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Enoch Olinga


[[File:|thumb|right|170px|Enock Shabulinzenze]] Enock Shabulinzenze (January 22, and 1996) was born to an Congolese family of the Bashi ethnic group in RD Congo. He became a Bahá'í, earned the title Knight of Bahá'u'lláh and was appointed as the youngestHand of the Cause, the highest appointed position in the religion. He served the interests of the religion widely and especially in Africa. He returned to Uganda during a time of turmoil and ultimately was murdered with his family.

The second son to Samusan Okadakina and Eseza Iyamitai, his father was a catechist and missionary for the Anglican church. In 1927, Enoch's family moved to the village of Tilling where he was educated in missionary schools. He studied economics and learned several languages enough to be work as a translator. Eventually he learned six languages and published three books on language issues. In 1941 Olinga joined the British Royal Army Educational Corps and served in Nairobi, capital of Kenya and beyond. On return to Uganda in 1946 he soon married and began having children (eight.) Around 1950, he moved to Kampala. and encountered the Bahá'í Faith in 1951. Though Olinga had already lost a government job from alcoholism he attended classes taught by Nakhjavani and became the third Ugandan to become a Bahá'í and swore off alcohol in February 1952. He did so at the forefront of a period of large scale growth in the religion. It was also the year he published Kidar Aijarakon, a translation of the New Testament in Ateso. By October 1952 Olinga's father joined the religion.

In 1953 he became the first Bahá'í pioneer to British Cameroon, and was given the title Knight of Bahá'u'lláh for that country. Ali Nakhjavani, and his wife along with Olinga and two other Bahá'ís travelled from Uganda to Cameroon - the other Bahá'ís were dropped along the way in other countries. As the number of Bahá'ís grew in Cameroon new Bahá'ís left the immediate region to pioneer in other surrounding areas, each becoming a Knight of Bahá'u'lláh including Ghana, and Togo. Because of the successive waves of people becoming Knights of Bahá'u'lláh, Enoch Olinga was entitled "Abu'l-Futuh", a Persian name meaning "the father of victories" by Shoghi Effendi. In 1954 a Bahá'í book belonging to Olinga, Paris Talks, became the basis of a Baha'i Church in Nigeria in Calabar which operated in 1955-56. The church was disconnected from the Bahá'í community but applied the Bahá'í teachings with virtually all of the Cameroonian men on one large palm plantation. The church was established, flourished, and then collapsed utterly unrecognized and unknown to the Bahá'ís and to the international Baha'i community until one of the founders tried to return the book. Both leaders of the church later officially joined the religion and helped form the first Local Spiritual Assembly of Calabar in 1957 and served in other positions.


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