AHIARA DIOCESE IN CROSSHAIRS: THE REAL STORIES …25 [EXCERPTS FROM A BOOK IN PRINT]

Chapter 9: The Struggle Continued [ii]

On February 5th, a six-man delegation led by Msgr. Don Okoro [now late] left for Abuja to deliver the official letter rejecting the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese. The very next day, the Apostolic Nuncio received the official delegation from Ahiara Diocese as well as the letter of rejection from Ahiara Diocese.

Immediately the Abuja delegation left, the president of Ahiara Diocesan Indigenous priests Association, the umbrella organization that was spear-heading the struggle, Fr Austin Ben Ekechukwu, left for Owerri and started mailing out the two pieces of information we wanted to be in the hands of every bishop in Nigeria as they prepared for their first plenary meeting in Abuja for the year 2013. And with this a new chapter was opened in the struggle.

A corollary to these events was the action of the Ahiara Diocesan administrator, Msgr. Theo Nwalo. As the delegation was arriving in Abuja so also was the document the Ahiara diocesan administrator had authored that suggested the way forward for achieving a peaceful settlement of the Ahiara Diocese crisis. The administrator had not only sent his document to the Apostolic Nuncio, the metropolitan of Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, the president of CBCN, and a few other bishops in Nigeria, he had also sent it to the Cardinal Prefect for the Office of Evangelization of Peoples, Fernando Cardinal Filoni.

Immediately these documents started to land at their various destinations, the atmosphere around Ahiara Diocese and the struggle she was engaged in became super-charged. For the first time, both the Nuncio in Abuja and his bosses at the Vatican would realize that they had a very big battle in their hands regarding the crisis in Ahiara Diocese. Until then, they had perhaps thought that it was a protest being organized by a few priests and their lay counterparts. In fact, they were being assured that the whole crisis would soon fizzle out to enable their chosen candidate for the bishopric of Ahiara diocese to be welcomed with buntings and banners. But once the documents began to drop, anger flared up both at the Nunciature in Abuja and in the office of Cardinal Filoni.

The first to react to the documents was Archbishop Kasujja, papal Nuncio in Abuja. He quickly summoned Msgr. Nwalo to his office in Abuja. There the Nuncio would strongly berate the administrator for not getting the people of Ahiara Diocese to accept the bishop named for them by the Holy Father. He would come down heavy on the administrator over what he insinuated was the administrator’s incompetence in bringing the Ahiara crisis to a quick resolution. The usually mild mannered administrator of Ahiara Diocese, Msgr. Nwalo was pushed by the disrespectful attitude of the Nuncio to engage him in some hot exchanges. In those hot exchanges, the administrator would remind the Nuncio that he had already been ordained a priest before the would-be Nuncio would venture into the senior seminary. The flaring tempers showed how the dynamics of the struggle were changing by the day.

To show how frustrated he had become with the lack of resolution in Ahiara Diocese, the Nuncio would go into a long tirade accusing the people of Ahiara Diocese of lack of faith and of disobeying the Holy Father. The half-hearted effort the administrator would put up to defend what he described as the solid and unshakable faith of the Mbaise people was met by the scorn and derision of the Nuncio and his secretary, Msgr. John. For them, by rejecting Msgr. Okpalaeke as their bishop, Mbaise people had demonstrated a solid lack of faith and disobedience to the Holy Father. The duo urged the administrator to return home immediately and begin the re-education of the people of Ahiara Diocese to have faith and be obedient to the Holy Father.

In a clear demonstration of their refusal to understand the peculiarities of the situation in Ahiara Diocese, the Nuncio and his secretary began to compare the resistance against injustice in Ahiara Diocese and the people’s refusal to surrender to the terrible pains of injustice meted to them to the situation in China where the communist government seized the authority of the pope and the universal Church to appoint bishops. As far as they were concerned, in as much as Mbaise people refused to accept the bishop given to them by the Holy Father, they had become like the communist China in Nigeria. What a pitiable argument!

The ignorance and shamelessness with which such an argument was made was breathtaking. But it did not bother the Nuncio and his secretary to know that Mbaise land was not a self-governing territory in Nigeria. Mbaise land had never espoused communist ideology in all of her history and had never questioned the authority of the Pope to appoint bishops in Nigeria. They could not consider the very important fact that Mbaise land was not asking for any other thing than that a process set up very clearly in the Canon Law of the church for selecting bishops, which all Nuncios and their secretaries were supposed to have at their finger tips, should be followed in the selection of a bishop for Ahiara Diocese.

However, the Nuncio was allowed to get away with his “pitiable” arguments because right from the first day he began his interaction with the priests of Ahiara Diocese; and that was a day after the burial of the late Bishop Chikwe, he had been seen by the priests of Ahiara Diocese as a man who was not given to subtle reasoning. Whenever he spoke to the priests of Ahiara Diocese, nearly everybody would be wondering how a poorly-endowed priest could have made it to the highest echelon of Vatican diplomacy by being appointed a papal legate of a sophisticated country like Nigeria.

The eruption of crisis in Ahiara Diocese after the announcement of Msgr. Okpalaeke as bishop-elect would be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The conclusion of many priests was that with the level of sophistication seen in the papal Nuncio, there was little doubt that he would eventually be taken to the wood shade and manipulated for their own ends by the powerful mafia that was allegedly controlling the Igbo Church.

During that meeting in Abuja, the administrator would succeed in throwing a big challenge to the Nuncio to come down to Ahiara Diocese and find out the situation of things himself rather than stay back in Abuja and criticize the people of the diocese for fighting what they considered a very legitimate battle against injustice. The Nuncio would take up the administrator’s challenge. He would visit Ahiara Diocese on Monday, February 11, in the company of the two main officials of the CBCN Owerri Province in the persons of Archbishop Anthony Obinna, the metropolitan of Owerri Province, and Bishop Augustine Ukwuoma, the bishop of Orlu Diocese and secretary of CBCN, Owerri Province. The Nuncio would meet and address the people of the diocese on two different settings. The priests he would meet first.

During his interaction with the priests, he began almost by trying to teach the priests the basic Catechism of faith, obedience and the bishopric. He would touch on some raw nerves when he claimed that the bishopric was a special vocation different from the priesthood and that it was not open to everybody. Many priests would understand the comment of the Nuncio as implying that the bishopric was meant for a select few to whom it had been reserved from time immemorial. By its being a special vocation outside the priesthood, people took it that those to be appointed bishops are usually pre-selected without much input from the people the would-be bishop would come to shepherd as a diocesan bishop. But this became a hard pill to swallow by many Mbaise priests.

Many priests would strongly disagree with the Nuncio’s brand of theology. And in the case of the Igbo Church, the Nuncio seemed to imply that the bishopric was reserved for only the priests from Awka Diocese and their brothers from the other dioceses of Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province. Ahiara Diocesan priests took a strong exception to that kind of theology. He kept insisting that the bishop given to Ahiara Diocese had been “well prepared” for his new role as a diocesan bishop in Ahiara Diocese. But the way he made it seem like Msgr. Okpalaeke was the best that could ever be offered to Ahiara Diocese infuriated many priests.

The many Ahiara diocesan priests listening to the Nuncio on that day were stunned to learn that the first African and black Nuncio to serve the Nigerian church was in fact the most lacking in the knowledge of some basic facts about the Igbo people and their Catholicism. The priests would view the ignorance of African culture demonstrated by the Nuncio as embarrassing to say the very least. They were stupefied that a man who only seemed to possess a catechism level theology was running around representing the Holy Father around the world as a Nuncio.

However, some of the achievements of the Nuncio’s meeting with the priests of Ahiara Diocese were along the line of making the Nuncio confront some of his mistakes that resulted in the filling of the vacant see of Ahiara Diocese with a young unknown priest from Awka Diocese. A senior priest of the diocese, Msgr. Emmanuel Ogu pulled out from his file a copy of a document which was delivered to the Nuncio a year and half before the announcement of Msgr. Okpalaeke as Ahiara Diocese’s bishop-elect. The document was sent to him in response to some insinuations that the Nuncio was thinking of importing a person outside of Mbaise to take over the See of Ahiara Diocese.

The document had warned the Nuncio not to go that route as it would lead to crisis. When the document was delivered to him around March of 2011, the Nuncio had accepted it and asked the bearer to sign some documents to show that she in fact did deliver the document to him. So, Msgr. Ogu read the document in its entirety and asked the Nuncio whether he remembered getting such a document and putting it in his file. The Nuncio had practically nothing to say other than to emphasize his oft repeated statement that Ahiara Diocese should obey the Pope on the matter and show that they had faith.

Another priest of the diocese recounted to the Nuncio the mockery some Anambra priests were making of their counterparts from Ahiara Diocese. He told the Nuncio that some priests in Anambra State were telling the priests of the diocese that after they had finished fooling themselves they would still remain their subjects and bootlickers of their rear ends. In fact, the priests put it in raw Igbo proverb. He said, the Anambra people are saying to us; Ndi Mbaise, fa lachisasaa nsi, anyi ga na-achi fa – “Mbaise people, when they finished sucking up the faeces mess [a mess perhaps made for them by Anambra priests], they would still be our subjects or slaves.” The priest tried to make the Nuncio recognize that by insisting on an Anambra priest taking over the bishopric of Ahiara Diocese, the Anambra people were not taking it as an opportunity to serve or preach the gospel, but as a period to subject and reduce the people of the diocese to the status of their slaves. But the Nuncio paid no attention to such an argument.

In conclusion, the priest told the Nuncio that if Msgr. Okpalaeke was forcefully imposed on Ahiara Diocese, hell would break loose in the Nigerian Catholic Church as whatever had lain secretly hidden in the history of the Catholic Church would be made public. They said that if there was any imposition on Ahiara Diocese, Vatileaks would be a child’s play compared to what would happen in the Nigerian Church as a result of the unjustifiable imposition.

Then one of the priests who had started the resistance stepped forward and told the Nuncio that Ahiara Diocese, both the lay and the priests, have decided that under no circumstance would they accept Okpalaeke as their bishop. And that if there was any force used in trying to impose him on Mbaise it would be resisted to the last man standing. He told the Nuncio to help the Vatican make the right decision on Okpalaeke case. According to him, the best option would be to assign Msgr. Okpalaeke to another place because if he insisted on coming to Mbaise to serve as a bishop he might get himself hurt or even killed.

At the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of the priests told the Nuncio in plain language that they would not accept the bishopric of Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese. The Nuncio was visibly frustrated. He was short of words when he listened to priests after priests repeating what had become a mantra of the priests of the diocese that under no circumstance would they accept Msgr. Okpalaeke as their diocesan bishop.

From the hall where he met the priests, the Nuncio travelled across the compound to talk to a cross-section of the lay people massed in the cathedral and waiting for him. Once again, after making his speech which was dense on the Catechism, he met a very hostile crowd that told him that under no circumstance would they welcome Msgr. Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese as their bishop. The traditional rulers and the members of the defunct pastoral council were laud and clear that Okpalaeke was a persona non grata in Ahiara Diocese.

As the papal Nuncio in Abuja continued to harass Ahiara Diocesan administrator through some troubling late night phone calls, and as he kept faith with his disparagement of the people of Mbaise for what he described as the people’s lack of faith, Cardinal Filoni was preparing a response to the administrator’s document on the way forward on the crisis. It appeared that there were fireworks in both the Nunciature and at the Vatican because of the rejection of Msgr. Okpalaeke as the bishop-elect of Ahiara Diocese. Cardinal Filoni’s letter would arrive some two weeks after the administrator’s journey to Abuja.

In that letter designated as PROT N. 983/13 and addressed to Right Reverend Monsignor Theo Nwalo, Diocesan Administrator, Diocese of Ahiara, Nigeria, via Apostolic Nunciature, and signed by two signatures that were not easily identifiable, the author which must be assumed to be the prefect of the office of Evangelization at the Vatican, Fernando Cardinal Filoni, or somebody writing with his name, stated among others:

I received and read your letter of last February 4th with due respect and attention, wherein you listed “the current problems in the Ahiara Diocese.”

Indeed, I must admit that it was a bitter letter. The reaction of some of the priests and faithful to the nomination of the new Bishop has saddened both the Holy Father and myself. In truth, we have asked ourselves just what kind of faith and ecclesiology exist in Ahiara. If you had asked whether or not the Bishop-elect, Mgr. Peter Ebere Okpalaeke is a good, well-prepared priest, who, with the priests and the people of God, is capable of increasing the faith, living in hope, and acting in charity, I would have replied: “To the best of our knowledge and with the help of God, Yes!” Instead, you speak to me about questions regarding the origins of the new bishop, of “historical” [!] tensions with the dioceses, of jealousy, and of other less noble virtues….

The clearest irony that jumped out at anyone reading the letter was that the cardinal began by accusing a mild proposal made to him by the administrator as a “bitter letter” but ending up sending him a reply that could be described as a strange bundle of bitterness. In his letter, the cardinal would delve into a long diatribe in which he posed a long list of rhetorical questions to the administrator and Ahiara people employing ad hominem arguments. But at a long last he returned to the issue at stake:

A ready-made solution for the problem, dear Monsignor, may be found, after all, in the answer to this question: in Africa, in Nigeria, in Imo State, of what type of Church do we want to speak, following the Second Synod of Bishops and the Apostolic Exhortation “Africae Munus”? Of a Church with Christ as the center of her faith and obedience, or of a church that is tribal, ethnic, and national? I would ask that you reread “Africae munus” numbers 155 and 157.

I do not believe that the resolution to the problems lies in a need for “an elaborate discussion”, as you wrote on page 4. Rather, to resolve the problems, it is necessary to reason with the spirit of faith and with a spirit that is superior to our own conceptions of things, that is, with a sense of true love for Christ, for the Church, and for the Holy Father.

The letter would conclude with a seeming rejection of the administrator’s request for dialogue with a counter appeal of its own:

I appeal to your “true” loyalty and your “true” love for the Church and for the Holy Father [n.10 and n. 11 of your letter], and this, too, is the mind of the Supreme Pontiff.

What the letter of Cardinal Filoni to Msgr. Nwalo had shown was that for the Nuncio and Cardinal Filoni at the Vatican, Mbaise land, by refusing to accept Msgr. Okpalaeke as her bishop had demonstrated lack of faith and disobedience to the Holy Father and must be treated accordingly. And in the year of faith, 2013, the natural catechesis for the people of Ahiara Diocese would be to launch a programme aimed at improving the people’s faith.

Without saying so, for the Nuncio and the Cardinal Prefect, the way Mbaise people would manifest faith was if they swallowed without any question a deadly pill of injustice administered to them by an unjust process the two had apparently mismanaged which had resulted in the announcement of someone whom the people view as the most unsuitable candidate as the bishop-elect of Ahiara Diocese. In other words, they indeed believed that Mbaise people by their refusal of Msgr. Okpalaeke as their bishop had committed a mass suicide in the name of the Catholic faith. But they forgot or were not told from the beginning that Mbaise is the land of the wise who practise their Catholicism with faith and wisdom.

Another implication of the accusation of lack of faith levelled against Mbaise people by the Nuncio and the Cardinal Prefect, even though they did not quite say so, was their insinuation that the people of Ahiara Diocese must be treated as a disloyal people who have no faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, for them, the people’s manifestation of a lack of faith in not accepting the bishop given to them should carry with it some consequences. They were insinuating that some punishments or sanctions be administered to the people of Mbaise for embarking in acts which they claimed had shown some lack of faith. However, Mbaise people immediately understood what they were up to. It was more or less a threat of an action that had an ominous ring to it. Only God knew where they were headed with such a conclusion.

But there was no doubt in the mind of every Mbaise person that the duo did not want Mbaise people to go scot-free with their supposed sins. By declaring Mbaise people as lacking in faith and disloyal to the Holy Father, they were opening the door a little bit for the Holy Father to impose sanctions on the “faithless and disloyal” Mbaise people. Who knows? Perhaps, the duo was beginning to prepare the ground for Ahiara Diocese to be declared schismatic and the priests defrocked and perhaps laicised.

On their part, Mbaise people were preparing for all that. From the get go, the metropolitan archbishop of Owerri, Archbishop Obinna had warned on several occasions that Mbaise people should not drive their resistance towards schism. And many Mbaise people had responded that if that would be what it would take to reverse the injustice that had been meted to their diocese; they would be willing to broach it. So, as the Cardinal Prefect and his official in Abuja, the Nuncio, began to accuse Mbaise people of lack of faith and disloyalty, not a few from Mbaise knew that the threshold of receiving some sanctions from Rome was approaching. So, in a way, everybody began to brace up for it. Both formally and informally, the talk was that if Rome suspended the priests of Ahiara Diocese en masse, we would go away with our flock in the diocese!

As the battle raged in the front manned by the Nuncio and the Cardinal Prefect of the Office for the Evangelization of Peoples, the bishops of Nigeria began to arrive for their first plenary meeting in Abuja for the year 2013. I was re-invited to attend the meeting alongside the bishops for our interview for the office of director of social communication for the Catholic Secretariat in Abuja had been rescheduled for the opening day of the meeting which was Saturday, February 16, 2013.

In the evening of that first day, our interview was quickly conducted with the deputy president of CBCN, Archbishop Augustine Akubueze of Benin Archdiocese chairing the panel. The two other bishops on the panel were Bishop Lucius Ugorji of Umuahia, and Bishop Emmanuel Badejo of Oyo Diocese. They expressed joy that I had applied for the post. So, I expected a favourable result.

However, as many bishops began to arrive for their meeting that evening I could notice that Ahiara Diocese was the topic on nearly everybody’s lips. Many of them huddled in small groups apparently discussing the situation in Ahiara Diocese. And as we sat down in the refectory for dinner that evening, I sat at a table with a few who were passionate about the events in Ahiara Diocese. As they hardly knew my diocese, most of them would assume that I came from a diocese other than the troubled Ahiara.

As I listened to some of them speak, I could notice that the main thrust of their discussion was the documents that had been mailed to them from Ahiara. The young bishop from the Diocese of Jalingo, Most Rev Charles Hammawa, who sat opposite to me at the dinner table, would begin the discussion on Ahiara crisis by asking his counterpart at the same table whether he had received his own scroll from the priests of Ahiara Diocese. He would go further to tell his colleague that his had arrived some two days before he started off for the meeting. And that he took time to read every bit of it. In my heart I said, “yes” the suggestion I had made to the Caucus had worked. At least most of the bishops coming to their first plenary meeting for the year must have taken some time off to hear the perspective of the people of Ahiara Diocese through the documents that were mailed to them.

As I put my ears on the ground trying to catch a little bit of the discussion that was going on at the different tables around mine, I could sense that Ahiara crisis was the main issue that evening. And most of them I had listened to had more of a uniform way of looking at the situation in our diocese. They believed that since Rome had spoken, there was no other way the resistance in Ahiara Diocese would be allowed to continue. Even that early in their meeting they were near unanimity that Ahiara Diocese would have to be made to eat her words and accept the bishop Rome had given her. And one could sense that they would not hesitate to advocate for the use of force in resolving the crisis in our diocese.

The name of bishop-elect was on everybody’s lips that evening. He was said to have arrived at the meeting early but since I did not know him in person before, I had a hard time trying to pinpoint the face of the one whose name was on the lips of the bishops. I quickly noticed that the bishop-elect was generally being treated by the bishops as both a hero and a victim. He was in fact their hero and a victim of the “intransigence” that was going on in Ahiara Diocese.

The next day was Sunday, February 17. The mass of the inauguration of the plenary meeting was scheduled at Our Lady Queen of Nigeria, Pro-Cathedral. As it would take a long bus ride to get there, I joined some of the bishops in one of the two buses that were made available to convey people to the Church. The time of the bus ride to the pro-cathedral would be taken up with the praying of the rosary mandated by Archbishop Obinna. From nowhere Archbishop Obinna sitting with us at the back of the bus had called out Bishop Emmanuel Badejo sitting behind the operator of the bus to begin the rosary. Feeling a little bit taken aback, Bishop Badejo shifted it to Sr. Nicholette Ihenacho sitting with him. The praying of the rosary would occupy us all the way to the pro-cathedral.

The mass of the inauguration of the plenary session began with all pomp. The president, Archbishop Kaigama was the chief celebrant. His Eminence, John Cardinal Onaiyekan was the homilist. At every juncture during the mass, Ahiara Diocese would be mentioned or insinuated. Suddenly it would dawn on me that our diocese which used to be the great example of success throughout the reign of the late Bishop Chikwe had become the poster child for rebellion and bad behaviours. I was terribly saddened.

As the mass was about to conclude, there was the introduction time for the bishops present. Every one of them was lavishly introduced and hailed. But the bishop-elect of Ahiara Diocese was specially introduced and hailed in rowdy fashion. It dawned on me that his fan base was quite large all over the place. I decided to keep a very low profile. I did not want to discuss much with anybody. Fortunately hardly did anybody know me in that part of Nigeria.

As the bishops and the congregation proceeded to the church hall for the inauguration of the plenary session proper, the introduction continued and Msgr. Okpalaeke was getting all the attention and the sympathy. Somehow he became the cynosure of all eyes in the hall. Everybody wanted to greet and say a few kind words of encouragement to him. And he went around greeting as many as he could. Somehow I figured that I should find a way to greet him and perhaps introduce myself as a priest from Ahiara Diocese. I believed that by that time he had known that one priest from Ahiara Diocese was there with them. I reasoned that it was an act of courtesy that I walked up to greet him and perhaps introduce myself to him.

I could not immediately find the time to do that because of the sitting arrangement in the hall. So, I waited until the procession out was about to begin. As soon as the bishop-elect stepped out to join his fellow bishops I walked up to him, greeted him and introduced myself. I gave him my name and informed him that I was a priest from Ahiara Diocese. He responded: “Is that so?” And the next question that came out of his mouth was “And what are you doing here?” As I made attempt to respond to his strange question, he walked away. I was a little bit shocked as I had hoped that I would use the moment to share one or two words with him. But he cut the whole interaction short and walked away.

The bishop-elect’s action would make me decide not to participate in whatever the bishops were planning to do for the rest of that Sunday until the time I would leave for the next day. We boarded our buses heading back again to DRACC in the Lugbe area of Abuja. While on the bus, the crisis in Ahiara Diocese was all that was talked about. I was most uncomfortable. Some of the bishops had by that time known me as a priest of Ahiara Diocese. So they decided to communicate their message, or should I say their threat to the priests and laity of Ahiara Diocese through me.

I was having an earful of all sorts of disparagement of my people of Ahiara Diocese from the mouths of the young bishops. All of them were livid about the situation in our diocese. I suspected that they were pulling my legs to talk. But I kept my peace knowing full well that I would never win any argument with them. One of them would note that he did not believe that there was any priest from Ahiara Diocese who had studied Canon Law. I responded in my mind that the first indigenous priest in Nigeria to study Canon Law was an Mbaise man. I said to myself that even till the time he was making his accusation, Ahiara Diocese was one of the few dioceses in Nigeria with the greatest number of efficient canon lawyers. I said to myself that I should perhaps add his accusation as a part of rampaging Episcopal ignorance that was beginning to ruin the Catholic Church of Nigeria.

Some of them had surmised that I would be the right person to convey their views to my people back home. As a result, they chose to make them as strident and threatening as they could. Not a few of them on the bus were unleashing their threats of how they would not tolerate the rebellion in Ahiara Diocese as it would set a bad example in Catholic Churches throughout Nigeria. A few of them insisted that no matter what happened they would come to Ahiara Diocese and have Msgr. Okpalaeke ordained and installed. Even if it would entail that they all die as martyrs of the Church of Nigeria, they would be ready to do so, they said.

The group I was with on the bus would use all sorts of overtures to get me to say one word or two, but I kept my mouth sealed tight. Even though many of them were younger than me in both age and every other thing nature bequeathed, they had become my bosses by the fact that they were all bishops and I was not. I told myself that contributing to their discussion by trying to give them the position of Ahiara Diocese would not play well at all. So I kept my mouth shut.

When we got back to DRACC, I retired to my room and slept off. The bishops would have an evening programme that took them to the other side of the metropolis of Abuja. But I stayed put in my room. I could not wait for the morning of Monday to break so that I could leave the place and get going with my other businesses in Abuja.

As the bishops left for their programme that evening, little did I know that I would become a topic of concern. Obviously with the instigation of the bishop-elect, the bishops were questioning about who authorized me to attend the interview for the position of director of social communication. As I was not there, I did not know what was happening. But around 10.00 p.m. Archbishop Obinna returned from the event and called me over the phone. He questioned where I had been. I told him that I had not travelled out of my room since we returned from the morning programme at the Pro-Cathedral. He questioned why I did not join them in the evening programme. I told him that it would’ve been inappropriate for me to be following them about since that might be misconstrued. He appeared to see with me. Then he started telling me what had transpired in the place, how some of the bishops were questioning who gave me the letter to attend the event. But then he had to step forward to tell them that he was the one who had given me the letter for the interview. And that kept everybody quiet.

I was very grateful to Archbishop Obinna for rescuing the situation. Being a senior bishop in the country and a very influential one for that matter, Archbishop Obinna was highly respected among his peers. So, when he stepped forward in my defence, everybody kept quiet. But I was surprised that my presence became an issue among the bishops. I was shocked that the young man clamouring to become my bishop would begin his relationship with me in such a strange manner. In my heart I said that Ahiara Diocese’s marriage with Msgr. Okpalaeke would obviously need a miracle for it to work.

The next day, being Monday, I left DRACC and continued my other businesses in Abuja. On Tuesday, I returned to my parish. Late at night on Thursday, I received a phone call from His Grace, Most Rev. AJV Obinna. He told me that the bishops had spent three hours that night talking about the crisis in Ahiara Diocese. According to him, though the event in Ahiara Diocese had opened the eyes of the bishops of Nigeria to what was happening in their Church, it would be very hard to argue the line that the Pope would have to reverse himself and appoint an Mbaise priest as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese.

In a moment of intimate confession, the archbishop told me that though sentimentally he was with Mbaise people 100% but as a bishop and a metropolitan he had to obey the law of the church which says that only the Pope appoints bishops in the Catholic Church. I told him that we understood that quite well. Responding he said that Mbaise people would have to figure out how to handle the situation, whether it would be worth it to continue resisting the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke. I told him that no Mbaise priest or lay person that I knew was under any illusion that the battle would be hard, fierce and nerve-wracking. But the general belief here was that something would have to be done to address the terrible injustice that had been done to Mbaise people.

My interpretation of the information His Grace, Archbishop Obinna had given me concerning their discussion on the final day of CBCN meeting was that the bishops of Nigeria especially those of the province would intensify their efforts to get Msgr. Okpalaeke ordained as bishop of Ahiara Diocese. And for me that would translate to more tension in the diocese and threat to peace, law and order.