AHIARA DIOCESE IN CROSSHAIRS: THE REAL STORIES …2 [EXCERPTS FROM A BOOK IN PRINT]

Preface: Eve of Ahiara Diocese crisis ...[ii]

The state of things in respect of the meeting with the Apostolic Nuncio to Nigeria on October 8, 2010, and throughout the month of October of that same year was that the clergy and laity of Ahiara Diocese had a firm agreement with the Apostolic Nuncio to Nigeria on the type of a bishop that would best serve in their rural diocese. The entire Ahiara Diocese had great faith in that agreement. Some sort of a relationship of trust had suddenly developed between the people of Ahiara Diocese and the new Nuncio to Nigeria, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja. This was largely based on the latter’s public mourning at the funeral of late Bishop Chikwe and the praises the Nuncio had lavished on the faithful of the diocese for the well-organized funeral celebration they had accorded to their late bishop.

As a result, the people of Ahiara Diocese believed firmly that Archbishop Augustine Kasujja, the Papal Nuncio to Nigeria, was sympathetic to their situation and to their cause; and that he would recommend a suitable replacement for the late Bishop Chikwe in line with the suggestions they had made to him. They did not have any reason whatsoever to doubt that the Nuncio would keep his own part of the deal which they presumed to have had with him during those meetings. They saw in the Nuncio a man of good faith and sincerity of purpose. This would be the pervading feeling as the marathon meetings with the Nuncio rose on that October 8, 2010.

However, beyond the verbalized agreement with the Nuncio, the people also believed on the unwritten aspect of the deal which was that the Nuncio would ensure the appointment of an Mbaise son as the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese. Even though many speakers had laid emphasis on this demand, the Nuncio made no firm commitment to it. But the entire diocese believed that they had made their case for an indigenous bishop to the Nuncio whom they presumed had understood them clearly and completely.

And with that conviction the entire Ahiara Diocese sort of went to sleep. They trusted that the Church which they loved so much would do the right thing at the long last. There was no room to second guess the Nuncio or the process he represented and superintended. Everybody believed that the process of choosing a bishop in the Catholic Church worked flawlessly towards a credible resolution in which an appointment of a new bishop was made to the joyous acclaim of the people of God in the diocese.

Since the beginning of Mbaise land as a Catholic behemoth in Nigeria, there had never been any room or any occasion to doubt or second guess any organs in the Catholic Church. The Church had always been given the absolute benefit of the doubt. As far as Mbaise people were concerned, the Catholic Church and those who worked for the Holy Father could do no wrong. The Mbaise Church before the eruption of the bishopric crisis was a Catholic Church of blind faith and strict obedience to the Holy Father. The Irish missionaries had inculcated the attitude of strict obedience to the Church into the minds and hearts of the Mbaise people.

This was the attitude that had attended the promises made by Archbishop Augustine Kasujja when he said that he would do the right thing for the people of Mbaise. Mbaise people took the Nuncio’s word literally. They believed that his promise of doing the right thing for them would accord them the same dignity they had with the selection of Bishop Chikwe as the first indigenous Bishop of Ahiara Diocese in 1987 by Archbishop Paul Tabet, the then Pro-Nuncio to Nigeria. There was no scintilla of suspicion that Archbishop Augustine Kassuji would attempt to reduce the status of Ahiara Diocese to that of a missionary diocese in the comity of other dioceses in Nigeria. Rather they slept on with the conviction that the Holy Spirit working with the essential organs of the Church would always work in favor of Ahiara Diocese.

The peaceful and resigned attitude with which Mbaise people waited for the announcement of a new bishop would be jilted in mid-November 2010 when a rumor broke through into the diocese from nowhere that a particular individual of note had been announced over a Radio in Imo State as the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese. This rumor which was greeted by a large number of Ahiara diocesan priests as a comic relief was unfortunately embraced and treasured by some elements in the community of the individual falsely announced as the bishop to the extent that his kinsmen and women trouped out to their market square and began to shoot cannons and dance around their community that their son had been appointed the bishop of Ahiara Diocese. This rather tragic joke would play a major role in the crisis that would later engulf Ahiara Diocese as a result of the bishopric crisis.

Most unfortunately, the individual falsely announced as a bishop believed that the hoax had been contrived and planted by some individuals in the diocese who were out to discredit him. As a result, he would embark on a vengeful mission that ended up exacerbating the bishopric crisis in Ahiara Diocese. The rumor that somebody had been announced over a local radio as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese gradually became one of the major aftershocks of the dangerous earthquake that hit Ahiara Diocese as a result of the death of Bishop Victor Adibe Chikwe.

For the records, the true situation regarding the unfortunate rumor was that it was incited by the foolishness and ignorance of a radio announcer in one of the prominent radio stations in Imo State. The true story goes this way. Before Bishop Chikwe died, a Church in the home village of the individual who was falsely announced as a bishop had been readied for blessing and opening. Bishop Chikwe had scheduled the blessing and opening of the Church on a date that would fall within a week or so after his death. Invitations had been sent out to that effect. Unfortunately Bishop Chikwe died suddenly before he could bless and open the Church. His death would put every programme in the diocese on hold for quite a while.

In November 2010, the administrator of the diocese scheduled to bless the Church and open it up for public worship. The people of the village contracted the erring Radio Station to publicize the event. In one of the announcements or news bulletins to that effect the Igbo language announcer erroneously described the person who had been slated to give the homily during the Eucharistic celebration to mark the occasion as a bishop. The Igbo language female announcer said that the bishop who would give the Homily on that occasion was the person who was wrongly announced as a bishop.

Hearing the word “Bishop” coming before the name of one of their illustrious sons who had been slated to give the homily to open their new Church, the people of the village started their celebration of a new bishop. They danced and celebrated that the falsely announced individual had in fact been made the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese. This was how the rumor that drove one of the most illustrious priests to an extreme end of the bishopric crisis was hatched. The rumor was not planted by any priest or any lay person to discredit the falsely announced priest. It was as a result of the stupid snafu of an illiterate radio announcer on a Radio Station in Imo State.

As the month of November set in there were rumors all over the diocese that some priests had begun to receive inquiries on possible bishopric candidates to be appointed the bishop of Ahiara Diocese. Because the process progressed in maximum secrecy [sub secreto] not many knew what was happening and not many people cared to know. Everybody was contented that the process would move naturally towards a justifiable resolution. Rumors on the distribution of inquiries letters would dominate the whole of November to the extent that many began to suspect that a new bishop might be named for Ahiara Diocese before the Christmas of 2010.

Unfortunately the Christmas of 2010 came and went without the announcement of a bishop for Ahiara Diocese. Rather there were conflicting reports about who were receiving inquiries and the sources of those inquiries. Some people were saying that some inquiry letters came from the Nunciature; a few others believed they came from the Metropolitan and/or a senior bishop in Owerri Province. There was confusion about the sources of the inquiries and which lists were to be believed as the authentic list of bishopric candidates being considered for Ahiara Diocese. Confusion in this regard would inevitably spill over into 2011. Early 2011 there was abundance of rumors about inquiries and who was receiving what.

Towards the end of the first quarter of 2011, there was a major rumor which was thought laughable by many Mbaise priests. It came from the axis of Awka Diocese. A priest from Awka was said to have told a priest from Ahiara Diocese that if they were waiting for the appointment of their bishop from within their diocese, that they were wasting their time. According to this unnamed priest of Awka Diocese, there was a list of nine bishopric candidates from Awka and Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province in general who had been cleared and penciled down to be named bishops in Igbo land. And those would have to be accommodated in the various vacant dioceses before any other considerations could be made. According to this strand of the rumor, the leading figure on that list was one Fr Peter Okpalaeke who was the chancellor of Awka Diocese during the Episcopacy of Bishop Simon Okafor, the former Bishop of Awka Diocese. The rumor said almost emphatically that the next person to be announced as a bishop in Igbo land would have to be Fr Peter Okpalaeke of Awka Diocese.

When this rumor trickled down into Ahiara Diocese, the priests dismissed it as a hoax. Not even one priest from Ahiara Diocese attached any credibility to it. For Ahiara Diocesan priests, the rumor of getting an Awka or Onitsha priest appointed as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese could never be true and trustworthy in any way. Ahiara Diocesan priests trusted completely on the purported agreement they claimed to have extracted from the Apostolic Nuncio to Nigeria, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja. But the rumor that a priest from Awka Diocese might eventually be appointed as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese would persist in spite of all efforts at dismissing it as a hoax.

The fact that it was one Fr Peter Okpalaeke who was being consistently mentioned in the bishopric rumor did not help matters at all. The truth is that Fr Okpalaeke had a very terrible history among the priests who were his classmates in Ahiara Diocese. The altercation he had with the late Fr Simon Ebisike of Ahiara Diocese in the seminary was still fresh in the minds of his few classmates in Ahiara Diocese. Many had not forgotten how the quarrel in the seminary was resolved in his favor even though he was allegedly the aggressor. So when his name was being mentioned as the possible bishop of Ahiara Diocese, many began to oil their weapons.

However, when some aspect of the rumor was confirmed from the two major Catholic countries of Europe; and when it was made clear through rumor that there was a strong consideration to make the young priest from Awka Diocese, Fr Peter Okkpalaeke, the bishop of Ahiara Diocese, some senior priests in Ahiara Diocese started taking it a little more seriously. Around April of 2011, a senior priest of the diocese, Very Rev Monsignor Emmanuel Ogu took it upon himself and without enlisting the support of any other priest of the diocese to pen a letter to the Apostolic Nuncio to Nigeria, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja.

In that letter which was hand-delivered by one of the prominent leaders of the National Association of Catholic Women Organization from Ahiara Diocese, Msgr. Emmanuel Ogu warned against the appointment of a non-Mbaise priest as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese. He told the Nuncio to resist the temptation to throw Ahiara Diocese into unending turmoil with such a controversial appointment. Msgr. Ogu advised the Nuncio to look inwards in his recommendation. He urged him to look in the direction of a large pool of talented priests from the diocese in his final recommendation to the Holy Father.

Meanwhile rumors of inquiries with different names as potential candidates for the bishopric position in Ahiara Diocese kept circulating right to the end of 2011. Many began to worry about what was happening and why there was no apparent resolution in sight. As 2012 dawned, the year of the centenary celebration of the coming of the Catholic Church to Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, there was a lot of enthusiasm that one way or the other the bishopric vacancy would be resolved within that year. Many thought that a new bishop would be in place soon enough so as to lead the centenary celebration in Ahiara Diocese. At the beginning of 2012 the feeling was so palpable that the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese would be announced any moment from the beginning of that January.

The expectation would take a different turn when around February 2012 the administrator of the diocese, Msgr. Theophilus Nwalo announced that the Apostolic Nuncio to Nigeria, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja would pay a visit to Ahiara Diocese at the end of March at the invitation of the Vice Chancellor of Federal University of Technology Owerri [FUTO] Prof C.O.E Onwuliri and his wife Prof [Mrs.] Viola Onwuliri who hailed from Mbaise land. At that announcement the entire diocese went agog believing that the highlight of the visit might be the announcement of the bishop of Ahiara Diocese.

However, enthusiasm over the proposed visit by the end of March 2012, would take a hit in the minds of a few priests of the diocese when another set of enquiries was delivered to them from the Nuncio. The administrator of the diocese who circulated the secret inquiry letters at the beginning of the month of March advised the recipients to get them ready for collection during the visit of the Nuncio to the diocese at the end of March 2012. This was absolutely disconcerting to the recipients of the inquiry letters. Many murmured to themselves why the Nuncio was still stuck with circulating inquiry letters instead of appointing one of those he had concluded inquiries on as the bishop of the diocese.

But unlike the other inquiries that contained multiple names of possible candidates, the early March 2012 enquiry letter contained just one name. The Nuncio wanted information on just one name of a prominent priest of the diocese. Those who got this inquiry, including yours truly, were so disheartened by it. Hardly did many us know that the search for the new bishop for Ahiara Diocese was still at its basic step of sending out inquiries even though two years had elapsed since it all began. Secondly, the inquiry form contained only one name when there had been multiple names enquired about previously. There was confusion.

To be continued…