AHIARA DIOCESE IN CROSSHAIRS: THE REAL STORIES …26 [EXCERPTS FROM A BOOK IN PRINT]

Chapter 10: Ominous Cloud Thickens

I would return from my interaction with the bishops in Abuja with a sense of great urgency about where the resistance was headed. I was convinced that if nothing was done urgently the crisis would inevitably head towards some kind of an explosive confrontation. I told myself that if the sound-bites from the younger bishops I met in Abuja were anything to go by, there was no way the bishops would not be coming to Ahiara Diocese with some level of force to actualize the bishopric ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke.

I believed that should the bishops of Nigeria venture to come to Ahiara Diocese with any force whatsoever under whatever guise they might contrive, it would result in a very serious confrontation that would inexorably lead to some potential losses in innocent human lives. The mere thought of this possibility scared the hell out of me. I said to myself that I would be remiss in my obligation as a priest and as a Christian if I did nothing to try to ward off this potentially dangerous situation. And without giving much thought to my feelings I became as steely as ever in my determination to embark on whatever it would take to try to avert all that if I could. It was at this period that I would start thinking about what I could do extra as a person, as a Catholic, as a concerned Christian and as a priest of Ahiara Diocese to try to head off the doom I thought would descend on the Catholic Church of Nigeria should lives be lost as a result of a violent confrontation between the bishops of Nigeria and Mbaise people on the day of the ordination of Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke.

When I came back home from Abuja, I reported my impression to the Caucus of Ahiara Diocesan priests who had all ears for it. But then the whole of Ahiara Diocese was in a state of siege. Ezuru Ezu Mbaise had perfected her strategies to thwart whatever could be thrown at Mbaise land by way of a forceful invasion. At the prompting of Mbaise citizens in diaspora, there had grown a heightened tension throughout Mbaise land that the bishops and the people of Awka, the home of the bishop-elect, might do something forceful to realize the bishopric of Msgr. Okpalaeke which was deemed to expire canonically by March 7, exactly three months after its announcement. The whole Ahiara Diocese had become completely militarized with dangerous militia activities everywhere. Youths from the various communities in Mbaise were forming and training their militias to fight back in case there would be any attempted invasion of Mbaise land to actualize the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke.

After briefing the Caucus on my Abuja impressions, it was time to travel to Abidjan with three bishops. The outcome of the interview I had attended at Abuja was that the panel shortlisted me for the position of director of communications at Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa [RECOWA]. I had not bargained for such a position. I had only gone to Abuja to interview for the post of a director of communication at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria. But during the interview I had learned that they were also looking for a priest to appoint to the comparable position on West African level. But I had not shown interest for that but had to surrender myself to whatever the bishops were offering.

However, shortly after the interview, Bishop Ugorji told me that the bishops of Nigeria had decided to promote me by giving me a higher position than I had sought for in my application. According to him, they were sending me to occupy the same position I had applied for at CBCN on the West African level. A few hours after I had spoken with Bishop Ugorji in the refectory of DRACC, I met Archbishop Augustine Akubueze who had chaired the interview panel. He also intimated me that they were sending me to Abidjan to run the office of communications there on behalf of the West African bishops. He had urged me not to worry about French language I would be dealing with there as I would pick it up in a matter of months. Archbishop Akubueze had told me that a formal letter would be given to me on the matter by the secretary general of CSN, Fr. Ralph Madu.

A few days after I had returned home from Abuja, the secretary general of Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Fr Ralph Madu called me up and asked me to ready myself immediately to travel to Abidjan with Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, Bishops Matthew Kuka of Sokoto and John Niyiring of Kano to attend the final interview with the West African bishops that would enable me take up the job in Abidjan. That would put a little confusion into my life. But I managed to make myself ready to travel to Lagos in preparation for the journey. I was scheduled to leave for Abidjan on February 25, 2013. Fr. Ralph told me to go to the old office of Catholic Secretariat in Lagos and pick up my flight tickets.

I would spend about a week travelling from Lagos to Abidjan and back to Lagos and finally to Abuja to collect my American passport that was being replaced by the American Consulate in Abuja. By the time I would get back home, a lot had changed. The whole Ahiara Diocese was in a state of war. The bishops of the province returned from CBCN meeting in Abuja and had their own provincial meeting. The communiqué from the meeting would call on the priests and laity of Ahiara Diocese to sheathe their sword, and allow the process of planning for the ordination and installation of Msgr. Okpalaeke to begin. They would also send out letters to the six dioceses of the province to begin a novena prayer in their parishes for peace to reign in Ahiara Diocese. The communiqué of that meeting would be published in the Leader newspaper.

When the outcome of the bishop’s meeting was made known to Ahiara Diocese, both the priests and laity got themselves ready for war. The priests and some members of Ezuru Ezu Mbaise quickly produced a very strong rebuttal of the communiqué of the bishops which they immediately published in a national newspaper, The Sun. The statement, which sounded as defiant as ever, tried to refute line by line every claim made by the bishops of the province in their communiqué regarding the crisis in Ahiara Diocese. The priests through the Caucus and the Indigenous Priests Association ordered that the Leader newspaper carrying the communiqué of the provincial bishops would not be sold in all the parishes in Ahiara Diocese. They also decreed that the novena prayer ordered by the bishops would not be prayed in Ahiara Diocese. Ominous tension was approaching mountain-top level throughout Ahiara Diocese. Nobody had any idea of how to diffuse the dangerously gathering clouds.

The priests and laity of Ahiara Diocese believed that with their communiqué, the bishops of the province had decided to carry out the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese despite the great opposition mounted against it by the people of Mbaise. The conclusion was that there was no other way they could achieve their aim than through a forceful invasion. As a result of that, efforts were intensified to make sure that if they ventured to come to Ahiara with violence they would be met with popular uproar and counteractions generated from the people. The members of Ezuru Ezu Mbaise had their subterranean strategies of defending Mbaise ready which they insisted they would not disclose to anybody. They only kept assuring people not to panic as the whole situation was under their firm grip and control.

As I stepped back to Mbaise land after only one week of absence, all I saw was youth militias roaming all over the place and preparing for a big battle and their militia generals constituted by members of the Ezuru Ezu Mbaise often huddled together planning military defensive strategies. The Caucus was meeting everyday strategizing at their own level while the priests of Ahiara Diocese in general were just like free-flowing journalists, politicians, media outfits and even guerrilla formations barking out threats against what they had perceived as an imminent invasion of Mbaise land. The whole of Mbaise land appeared a little bit like early January of 1970 when the Nigerian armed forces laid siege to Mbaise land pending her final fall to the Nigerian soldiers a few days later. The whole place appeared as if another invading force was right at the border between Mbaise and Owerri territories.

Meanwhile, tension was also building in several other fronts. With the instigation of Mbaise people in diaspora, March 7, being the day when the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke would canonically expire, began to acquire some mythical aura. The people at home were being asked to be vigilant because the bishop-elect and those who were propagating his bishopric in Ahiara Diocese would try to do something sinister to get him ordained on or before that day so as not to risk Rome declaring the date of his appointment expired and his bishopric null and void. So, as March 7 approached, the whole of Mbaise became paranoid with fear and tension. The youths called themselves out and massed at the Cathedral compound to repel any potentially invading force.

But when March 7 passed without any incident of invasion in Ahiara Diocese, people heaved a sigh of relief. In far away California, Professor Amadi-Azuogu celebrated that very important milestone with an essay of his which was usually controversial to say the least. As Professor Amadi-Azuogu in America and his brothers and sisters at home celebrated the milestone they had supposedly attained by preventing the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke in the diocese within the mandated three months it should have taken place according to the prescription of the canon law, little did anybody know that Msgr. Okpalaeke himself had pulled the rug from under the feet of the entire diocese.

In a letter dated March 6, 2013, and signed by Archbishop Augustine Kasujja, Papal Nuncio to Nigeria, it was revealed that the bishop-elect, Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke had on February 13, 2013, sent an application to the Vatican City, “requesting for the extension of the time for [your] Episcopal ordination and taking of canonical possession of the diocese of Ahiara”, the letter declared, “I am glad to communicate to you the following information received from the Holy See.”

With the letter Prot. N. 898/13 dated 25 February 2013, the Secretary of the above mentioned Congregation, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, s.v.d, informs. ‘Due to the delicate situation in the diocese, I grant a dispensation of three months to the Prelate so that he can realize the ordination and canonical possession in a more favourable atmosphere.’

As this letter would not be made known immediately, build up to what was seen as an imminent war between Mbaise Catholics and a combined army of invaders made up of the Nigerian military and police in conjunction with youths from Awka Diocese against the local community militias that had been training all over Mbaise for a counter-offensive continued unabated. Members of the Catholic Youth Organization of Nigeria, CYON, Ahiara Diocese, began to meet regularly on parish, deanery and diocesan levels to fine-tune their strategies for the defence of the homeland. The priests themselves were unrelenting in their preparation for whatever would be thrown at them by the circumstance they were facing.

As the build-ups and counter-build-ups continued, something was brewing from Rome. Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on February 11, 2013, that he was resigning from his office as pope, the first time it would happen in the last six hundred years, would inject itself as the topic of discussion for both the universal and local churches. And in relation to the crisis in Ahiara Diocese the pope’s resignation would become the greatest wildcard in the struggle.

As the shocked world questioned itself about what the pope meant by his decision to resign, people of Mbaise began to reflect on what it meant for their struggle against injustice. Tongues began wagging all across Nigeria that the rebellion mounted by Mbaise Catholics against the bishop that was appointed for them by Pope Benedict XVI had contributed in no small way to the unprecedented action of a pope throwing in the towel before his death. The implication was that the rebellion in Ahiara Diocese had become so portent and so disheartening to the pope that it had contributed in the pope’s decision to resign and leave his office prematurely.

But even though that was meant to be a criticism, many Mbaise Catholics saw the whole thing as a blessing. They hoped that a new pope would have a more sympathetic ear to the plight of Mbaise Catholics.

As tension built on the issue of the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke, Nigerian bishops everywhere began to feel the pressure personally. And the more they felt the pressure, the more they were willing to open their mouths to rain down torrential criticisms on the priests and the laity of Ahiara for what they had considered their unbending intransigence on the bishopric question.

But the priests of Ahiara Diocese would focus their ears on the metropolitan of Owerri Province translating every word he spoke as a criticism of Mbaise priests. Before our very eyes the relationship between Ahiara Diocesan priests and the metropolitan was going from bad to worse. And this began to head in a direction I thought would discredit the Catholic Church in both the province and throughout Nigeria.

Back in Ahiara Diocese, the retreat season for priests had begun. The first batch of priests would have their retreat in Ahiara Diocesan Priests’ Home from March 3-8, 2013. I belonged to the second batch whose retreat period would last from March 10 to March 15. Midway into our retreat, exactly on the night of Tuesday, March 12, a distress call came from Owerri Archdiocese that a convention of the Diocesan Priests of Igbo land, known as ANIMAEE - an acronym for Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi, Diocesan Priests Association, was holding in Owerri Archdiocese. Two of our priests who were among the four that were working actively with the bishop-elect, had sneaked into the meeting and were claiming to be representing the interest of Ahiara Diocese.

When the deputy president of the organization in Owerri province, Fr Sebastian Igbokwe witnessed what they were doing and saying about Ahiara Diocese, he sent a distress call to the priests of Ahiara Diocese asking us to send over immediately our authentic representatives to the meeting to forestall the damage to our diocesan interest that was being done by the duo that claimed to be representing Ahiara Diocese. On receiving the distress call from Fr Igbokwe, the authentic leaders of our diocesan ANIMAEE, Frs. Austin Ben Ekechukwu, Dom Ekweariri and Fidelis Agwulonu rushed down to Owerri to join the meeting.

As those leaders from our diocese made their way to the meeting, the Archbishop of Owerri Diocese and the metropolitan of the province, Most Rev. AJV Obinna was addressing participants at the meeting on the crisis in Ahiara Diocese. One of the things our delegation to the meeting had heard the metropolitan say was that the crisis in Ahiara Diocese was causing him sleepless nights and if not well handled might lead to his resignation as archbishop and metropolitan of Owerri province. Archbishop Obinna had sounded so sad and despondent that members of our delegation were convinced that the crisis was eating him up.

His Grace, Archbishop Obinna had brought with him to the meeting two of the most senior priests of the province, Monsignor Alphonsus Aghaizu – a priest for 59 years and Fr Innocent Onyewuenyi – a priest for 52 years then, to advise the members of ANIMAEE on the need to mediate in the Ahiara crisis. One of the great moments of the meeting according to Ahiara participants was when the most senior priest of the province, Msgr. Aghaizu rose to tell the participants at the meeting that Ahiara struggle was based on justice. Msgr. Aghaizu who was never known for loose talks or pedalling falsehoods recounted how the process of selecting bishops was skewed in favour of Onitsha Ecclesiastical province from the beginning. He recounted the number of Mbaise people that had been cheated in that skewed process that favours Onitsha Province beginning with the late Msgr. Edward Ahaji whom he described as one of the best priests the Igbo Church has ever produced in all of her history.

The plea of the archbishop for ANIMAEE members to mediate in the crisis and the candid advice they had received from the two doyens of the Catholic priesthood in Igbo land had convinced them about the need to inject the organization into the crisis. There and then, the members of the executive of the organization decided to pay a visit to the priests of Ahiara Diocese on April 11, 2013, which would be after the Easter festivities and exactly a month after their convention in Owerri.

When Ahiara delegation to the ANIMAEE convention returned home and reported the information to the priests during the retreat about the impending visit of the ANIMAE executive, I took it personally. One aspect of their report had touched me personally. And that was the aspect dealing with the personal health of Archbishop Obinna. Having worked with him a lot both when he was a lecturer at Alvan Ikoku College of Education Owerri and when he became the archbishop of Owerri as a result of the centenary celebration, I believed that I knew him a little bit more. He was a person who said the way he felt deeply in his heart. I was moved that he had told the participants in the ANIMAEE convention that the crisis in our diocese was costing him sleep at night and might force him to resign his position as the archbishop. I did not quite appreciate such a confession in any way. I thought that he should be able to call the bluff of both my people of Ahiara Diocese and the ambitious bishop-elect that was refusing to consider any other option than the claim of his bishopric mandate in Ahiara Diocese through whatever means he could muster.

All through the remainder of the retreat period I would give a lot of thought to the situation of the archbishop. When the retreat concluded on Friday, March 15, I made up my mind that I would find my way to the archbishop to have a dialogue with him. That was what I would do on Monday, March 18. I braved it and went to the home of the archbishop. As he was heading off to a meeting with the members of his theological commission I accosted him. I asked him about the confession he had made to the members of ANIMAEE about the state of his personal health in view of the crisis in my diocese. He started to play down some of the statements he had made during the convention.

However, I braved it and told him that rather than have sleepless nights about Ahiara crisis and perhaps cause himself terrible health problems, he should go ahead and give our people a date for the ordination of the bishop and allow us to handle it the way we would deem fit. On hearing my advice, the archbishop looked at me with some element of surprise on his face. But I repeated myself. I told the archbishop that unless we drove ourselves nearest to the cliff of the mountain of this crisis, it would not be over. I told him that I believed strongly that what the bishop-elect and his people had wanted was some confrontation with the people of Ahiara Diocese after which the case would be over. I urged His Grace to go ahead and scheduled the ordination and tell my people of Ahiara to take it or leave it.

However, His Grace, Most Rev AJV Obinna retorted that it was not his responsibility to schedule the date for the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese, but rather, that it was that of our diocesan administrator, Msgr. Nwalo and the members of his cabinet, the College of Consultors. I told him that if Msgr. Nwalo tried to schedule the date for the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese he would be lynched. I insisted that for the crisis to move towards a resolution the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province would have to sit down and work out a date of the ordination that would serve as the climactic day of the crisis in both Ahiara Diocese and throughout the Catholic Church of Nigeria. After our short exchanges, the archbishop moved on to his scheduled meeting telling me that he would think about it.

As would be revealed by a letter of the Apostolic Nuncio to the bishops of Nigeria, Prot. 3329/13, there would be an emergency meeting of Owerri Ecclesiastical province on March 13, 2013. According to Nuncio’s letter, “the bishops of that province and the Diocesan Administrator of Ahiara resolved that the ordination and installation of Most Rev Peter Ebere Okpalaeke will take place at Mater Ecclesiae Cathedral Ahiara on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013, at 10.00 a.m.” Some days after my discussion, around March 27, words started to filter in that the bishops had agreed on the date for the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese but would hold it close to their chest yet in order to allow the people of Ahiara Diocese to have a peaceful Easter celebration.

Meanwhile criticisms on Ahiara Diocesan priests were raining like hailstorms from all parts of Nigeria. Some bishops throughout Nigeria made a constant menu of the crisis in their sermons. From Anambra to the Northern part of Nigeria, Ahiara Diocese and her so-called “intransigent priests and lay faithful” became the talk of the town throughout Nigeria. Back home in Ahiara Diocese nobody cared to listen to which bishop was saying what about the struggle in our diocese. The whole focus was on trying to make sure we did not drop the ball in the struggle. The struggle had become for many Mbaise people a matter of life and death.

However one of the criticisms of Ahiara Diocesan priests on the bishopric crisis would attract a lot of attention during this period. It was the criticism the Cardinal Archbishop of Abuja Archdiocese, John Cardinal Olorumfemi Onaiyekan, would level against Ahiara Diocesan priests during the Chrism Mass in Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Pro-Cathedral, Garki – Abuja on March 27, 2013. That homily titled “Priestly Obedience and the Ahiara Situation – Excerpt from 2013 Chrism Mass Homily” caused such a buzz in both Abuja and Ahiara Diocese. The excerpt provided in writing does not tell the whole story, but it contains a lot that caused concern to both the priests and the laity of Ahiara Diocese.

After elaborating on the obligation of the priests to obey their bishops in line with the “extraordinary oath they take during their ordinations”, the cardinal emphasized the fact that even the bishops have a serious obligation to obey the pope because they took another oath to exercise their Episcopal ministry, cum et sub Petro – with and under the Pope, which gave rise to the expression, collegiality cum et sum Petro. The cardinal asks a syllogistic and rhetorical question; “if bishops bow to obey the pope and priests bow to obey bishops, is it not logical that priests must obey the Pope?” He continues,

This brings me to the Ahiara situation.

More than two years ago, the bishop of Ahiara, Most Rev. Dr. Victor Chikwe, died. May his soul rest in peace! Amen. It took two years and more of waiting, praying and expectation. Finally the pope appointed a new bishop. While we were happy that finally we have a bishop for Ahiara, we began to hear rumours and murmuring that the person appointed by the pope is not acceptable to them. When we ask who are these “them”, we found that they are mainly the priests. This is not just an Ahiara problem, it is a Nigerian problem.

I am raising it here so that all of us will pray so that this devil may be exorcised. And of course, there is nothing beyond God. That a group of people is not happy about the man they have chosen for them as a bishop or that they are disappointed at the choice made, is understandable. But to out-rightly reject him and bluntly disobey the Pope should never be heard of in the Catholic Church. It is a futile task trying to destroy that Church which God promised to defend. Some of you come from Ahiara and some have friends there. Go and tell them that this matter is becoming a source of deep concern, embarrassment and shame to the entire Church of Nigeria. No amount of rejection can stop what God wants.

Cardinal Onaiyekan’s indictment of the priests of Ahiara Diocese would set off a firestorm right from the congregation that listened to his homily. While some would applaud his intervention into the Ahiara matter, many especially from Mbaise who were a part of the congregation would take exception to it.

According to eyewitness account, shortly after the chrism mass, many Mbaise indigenes in the congregation stormed his residence and queried why he had not made efforts to visit Ahiara to find out things for himself before giving the homily. Many would venture to give him some titbits of what was happening in Ahiara Diocese. And for the first time, Cardinal Onaiyekan would get to know that the matter was not a black-and-white affair as he and other bishops especially in the far north were portraying it. He would be made to appreciate the fact that there were issues of justice and injustice which caught the priests and lay faithful of Ahiara Diocese in a kind of a dilemma that needed to be factored in so as to fully understand the cause and the solution to the crisis.

The homily of Cardinal Onaiyekan during the chrism mass in Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Pro-Cathedral, Garki, Abuja, would turn out to be the last word that would be heard on the crisis before the Easter celebration. But also it turned out to be more revealing to some of us. It revealed that so many people did not understand the underlying reasons of the crisis in Ahiara Diocese. As a result of the ignorance of many people in that regard, Ahiara Diocesan priests and lay people who should be admired for sticking out their necks to challenge an endemic injustice that was threatening to destroy the Catholic Church of Nigeria were instead being lampooned all over the place.

I would keep telling myself that if people knew why Ahiara Diocese was challenging the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke as her bishop-elect, they might not continue with such a mischievous and wholesale slander and denigration of the priests and lay people of our diocese. It crossed my mind that perhaps we should embark on advertising the position of Ahiara Diocese on the mass media so as to make many more people appreciate why the most Catholic territory in Nigeria has decided to reject a papal appointment.

This would be the frame of mind I would be struggling with as I entered the Holy Triduum ceremonies of 2013. I kept saying to myself that the same people who were being viciously persecuted by the Nigerian Catholic hierarchy were also the people who were being maligned all over the place in the media and on Catholic pulpits all over the country. I kept asking why my people of Mbaise couldn’t win anything in their lives. What have we done to be incurring this kind of ire from people everywhere? Why should broad-day injustice be visited on us and people insist that we swallow it in silence?