AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS THE UNTOLD STORIES …..2

The Civil War as the Spoiler

Shortly after the meeting on the possibility of erecting dioceses for both Mbaise and Orlu peoples, the civil war broke out for the Igbo people of Nigeria. Bishop Whelan and the other missionaries were consumed with the struggle to feed and keep alive as many Biafrans as possible who were being ravaged by the war and starved to death by the Nigerian government. The war situation made it impossible for any further discussion on the quest for a diocese for Mbaise people to continue.

Bishop Whelan and the Irish missionaries did heroic and unforgettable jobs in both Mbaise and throughout Owerri Diocese and even beyond keeping the war-ravaged Biafrans alive. If there had not been saintly people like Bishop Whelan and the Irish missionaries, who chose to endure and tough out the war with the Igbo people, the people of Mbaise might have gone out of existence as a result of the civil war. It would be thanks to the Irish missionaries which Bishop Whelan headed that the Mbaise territory was preserved almost intact throughout the war.

While many other peoples from other parts of Igbo land were driven out of their homelands and made to become refugees for almost three years, Mbaise people were never made refugees anywhere in Igbo land. They remained in their homes all through the dangerous period of the war being fed mainly with relief materials provided by Bishop J.B. Whelan’s Irish missionaries and the other relief agencies throughout the world that rallied to help out the beleaguered and war-ravaged Igbo people.

Through the help of the Irish missionaries, Mbaise territory was so safe for every Biafran including the head of state of Biafra, General Emeka Ojukwu. Other Igbo leaders such as former president of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe, former premier of Eastern Nigeria, Akanu Ibiam, and many other renowned leaders of the Igbo people, found safe-haven in Mbaise land. Even some highly placed church leaders such as the late Bishop Okoye found shelter in the peaceful Mbaise territory during the war period.

Ahiara, which would eventually become the name of the Catholic Diocese given to the people of Mbaise, was the last official capital city of Biafra before its final fall in January of 1970. The world-acclaimed author of "Things Fall Apart", Chinua Achebe, testifies in his last work on earth, "There Was A Country", to the significance of Ahiara and Mbaise territory throughout the war. Chinua Achebe’s testimony alone exemplifies how peaceful and safe the Mbaise territory was all through the period of the civil war.

The war lasted only three days in Mbaise. Immediately the defensive barriers set up around Mbaise were broken into by the Nigerian soldiers, the war ended abruptly in early January, 1970. That was how vital the Mbaise territory was to the survival of the Igbo people. And Mbaise land has always been that way since colonialism took over her alongside other Igbo territories.

All through the war, Mbaise remained the last stand and the fortified stronghold of the Biafran resistance. The engineering prowess of the Biafrans was housed in ware houses throughout Mbaise. The compounds of Pater Noster Secondary School Ekwerazu and Amumara Girls’ Secondary School Ezinihitte were taken over by Biafran engineers and Army Engineering Divisions.

Mbaise lent a tremendous effort to the prosecution of the war conceived as war of survival for the Igbo people. The undercurrent of the war effort was that it was a needed war to preserve the Catholic faith. The Muslims who prosecuted the war against the Igbo had one thing in view, namely, to stop the momentum of the Catholic faith in Igbo land which the Church had gained through her wondrous schools.

But immediately Mbaise people surrendered the war came to an immediate end. This was because all Igbo had depended on the resistance of the Mbaise people. And once that gave way the war resistance on the part of the Igbo people collapsed.

It can be said that the enduring resistance of Mbaise people throughout the war was due to the support of the Irish missionaries led by Bishop J.B. Whelan of unforgettable memory. The missionaries provided Mbaise people with food, nourishing sacraments and the Catholic doctrine that gave them the energy and patience to survive the civil war. That is to say, the whole strength and perseverance of Mbaise people throughout the war came mainly through and from their Catholic faith. Both spiritual and material nourishment they needed to survive the war came from the Catholic Church via the Irish missionaries.

The contention in this regard is that the unique Catholicism of Mbaise people benefited the entire Igbo nation greatly at their greatest moment of need. That Mbaise people had their kind of Catholicism was acceptable and even fostered by the Irish missionaries. And it became a great help to the entire Igbo people when they had needed it the most. That is to say, the Igbo survived the war the length of time they did partly because of the type of Catholicism practiced by Mbaise people.

The entire Igbo land could have been overrun in days and weeks if not for the unique Catholicism of the Mbaise people. In other words, Mbaise Catholicism was of great benefit not only for the entire Igbo Catholicism but also for the entire Igbo race. If Mbaise people had not been the type of Catholic Christians they were and still are, things would turned out differently for the entire Igbo race during the civil war and after. Therefore Mbaise Catholicism is a grace and of benefit to all. It is not the clannish Catholicism political enemies of the Mbaise people are making it appear.

All these great facts about Mbaise people are being lost sight of today as many Igbo Catholics appear to conspire to destroy the Catholicism of Mbaise people. They are in other words biting the finger that fed them at their greatest moment of need. Even those who were given shelter as refugees during the war; those who were fed as refugees in Mbaise land; those whose sicknesses and wounds were treated in Mbaise are now shouting at the top of their voices that Mbaise land must be destroyed for saying that the church that provided shelter for many among Igbo race during the tragic civil war deserves some respect.

Many Nigerian Catholics are terribly unfair to the Mbaise people. Mbaise Catholics are not asking to dominate any people. They are asking to be accorded respect in their community. They do not want to be made a stranger in their own home. However, the most heartbreaking attitude has to be that of fellow Igbo Catholics who benefited from the magnanimity and large-hardheartedness of Mbaise people, whether they are priests, missionaries, catechists, teachers, or common lay people who interact with them on a day-to-day basis. How come there is no appreciation, and no gratitude shown to Mbaise people for their enormous contributions to the growth of the Catholic faith throughout Nigeria and Africa at large?

What are the Igbo asking for? They are asking that their leadership skill which was on display during the war and after, and which has been demonstrated on millions of occasion in Nigeria and beyond, be recognized by their fellow Catholics especially by those in leadership positions. They are asking for the recognition of their competence in managing their own diocese. Is this too much to ask for especially for a Church that has contributed so much in building up and feeding the other Churches throughout Nigeria and Africa?

The events of the last few years regarding the appointment of Bishop Peter Okpalaeke from Awka Diocese as bishop of Ahiara Diocese have only shown how ungrateful Igbo Catholics are to the Mbaise people. Many of these people who are calling Mbaise priests and lay people names have benefited enormously from them. Many Mbaise priests were their parish priests, administered the sacraments to them and even buried their dead. And many lay Mbaise catechists and teachers taught them basic Christian doctrines and educated them in schools. But today all those great sacrifices are forgotten as many ungrateful Igbo Catholics gather to lynch the people of Mbaise for demanding that the objective and universal principle of justice be extended to them.

The war finally ended disastrously for the Igbo people. As a result the victorious Nigerian government expelled and repatriated Bishop Whelan and all the Irish missionaries in Igbo land. The burgeoning Owerri Diocese already acclaimed to be the largest diocese in the whole of West Africa was hit hard by this sad development. The total number of indigenous priests who inherited the expansive mission of Owerri Diocese numbered in the mid 20s. Owerri Diocese, the most promising mission in West Africa appeared to be headed to the precipice. The future of Owerri mission looked extremely bleak. The harvest was indeed great but the laborers were very few and almost non-existent in many parts of the large diocese. As the missionaries were abducted by the heartless Nigerian soldiers, they shed tears on the fate of their flocks that were being left behind.

But before he would surrender himself for a momentary imprisonment, Bishop Whelan handed the entire Diocese of Owerri into the hand of one Mbaise young priest who was barely seven years old as a priest. The large Owerri Diocese was handed over to Fr Ignatius Nmereole Okoroanyanwu of Obodo Ahiara to manage and keep safe by Bishop Whelan and the Irish missionaries pending the time they would be allowed to return to continue their great work, or when a new bishop would be appointed for the diocese.

In the mind of Bishop Whelan and the missionaries, the largest diocese in West Africa was better placed in the care of an Mbaise man and Mbaise people than in the hand of any other people. That was the unbiased judgment of the great Bishop Whelan. Bishop Whelan was one of the most fair-minded missionaries of his time. While serving as chief shepherd of Owerri Diocese, he looked at performance; he looked for capability, he looked for reliability and honesty. All these virtues he found in abundance among Mbaise priests and lay people. That was why in tears he turned over and entrusted the entire diocese to one of their own sons as he journeyed into the unknown being taken prisoner by the Nigerian soldiers.

If as far back as 1970 when the entire diocese of Owerri was destroyed by the tragic civil war, a meticulous and highly spiritual Irish bishop searched his conscience and found Mbaise people trustworthy and capable enough to manage a war-destroyed diocese of Owerri that had since then given birth to two more large dioceses of Orlu and Ahiara, why is it that almost fifty years after, Mbaise people are judged incapable of running their own diocese of Ahiara which is one third of what the missionaries gave them to manage in 1970? Can Church leaders in Nigeria and at the Vatican stand before God and declare that they have judged the people of Mbaise justly?

The answer to these posers has to be simple enough. This is raw discrimination at work. The only way Mbaise priests and religious have been judged incapable of running their own diocese or any other diocese elsewhere is because of discrimination, prejudice and injustice. The truth is that a wicked injustice and discrimination has overrun the Catholic Church in Nigeria. The devil invaded the minds of many Igbo church leaders and convinced them to visit the wonderful diocese of Ahiara Mbaise with massive discrimination and injustice.

Mbaise people of the 21st century are having the evil of discrimination and injustice unleashed on them by the Igbo Catholic hierarchy. In our time, the magnanimous Mbaise Catholics are victims of a massive injustice and discrimination by the Nigerian leaders of the Catholic Church. This is the main reason for the unresolved bishopric crisis in Ahiara Diocese.

To be continued ….