AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS: THE UNTOLD STORIES ... 1

The Earliest Quest for a Diocese

The first recorded request for a diocese to be erected among the densely populated people of Mbaise came around December 23-26, 1966, on the day St Michael’s Parish Okwuato, Aboh-Mbaise LGA Imo State, was inaugurated. Prior to the ceremony of the inauguration of that parish, the elite of Mbaise, led by one Barrister Mbaegbu of Nnarambia Ahiara, had penned a very peculiar welcome address to be delivered to the then bishop of Owerri Diocese, Most Rev Joseph Brendan Whelan who was billed to perform the inauguration ceremony himself. In that address the people of Mbaise most unexpectedly requested that the area be carved out of Owerri Diocese and raised to an independent diocese. The request appeared like a thunderbolt coming from the very reliable people of Mbaise who had been the greatest supporters of Owerri Diocese. And the news kind of rattled the often peaceful and serene bishop of Owerri Diocese. He could hardly believe his ears.

From all indications the request caught the great bishop of Owerri by surprise. Bishop J.B. Whelan was a man who was noted for his thoroughness and dedication to the Owerri apostolate. He was very progressive in the sense that he wanted to see a rapid development of the Owerri mission. So the Mbaise request kind of forced the amiable bishop to take a flash look throughout Mbaise region to assess the level of development in the area that could support the establishment of a viable diocese.

It must have dawned on him that Mbaise had little or nothing by way of infrastructure to support a new diocese. He might have felt a prick of conscience that he and the missionaries had not done even the barest minimum by way of infrastructure to prepare the people of Mbaise for the surreal moment that was unfolding before him at St Michael’s Okwuato

Testimony abounds about how much love the amiable first bishop of Owerri Diocese showered on his Mbaise flock. Stories after stories testify that Bishop Whelan loved very much the type of Catholicism that was being practiced by the people of Mbaise territory. It is often said that the pre-civil war missionaries to Owerri area loved the people of Mbaise very much. Mbaise people’s rigid and dedicated Catholicism was exactly like what their local Irish people back home practiced. So the love of the Irish missionaries on Mbaise people was natural and even logical.

However Bishop Whelan was not the first missionary to admire the Catholicism of Mbaise. As far back as 1918, the hero of Igbo Catholicism, the great Bishop Joseph Ignatius Shanahan had begun to praise the Catholic Church that was growing among the peoples of Enyiogugu, Nguru and even Ahiara. In the book Bishop Shanahan of Southern Nigeria, the great bishop who was delegated by the Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to take over the abandoned mission in Cameroun had visited that country in the Christmas of 1918 to assess the fate of the mission that had been abandoned by German missionaries who were expelled from the country following World War 1 because of the role of their home country Germany in the war.

While in Cameroun during the Christmas of 1918 and seeing how boring and desolate the Catholic missions in the country appeared following the repatriation of German missionaries in the country, Bishop Shanahan started to reminisce how lively Christmas was being celebrated in places like Enyiogugu, Nguru and Ahiara all in the future Mbaise area. It would be recalled that the Catholic Church had only lasted for six years when Bishop Shanahan made this remark. The official history of the Catholic Church in Mbaise says it was first visited from Emekuku in 1914, that is, two years after it was established in Emekuku town by Eze Obi Ejesha. The communities mentioned in the 1914 missionary trail are Umuopara and Ogbor in Nguru and Nnarambia in Ahiara.

But other accounts of missionary activities in the would-be Mbaise area claim that the missionaries visited Mbaise or Mbaise elite of the period made contact with the missionaries in Emekuku on a date earlier than 1914. The account from Umunama Ezinihitte strongly claims that Eze Chilaka Ukpo, the great monarch from the town went to Emekuku as early as 1912 and requested from his bosom friend, Eze Obi Ejesha that the white missionaries who were settling in Emekuku come to settle in Umunama Ezinihitte simultaneously. But his friend, Eze Obi Ejesha of Emekuku answered him, Eze Chilaka Ukpo of Umunama that the white man would first settle down before he would be sheared out [Nwa Bekee abiarubeghi abiarube e kewele ya]; meaning that the white man would have to settle down first before a demand for sharing him with other communities would be entertained.

When Bishop Whelan concluded the inauguration of St Michael’s Okwuato in that December of 1966 he went back to Owerri. Shortly after the event, he convoked a meeting of the few indigenous priests of the diocese. They were in their lower teens around that time. At that meeting he relayed to them his reflection on the request for a diocese coming from Mbaise. He said that he welcomed it and would work towards establishing a diocese among the Mbaise people. However, he said that he would first raise the infrastructure level in the place and so that it would be able to sustain a diocese.

It was at that meeting with Bishop Whelan and the indigenous priests of old Owerri diocese that Fr Peter Onyewuchi raised his voice and told Bishop Whelan that as he contemplated establishing a diocese for the Mbaise people he should equally remember Orlu people and give them their own diocese. That was how Orlu would come into the quest for their diocese in 1966.

[First in the series ..... To be continued...]