AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS: THE UNTOLD STORIES…16

Eve of the Inauguration

A day like Sunday, January 31, 1988, on which the Catholic Diocese of Ahiara was inaugurated in Mbaise land with the installation of Bishop Victor Adibe Chikwe as her first bishop, had, until that time, not happened in the Igbo heartland area before. A day like it has since then not happened again either in Mbaise land or in any other place throughout the whole of the Igbo heartland zone. It was indeed a day like no other in the annals of both Mbaise people in particular and Igbo heartland people in general. For many Mbaise people it was a day the Sun stood still over their land and the stars came dancing with their glittering colours.

That would be the day the largely controversial community of the Ahiara people reached the apogee of her historical accomplishments by being crowned with the title of the headquarters of the new diocese for the Mbaise people. Counterpart rural communities in their primes such as Emekuku for the Catholic Church and Egbu for the Anglican Church, all in Igbo heartland, had fought and lost similar battles to have dioceses named after them. But Ahiara fought alongside her sister communities throughout Mbaise land and won the greatest victory of her existence by emerging the headquarters of the new Catholic diocese of the Mbaise people.

It would be recalled that in 1948, Emekuku community, being the first community to host the seat of the Catholic Church in the Igbo heartland area, had put up a tepid fight to have the new vicariate/Diocese in the Igbo heartland area named after her. But she lost thanks largely to the decision of the Irish missionaries. The same kind of fight was put up by the Egbu Community in the Anglican Church around the same period. But she likewise lost. In both cases, Owerri metropolis that had appeared a little hostile to the missionaries at the beginning of the 20th century emerged from nowhere to steal the thunders of the two communities.

However, in all fairness to communities like Emekuku and Egbu, 1948 was not 1988. A lot of water had passed under the bridge of Igbo Catholicism and her Anglican counterparts between 1948 and 1987/8. The Catholic Church had become completely indigenized and the government of the Church had passed from the missionaries to the indigenous clergy.

But even with this stark contrast, the accomplishment of the Ahiara community by emerging the headquarters of the Catholic diocese of the Mbaise people is not diminishable in any way. Ahiara community always finds a way to come out top among contemporary communities in both Mbaise and Igbo land in general. The stories of how Ahiara overtook Nguru, the premier community in Mbaise to receive the colonialists, cannot easily be forgotten by history.

The inauguration of Ahiara Diocese in her on January 31st 1988, more or less confirmed what Ahiara Community had been up to all through the period of the 20th century. It was and has always been a community specially gifted and lucky in Mbaise land in particular, and Igbo land in general. From that eve of the inauguration of the diocese in Ahiara village of Nnarambia, the whole community of Ahiara became a great factor and a major player in the history of Catholicism in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

The build-up to the climax that was Sunday January 31, 1988, had begun in the afternoon of Saturday, January 30, 1988, with a very long motorcade that stretched from Owerri metropolis to Mbaise land. Mbaise people from across major and minor cities all over Nigeria came back home en masse that weekend specifically to participate in the events of the inauguration of Ahiara Diocese. It was like the Jews returning home from Diaspora to celebrate the Passover or the Pentecost.

As the clocked ticked past the noon hour on that great day, Mbaise people and their friends converged in Owerri City with their cars to lead the motorcade conveying the new bishop to the new Diocese of Ahiara. One of the major sponsors of the diocese at that time was Eze Nwachukwu-Udoku of Nguru Nwenkwo Autonomous Community. He made available a brand new Mercedes Benz car with a retractable roof to convey the new bishop to Mbaise land. It was a sight comparable to a victorious Emperor Caesar returning to Rome after a hard fought battle! The streets and routes of the motorcade were lined up by cheering crowds of Mbaise people and their friends.

The long motorcade took off at a scheduled time. It meandered through Owerri City streets and eventually entered the renamed part of the former Mbaise Road called now Egbu Road through the Fire Service Station Roundabout. From there it headed towards Mbaise land with the Mercedes car conveying the new bishop sandwiched in between two sets of several cars in front and behind it. The Protocol and Publicity Subcommittee which was staffed by Mbaise professionals in the Mass Media took the centre stage as the motorcade progressed with snail speed along Owerri-Umuahia Road.

As the almost infinitely processing cars slowly made progress on their triumphant journey back to Mbaise land, members of the mass media of the protocol and publicity subcommittee kept dishing out commentaries on the events of the moment which were spiced up with the narration of the history of the Catholic Church in Mbaise land and the biography of the new bishop.

One of the most memorable moments of the motorcade procession would be when it arrived at the border point between Owerri Diocese and the new Ahiara Diocese. There was a flag stop on the spot occupied today by Heartland FM Radio. Then hundreds of cannon shots lined up on both sides of the road started to boom unendingly filling the entire arena with billowing smokes. The cannons are usually the Igbo people’s equivalent or answer to the Euro-American fireworks. What cannon shots accomplish for the Igbo people is exactly what exploding fireworks accomplish for Europeans and Americans who fire them at random during festivities.

The men and women who had gathered at the spot to welcome the new bishop exploded in cheers and jubilation. Immediately the roof hatch of the Mercedes Benz Car conveying the new bishop was flung open for Bishop Chikwe to emerge from the rooftop of the moving vehicle to wave and acknowledge the cheers of the mammoth crowds. The appearance of the new bishop on the roof of the moving car waving to the cheering crowd sparked off riotous jubilation and evoked tearful emotion on the faces of many in the crowds who waved and shouted his name to no end.

Many in the crowd hardly believed that the long battle to achieve a diocesan status in Mbaise land had finally been won with an Mbaise man becoming a Catholic bishop. This was initially thought impossible because the anecdote or popular myth in Igbo land was that for anybody to qualify to be named a Catholic bishop in the Igbo heartland area he must have the royal ARO blood in him. But, with Bishop Chikwe emerging from the roof of a car to wave at Mbaise people as a bishop, was a clear demonstration that the malignant pagan myth reserving the Catholic bishopric for one particular clan ARO in Igbo land had finally been destroyed by the great Mbaise people. The response of Mbaise people was tears upon tears!

On sighting the emotions and how ecstatic the crowds had become, the chief commentator of the motorcade and the whole inauguration-installation ceremony, Chief Joe Ehioma of the Imo Broadcasting Corporation [IBC] burst into a song that was made popular during the 1970s Block Rosary Movements: Kelee Pharaoh, Kelee Pharaoh, Kelee Pharaoh si anyi alaala, Kelee Pharaoh si anyi agaghi ife gi ozo, anyi alaala obodo e kwere anyi na nkwa. [Send greetings to Pharaoh; send greetings to Pharaoh; Greet Pharaoh and tell him that we have gone. We will never worship him again. We have gone home to inherit the Promised Land].

As the Block Rosary Exodus song blared from the loudspeakers of the OP van that moved slowly a few rows ahead of the car conveying the new bishop, tears once again welled up in people’s eyes. Pharaoh and the Exodus motifs the song had introduced drove home to many people what had happened to Mbaise land regarding the diocese that was on her way towards inauguration in Ahiara community. There and then it dawned on many that the struggle for a diocese by Mbaise people that had raged since 1966 had been conceived by many to be like the struggle of the Israelites to leave Egypt – the house of slavery, in order to settle in their own land that had been promised them by God.

For the people touched by Chief Joe Ehioma’s song, living under the large Diocese of Owerri all those years had felt almost like living under captivity in Egypt without the manual exertion. But now, as the motorcade conveying their bishop crossed the border line between the old diocese and the new one, it appeared like the departing new Israelites, Mbaise people, had crossed the Red Sea, [think of Mmiri Okata Nkwo Azaraegbelu as our own Red Sea], and were now headed to the Promised Land of the Mbaise people.

It also implied that with the new diocese soon to be inaugurated in her, Nnarambia Ahiara had emerged as the Mount Zion of the new Israel in Igbo land, the Mbaise people. And that was exactly the way it had felt for many people from Mbaise who were a part of the motorcade or among the receiving party at the junction between Azaraegbelu and Oboama Enyiogugu who heard Chief Joe Ehioma intone his Exodus motif-laden song.

The motorcade procession slowly resumed after the flag stop at the border between Owerri and Mbaise. The first cannon shots fired at the border between Owerri Diocese and Mbaise at Oboama Enyiogugu seemed to have alerted the whole of Mbaise people that the new bishop was on his way. As a result, Mbaise people from Enyiogugu to Nnarambia Ahiara lined up the whole Umuahia-Owerri Road waving at the new bishop as his motorcade drove slowly past their communities.

At Afor Enyiogugu Market Square, in front of St Charles’ Church, Enyiogugu, there was another flag stop and another round of cannon shots booming unendingly all through the place. Once again the new bishop emerged from the roof of the Mercedes Benz car to wave to the ecstatic crowd that massed at the Market Square to welcome him.

From Afor Enyiogugu flag stop, the motorcade headed towards Sacred Heard Parish Centre, Nguru, still on Owerri-Umuahia Road. There, Rev Fr Christian Paul Egege, Alias, Nguru One, for the fact that he was the first Nguru native to head Nguru Parish which was then regarded as the largest and greatest parish in Mbaise, had flooded both sides of the road with long lines of cannon shots. The motorcade had to stop for all those shots to be fired to the end before continuing. Meanwhile, the new bishop once again performed what had become his ritual on this route by waving to the cheering crowds from the roof of the car conveying him to the new seat of his diocese.

It would be after the flag stop at Sacred Heart Parish Nguru that the motorcade headed to St Brigid’s Church Nnarambia which had become the temporary Cathedral of the new diocese. There, the crowd waiting to receive the new bishop was enormous. There was noise of drums and singing all over the place. Many shouted that “The Eagle has landed.” The entire compound of St Brigid’s Church was converted into an arena for singing and dancing by all and sundry.

The new bishop with his large entourage made of priests, religious and prominent lay people of Mbaise and Owerri alighted from their cars and headed straight to the Cathedral Church of St Brigid’s where the events of the homecoming were concluded with a Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The new bishop blessed all present and all gradually dispersed from the arena to prepare for the D-Day which would be Sunday, January 31, 1988.

To be continued …