This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2025 edition of the African Missionary Magazine.
Fr Michael Waters lived and worked with the Maguzawa, (A term used by the Muslims for Hausa people who rejected Islam. It literally translates as “the ones who ran away,” i.e. from Islam) for many years, committing himself to their cause in an extraordinary manner. I knew him personally because he was my Parish Priest, having baptised me in 1999. His example inspired me to become an SMA priest. So who is this man so loved by all? He was born in Cork City on 12 July 1941, and was ordained as an SMA priest in 1966. He arrived in Nigeria in 1968 and spent the next 50 years as a missionary there – originally in the Archdiocese of Kaduna, then Kano Missio sui iuris, and finally Kontagora Diocese.
He ministered in Kaduna from 1968 until in 1991. He was working in St Anthony’s Parish, Refawa, when it became part of what would become Kano Diocese. From 1991 to 2000, his work and that of his predecessor, Fr Seán Hayes SMA, began to bear fruit and the parish went through a period of amazing growth. New churches were opened, and eventually new Parishes were founded in Gamashina and then Bakin Nana.
This phenomenal growth followed a typical mission development: very slow growth for many years and then a sudden flourishing. Fr Waters had a very significant part in this flourishing, particularly due to his fluency in Hausa, his ability to engage with the old and the young, and the setting up of dry season courses to train lay people to become church leaders. He also worked at developing formal primary and secondary education of secondary education for young people. This has had great success.
Fr Waters was an energetic and enthusiastic missionary who worked for the growth of the Church and for social justice. He set up a legal process that returned misappropriated land to the people of Refawa, and, in addition to nurturing faith, he promoted social development and education in the ways mentioned here.
Fr Waters made a deliberate choice to minister to the most abandoned by choosing to minister to people who lived on the peripheries of Nigerian society. He moved from an established Diocese to a new one and from established parishes he moved on to set up new ones. His actions echo the words of the SMA Founder, Bishop de Brésillac: “happy the missionary who, when he founds a church and sees that it is growing, moves quickly to another place in order to found a new one”.
Government authorities were unwilling to give Hausa Christians any meaningful education unless they were ready to change their religion to Islam. Fr Waters, like Fr Hayes, realised this and saw how crucial it was to address this problem. Therefore, he decided to establish primary schools in the villages, setting them up as branches or extensions of the existing 
St. Louis Primary School in Kano City.
I am a beneficiary of this system. Thanks to this initiative, today, among the beneficiaries, there are many priests ordained for the diocese of Kano and beyond. Others are doctors, nurses, lawyers, journalists, teachers, accountants, etc. Apart from the promotion of formal education, Fr Waters also introduced a dry season literacy course for our parents who did not have the chance to go to school. Centres, opened at strategic locations, allowed people learn to read and write in the Hausa language. From among these, the “early” church found lay readers, catechism teachers, service leaders and choir members. Fr Waters also organised programmes on leadership, health education and other skills. As a result, we now have trained individuals who help, lead and empower their own people.
Attentive to the needs of the sick (the Good Samaritan; Lk 10:25-37), he built clinics that contributed greatly to the health sector in Kano State. They were recognised as the best health centres in the rural areas – better run and equipped than many state facilities. These are now run by Kano diocese and staffed by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. On a personal level, Fr Waters also provided medical assistance, treating some ailments and binding up wounds when people were injured. He did some training in dentistry, and was able to do basic extractions, so ending the pain of aching teeth.
To improve the socio-economic wellbeing of people Fr Waters introduced irrigation systems that benefitted the farming communities of Refawa and Nasarawan Kuki parishes. Through the provision of water-pumps and training, local people were able to improve their farms and incomes. In addition to the above, he dug or repaired wells in almost all the places where he worked, in order to provide people with clean drinking water without having to go a long distance. This was something he was to be involved in later in Kontagora Diocese which has a very well developed ‘well-digging’ programme under the guidance of Fr Donall O’Catháin SMA (from Cork City).
Conclusion
Fr Waters was truly a Father to the Maguzawa people. He risked his life in order to live and work in an environment hostile to the Gospel. I see him as the St Paul of our time, a great apostle to the Maguzawa people. While we recognize the great intellectual, moral and financial support that the SMA, especially the Irish Province, must have given to Fr Waters, we cannot fail to give him credit for his courage, hard work and dedication to the mission. He is an inspiration to today’s missionaries. We pray that these gracious words of the Master Jesus may be heard by him: “Well done good and faithful servant…enter into your master’s joy” (Matthew 25:21).
Fr Michael Waters died in SMA House, Blackrock Road, Cork on the 5th of November 2024 aged 83 years. May God grant him eternal rest. Amen