AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS: THE UNTOLD STORIES…28

Explosion of Initiatives … [ix]

One of the unsung initiatives of the premier bishop of Ahiara Diocese, late Bishop Victor Adibe Chikwe was in the area of education. Bishop Chikwe had a tremendous love for the education of young people. Education at all levels was among his greatest passions. In his new diocese of Ahiara, he appeared determined to recover the rapidly disappearing legacies of the Irish missionaries in education. There was no doubt that in Bishop Chikwe’s mind, he believed that the inimitable legacy of the missionaries in education had been dealt a mortal blow by an apparent unholy alliance between the post-civil war government in Nigeria and the largely unimaginative Igbo Catholicism that inherited the debris of the battered Catholic education that had been the engine of missionary evangelization in Southern Nigeria before the civil war.

Ahiara Diocese came into being at a time when there was an unmitigated crisis in Nigerian education following the bizarre seizure of Catholic Schools by the Nigerian Government. From the earliest days of 1970, everything the nation had achieved by way of public education as a result of the uniquely missionary initiatives became swept away completely by the victorious Nigerian Government that could hardly hide its anti-Catholicism agenda. It is sad that people seem to have forgotten today one of the main subtexts of the civil war that was prosecuted against the Igbos of Nigeria. It was a war not only to stop the momentum of Catholic evangelization, but a barely hidden campaign to wipe out Catholicism in Igbo land if possible. And that had informed the seizure of Catholic schools immediately after the civil war. As a result, public education fell from its pinnacle of glory in pre-Independence Nigeria to the status of the worst-run public enterprise in Nigeria’s history.

At the inception of the new diocese of Ahiara, Bishop Chikwe, like the other Igbo bishops, was saddled with the task of dealing creatively with a post-missionary Church whose soul - the Catholic School system, had suddenly been ripped off by the vindictive Federal Government of Nigeria that was determined to stop the momentum of Catholic evangelization in Southern Nigeria through the Catholic Schools. For nearly two decades after the civil war, Igbo Catholicism, operating without her usual evangelization engine, the Catholic schools, had no strategy at all for further evangelization of her people apart from the usual Catechism classes for the reception of the sacraments. Catholicism in Igbo land appeared satisfied to regurgitate the gains the missionaries had left behind when they were forcibly expelled from Nigeria following the loss of the civil war of secession on the part of Christian Igbos.

The ruse of big crowds attending Sunday Masses made Igbo Catholic leaders think that their call and duty were mainly to maintain what the missionaries had left behind instead of putting further forth into deeper waters for greater catch of the fish through a creative evangelization. This catastrophic inaction would have immediate consequences on the Igbo society that had until then depended largely on creative and progressive Catholic evangelization for the moral upbringing of her children. One of the greatest tragedies of the lost civil war was the loss of Catholic education for the war battered Igbo youth. That was the principal way the former enemy of the defeated Igbo people ensured a permanent damage on their personality. With nothing to hold onto as a moral compass, post-civil war young people delved into carefree lifestyles and debauchery.

From the period of that illegal and illegitimate seizure of Catholic Schools onwards, education in general was thrown into a total confusion throughout the Nigerian nation. Standards at all levels nosedived into an abysmal depth. The whole fabric of education that had been carefully tailored and anchored on sound morality which was guarded and guided by the Catholic Church was unhinged and left to swing endlessly in the wind. As a consequence, Nigerian education lost its moral compass, its standards and its much vaunted values. Criminality of all sorts became a permanent feature of Nigerian education. Examination malpractices, buying of certificates, bribery and corruption at the highest levels of educational administration, became the order of the day. Before one could realize what was happening, sound education had become a distant memory throughout Nigeria. It appeared as if there was no longer any formal education going on anywhere in the Nigerian nation. As this tragedy unfolded, the largely unimaginative Igbo Catholicism of the 1970s stood idly by with hardly any sensible answers or initiatives.

Thank goodness, the lethargy of Igbo Catholic leaders towards the unfolding tragedies in Nigerian education would not last for too long a time. In the early 1980s, the Catholic Church in the heartland Igbo area became so agitated by the unmitigated disasters which Nigerian education had become that it launched a fierce battle to reclaim the seized Catholic Schools through Nigeria’s legal system that was once more donning the cloak of a democracy. Bishop Mark Unegbu of Owerri, Bishop Anthony Nwedo of Umuahia and Bishop Gregory Ochiagha of Orlu were at the vanguards of the monumental and coordinated efforts towards rescuing the destroyed Nigerian education. They vigorously demanded the hand-back of schools to their legitimate owners, who were predominantly the Catholic Church. But their efforts were systematically thwarted by the then civilian government of Chief Samuel Mbakwe, the governor of Imo State.

Chief Samuel Onunaka Mbakwe, the then Governor of Imo State, an Anglican, was obviously acting out the traditional script of the Anglican Communion. The then governor of Imo State, whose Anglican Church used to be in a tacit alliance with the defunct Government of Eastern Region, in his determined effort to prevent the Catholic Church from reclaiming her seized schools, was in fact re-enacting the strategy which his Anglican denomination had perfected in the pre- and early post-independence days when she tried but failed to engineer the seizure of the Catholic schools with the aid of the Protestant-dominated government of Eastern Nigeria. The whole effort or should I say, conspiracy of Protestant churches was to find a way to stymie the rapid evangelization of the Catholic Church through the school system. This was a project that had begun in the early 1920s and 30s when the missionary Catholic Church gained an unassailable lead in the evangelization of Southern Nigeria through her portent Catholic education.

When the bid to reclaim the seized Catholic schools by Igbo heartland Catholic leaders fell through at the beginning of the 1980s, education in Nigeria continued its rapid downward spiral into oblivion. This would set the stage for the emergence of Bishop Chikwe towards the end of the 1980s. In some of the early Presbyterium meetings in the new diocese, Bishop Chikwe insisted on reclaiming the missionary legacies in education in spite of the prevailing situation which was the continued seizure of Catholic schools by the incompetent government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

To put teeth to his determination to begin recovering qualitative education in Ahiara Diocese, Bishop Chikwe quickly mandated all parishes in the new diocese to begin as a matter of urgency the establishment and running of Pre-K and Kindergarten programmes. He noted that since there was no law preventing the opening up of kindergarten schools in the country, the new diocese of Ahiara would have to capitalize on it by establishing some new schools and even use them as a launching pad to reintroduce herself into educational institutions’ ownership and management.

As Pre-K and kindergarten education took off in the new diocese of Ahiara, the bishop began thinking of the next level which was the primary education. He urged parishes to establish new primary schools so that the little children who had gained some value-added education in Catholic kindergarten schools would not move into the run-down government schools to lose it all together. And thus began a new phase in Ahiara Diocese which was the establishment of primary schools. As the strategy of a gradual re-establishment of Catholic schools in Ahiara Diocese moved on with measured steps, the bishop began thinking of the establishment of secondary schools. He believed firmly that Ahiara Diocese needed as many secondary schools as possible to accommodate the teeming population of Catholic pupils who were leaving primary schools each year to study in the secondary schools.

Apart from encouraging parishes who could afford the building of secondary schools, Bishop Chikwe was determined to build some secondary schools for the diocese. His vision in this regard would receive a tremendous boost when a young and vibrant priest of Ahiara Diocese, Rev Fr Dr. Sylvester Iheanacho Ihuoma, who was then studying in Germany, began making contacts for some benevolent Germans who could help the bishop realize his intention of establishing some model secondary schools in Ahiara Diocese. Fr Sylvester Ihuoma’s indefatigable efforts in this regard would result in the establishment of a model secondary school in Umunagbor Ihitte Ezinihitte dedicated to the achievements and memory of Pope St John Paul II.

While embarking on these rather measured steps to reintroduce Catholic education into Ahiara Diocese, Bishop Chikwe, alongside the other bishops in the Igbo heartland area, was working hard in the other fronts to make sure the environment for the reintroduction of Catholic education was created in the states of the Igbo speaking areas. One of the strategies was to make the huge population of Catholics in the states of the Igbo heartland areas acquire some political relevance. It was observed that if Catholics were to be politically aware of the challenges they faced in Protestant-dominated administrations in Southern Nigerian states, they would exert their numerical strength to ensure that they were not left at the sidelines when issues relating to their Catholic faith were being decided by the governments of the day. Because of the realization of the fact that democracy is a game a numbers, the Catholic Church of the 1990s in Igbo heartland area decided to exert itself a little more forcefully in local politics.

All through the early 1990s, the whole task was to see if a Catholic government that would listen favorably to demands for the return of schools to their former owners could be democratically installed in some states in the heartland Igbo areas. Imo State was seen as the state that was becoming almost impervious to any talks about the return of schools to their former owners. Right from its creation in 1976, Imo State, which had one of the hugest Catholic populations, appeared to have been tactically put out of the political reach of potential Catholic governors. The ever-portent Protestant political machine appeared to have the entire Imo State locked down for its own political convenience and manipulation. The bishops and Catholic leaders of the 80s and 90s were determined to change all that. Beginning from 1991, yours truly was appointed Ahiara Diocesan chaplain for the laity council. And the whole charge, programme and strategy of the laity council at that time were on how to bring about the election of the first Catholic governor for Imo State. This instantly became a popular movement throughout Imo State.

But despite the huge popularity enjoyed by the movement to elect the first Catholic governor for Imo State, the Protestant political lobby group would one-up the Catholic Church in Imo State once more by getting the most popular Catholic governorship aspirant at that time, Professor Fabian Osuji, an Mbaise man, disqualified by the powerful Babangida military junta for apparently no just cause. As a consequence, another Anglican, Evan Enwerem would walk into victory in the governorship election of that period as a result of the late disqualification the Catholic governorship aspirant had suffered. However the Catholic Church in the Igbo heartland would not give up in her quest to make its large population count in politics. The whole goal was to return Catholic education that had served the society wonderfully well in the pre-civil war days back to the mainstream of education enterprise in the Igbo heartland area.

When 1999 approached with Abacha-Abdulsalami military juntas indicating some willingness to re-empower democracy in Nigeria, the Catholic Church under the leadership of the bishops of Igbo heartland area re-engineered their determination to make Catholic population count in politics. They renewed their determination to fight for the election of Catholic governors in the states of the Igbo heartland areas. And the ultimate goal of that determination did not change any bit. It was still to get a favorable government in place that would listen to the cry for the return of Catholic schools to their rightful owners. It can be said that the need to have seized Catholic schools returned to their rightful owners was at the heart of the post-civil war Catholic Church’s foray into the murky waters of the Nigerian politics.

The desire of the Catholic leaders would be accomplished in the two most important states of the Igbo heartland area, namely, Imo and Abia States. Imo State in particular received her first democratically elected Catholic as governor of the State. He was Mr. Achike Udenwa, a knight of the Church from Orlu Zone. The hope for a new era of a state government that would listen to the need of the Catholic Church was pinned on the first elected Catholic governor of Imo State in the person of Governor Achike Udenwa. His was to become a government that would listen to the quest of the Catholic Church for the return of schools to her so that the right values could be restored in the society.

But Governor Achike Udenwa, a Catholic, failed the Catholic Church of Imo State woefully. Like his Protestant predecessors, Udenwa had no ear at all for the demands of the Catholic Church that had propelled him to power. He would spend his entire two long tenures of eight years without attending or even mentioning the most crucial need of the Catholic Church that had created the environment that enabled him emerge as the first Catholic governor of Imo State. He was completely oblivious of the fact that his counterparts in the other states around Imo State, some of whom were not even Catholics, were handing schools back to the legitimate owners. For inexplicable reasons Udenwa remained adamant till the end.

As Achike Udenwa completed his two long tenures of eight years, the ever politically astute Protestant machine regained power in Imo State with the emergence of Mr. Ikedi Godson Ohakim, an Anglican from Mbano in Okigwe Zone, as the new governor of Imo State. Ironically it would be an Anglican, Ikedi Ohakim, who would make the first move that would enable the Catholic Church realize her age-long desire to regain some footing in public education with the return of some of her seized schools. Against the traditional run of play for the Anglican Communion, an Anglican, in the person of Governor Godson Ohakim, returned some formerly seized schools to the Catholic Church. This was more like a seismic shift in the education politics of Nigeria and especially in the Igbo heartland area. This was not how the political calculus of the middle and late 20th century politics of education management in Igbo land had envisaged it. But that was what happened. Ohakim, an Anglican, fulfilled the long expectation of the Catholic Church in Imo State.

Unfortunately, Ohakim, who had begun a great work in education, had only one short term of four years. His place was quickly taken over by a sweet-talking loquacious young man, called Rochas Ethelbert Okorocha, from Orlu Zone. Okorocha had sold himself to the teeming Catholic voters of Imo State as another Catholic. He had announced his arrival as governor of the state with the mouth-watering self-description as the [supreme] commander of [free] education. Expectation was very high that the new commander of education in Imo State would do all the needful in education which would include the complete return of all seized Catholic schools to their legitimate owners.

Having served nearly three-quarters of his double-tenured administration of eight years, Okorocha, the self-acclaimed commander of education, has done practically nothing to further the cause of returning schools to their rightful owners which is the hallmark of the drive of the Catholic Church into local politics. He was expected to take the final step in the whole seized schools imbroglio in Imo State. He was the one everyone had hoped would remove the final vestige of the stigma of seized schools in Imo State by returning the seized primary schools to their rightful owners. But so far, Governor Okorocha, a self-professed Catholic, has been a monumental failure in this regard. Under the watchful eye of a self-described commander of education, education in Imo State has become a laughing stock.

When Bishop Chikwe saw the gesture made by the former governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, by returning some secondary schools to the Catholic Church, he was excited. That gesture had tallied perfectly with his programme for bringing the Catholic Church fully back to education in the Diocese of Ahiara. Bishop Chikwe’s strategy in education had been a step-by-step programme from kindergarten to the highest levels of Catholic education. He was determined to realize in full the goals set in education by the Irish missionaries who had worked miracles in the evangelization of the Igbo people with their great strategy in education. He was to move from the kindergarten to the university level.

So, as the former governor began the process of returning some secondary schools to their legitimate owners, Bishop Chikwe reciprocated by sending many priests to specialize in education. Many priests were sent to both the local and foreign universities to specialize in both teaching techniques and education management. His whole desire was to make Ahiara Diocese an education diocese. He was honing a powerful education apostolate in the diocese. To achieve this he began to make elaborate preparations to launch deep into education. He sent many seminarians with talents to Nigerian universities to specialize in the various aspects of education. Many were trained in ICT education and others in various fields of education.

The long-term goal of the late Bishop Chikwe was to crown his educational achievements in the diocese with the building of Mater Ecclesiae University in Mbaise land. At the beginning of 21st century, two priests of Ahiara Diocese, Frs. Eugene Azorji and David Ihenacho, i.e. yours truly, met in Dallas, USA, and reflected on how to fast-track Bishop Chikwe’s agenda for education in Ahiara Diocese. They began reflecting on how they could help the bishop realize his goal of building a Catholic University in the diocese a little faster.

As a result of that meeting, a world-wide committee was set up. This was chaired by Rev. Fr [Professor] Eugene Azorji, with yours truly as secretary. This committee was to prepare the grounds for the launching and laying on of the foundation stone of Mater Ecclesiae University, Mbaise. Bishop Chikwe was enthusiastic about the prospect of the university taking off in the diocese. But after further consultations, he requested that the project be delayed a little bit because he wanted to ensure that the secondary schools that would serve as feeder to the university were in place.

Bishop Victor Adibe Chikwe would be knee-deep in trying to establish feeder secondary schools to the proposed Mater Ecclesiae University of Ahiara Diocese when death knocked on his door on that fateful midday of September 16, 2010. May His industrious soul rest in perfect peace while his legacy in education lives on!

To be continued …..