There is yet another chapter of this ‘book’ dealing with the need to think homeward in terms of our investments.
Ntol Ray Ugba Morphy, a scion of the legendary Chief Iwong Iyamogun Morphy of Ishibori, Ogoja Local Government Area of Cross River State, is an open book I have been reading for a couple of years now.
As it is with every book, not all chapters will interest every reader; different readers have different things in a given book that appeal to them. What appeals to some readers’ fancy in a particular book is the word-smithing and not the message in the book. For others, their interest is strictly in the message without recourse to the grammatic appropriateness or inappropriateness of the book.
For instance, I read everything penned down by the controversial FFK mainly because of his very high display of literary and attracting expressions which he (FFK) ascribes to his Harvard University training.
In the open book under reference, I fancy the contents, contexts and messages in a good number of the chapters of the ‘book’. I strongly detest some. Regardless, most chapters of this ‘book’ have been very beneficial to me. I keep ruminating over them.
One of the chapters of the book which I consider very important and critical is the one aimed at delivering us (his facebook friends) from ecclesiastical stupidity/sheepishness/ ’mumuism’. The author rightly and potently makes us understand that there is a difference between the word of God and the words of our pastors/priests. Some of us have, unfortunately, become slaves to ecclesiastic entrepreneurs who are not even grounded in the word of God. Sir Ray has done so much, in his own way, to pull us away from this avoidable slavery. He charges us to seek to know God ourselves.
There is yet another chapter of this ‘book’ dealing with the need to think homeward in terms of our investments. The Onitsha-brought up has invested so much time in letting us know that there is no wisdom in living large in the cities and having no presence in our homesteads. Some of us have ‘banished’ our places of ancestry on account of the fear of necromancy. Sir Ray shows himself interacting with and receiving gifts from his Ishibori kinsmen in his Ogoja community. ‘Winch’ never kills a man. Abi ‘winch’ no dey for Oshibori land?
Another chapter of this ‘book’ espouses the need to be intentional about preparations for our old ages. He has shared and still shares nuggets of information on how to be heathy at old age and how to be self-sustaining too at that stage of our lives.
A chapter of the ‘book’ emphasizes on the need for physical exercises. Through pictorial display, he shows himself exercising and he testifies of the goodness of bodily exercises.
This open book has a prominent chapter on contentment viz-a-viz material acquisitions. If you follow Chief Ugba’s writings closely, the Biblical Solomon’s message (vanity upon vanity) will be so clear and instructive to you. He (Sir Ray) has seen it all (from running hospitality outfits, doing women things, doing alcohol, power-biking, politicking, running fish farms, etc), so he speaks/writes with a measure of authority and confidence that ‘there is no sense in gathering everything when nothing will be taken to anywhere.’ Whenever I read Chief Ray’s messages on contentment, I remember the late Ntufam Matthew Ojong who often said “Everything in the world belongs to the world.”
One of Class Master’s cousins of Ugboro extraction once said to me “Brother Max, at this stage of my life, I should not be gathering things for myself. I should open my hands for what I have gathered to benefit other people.”

Barrister Max Ogar speaking during the unveiling the YSO Studios and being the first to be interviewed by the YSO media team.
To me, the berthing of the Morphy Academy in rural Ogoja is the greatest testament that Ray Ugba Morphy has, after putting his hands on so many mercantile ventures, opted to give the greatest service to God; service to humanity. If he was looking for profit, Morphy Academy will be in a city like Abuja (where he resides). But he took it to Ishibori land and he is expanding to Calabar all with a view to serving God’s people in his home State of Cross River where he hitherto set up his Resort Sophy.
Days ago, the mystic Ray wrote about abandoning an alcohol factory he was to set up in Ogoja because of an encounter with his ‘guide’ who urged him to visit hospitals so as to see what alcoholism is doing to people. According to him, he visited Monaya General Hospital where he saw patients whose kidneys have been damaged by alcoholism, and he elected not to be part of causing health challenges in his community. The factory was abandoned without any thought of what had been put in and the prospects of profits.
Class Master, I am, certainly, not close to you. But I have, however, seen your good works; bus stops you built in your Ogoja LGA for use by the people, Morphy Academy shuttles conveying pupils around Ogoja and Bekwarra to school. I know you have something to do with the Prince Nico Mbarga statue standing in Ikom. I know you once offered free plots to (ready to build people) from your late father’s large expanse of land opposite FCE, Obudu. I have read on your wall how you acknowledge and celebrate your late Anambra mother and your late Cross River father. I have read and heard about your strives and thrives as an entrepreneur, community leader and philanthropist.
This may not have been crafted with the kind of literary expertise that a Dominic Kidzu would have displayed, but it is my modest tribute to you at 64.
Chukwu gozi egi, nwa Onitsha.
Max Ogar is from Ogoja, Cross River State. Max is a legal practitioner and resides in Abuja, wrote this piece to celebrate Chief Ray Morphy’s 64th birthday.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Max Ogar, and do not represent the opinion of TheInvestigator or any other organization the author works for/with.