged: “The Parable of the Good Samaritan”.
