AHIARA DIOCESE IN CROSSHAIRS: THE REAL STORIES …30 [EXCERPTS FROM A BOOK IN PRINT]

Chapter 12: Adding Insult to Injury [i]

When hopefully the dust settles after the resolution of the current bishopric crisis in Ahiara Diocese, it will be necessary to examine the roles played by some peripheral matters such as “slander”, “loose talks”, “pride” and “boasting” in pushing the Igbo Church towards the precipice. Our people have a saying, O bughi onye uka kagburu, kama o bu onye ochi chigburu – [literally] it is not the talkers that kill but the scorners. That is to say, side issues like scorning, laughing, boasting and slandering can be more portent in exacerbating a situation than the real issues of the crisis. The bishopric crisis in Ahiara Diocese following the controversial appointment of Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke as the bishop-elect was dangerously exacerbated by boasting and slandering especially by the people who had the most to benefit from the appointment against those they believed had the most to lose.

Stan Chu Ilo [Rev. Fr.] of Enugu Diocese was quite right when he stated in his much quoted essay that the crisis in Ahiara Diocese had put Igbo Catholicism on trial [Cf. “Igbo Catholicism On Trial in Ahiara Diocese: A Call For Prayer And Patient Discernment” Saharareporters.com, January 11, 2013]. It is worth repeating after Fr Ilo that the crisis resulting from the controversial appointment of Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke as bishop-elect of Ahiara Diocese did in fact put Catholicism in Igboland on trial in many more ways than we can consider in this chapter. That crisis did play up all sorts of issues that demonstrated the immaturity and infirmities of Igbo Catholicism. Despite clocking an average age of one hundred years in most places Catholicism remains largely immature and untested in Igboland.

Among the issues revealed by the crisis was what many are describing as the superiority complex some of the clergy and the lay people from Anambra State want to constitute into a norm and a way of life in Igbo Catholicism. According to this school of thought, it appears that some elements of the Anambra Catholic Church would want the rest of the Igbo people in the Catholic Church to see them as members of a superior race, a master class, who must dominate and lord it over their brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church.

The then archbishop of Onitsha Archdiocese, now Francis Cardinal Arinze, was allegedly caught in the 70’s Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, in an open-mic situation, giving a superiorist-supremacist admonition to his seminarians from Onitsha Archdiocese. In one of his visits to the seminary he was said to have addressed them saying that they should be mindful of the fact that they were the future rulers of the Igbo Church and therefore should not let themselves be dominated by Igbo students from Owerri zone that did not know anything.

This seems to tally with what Fr Chris Paul Egege had reported to the Apostolic Administrator of Ahiara Diocese, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, on September 25, 2013. To buttress the claim that the priests from Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province usually view their counterparts from Owerri Province with a superiorist mentality, Fr Egege had told the apostolic administrator that when around 1969 he went for an oral examination under the late Fr Albert Obiefuna, who would later become Archbishop Obiefuna, the latter had warned him to speak up clearly because people from Owerri area did not know how to speak the English Language. Being a very combative person by nature, Chris Paul Egege, then a senior seminarian, had taken Fr Obiefuna up in his statement by telling him that it was in fact people from Onitsha area who did not know how to speak the English language properly because they did not have the complete alphabets of the language.

This superiorist mentatlity seemed to play a major role in the way seminary rectors were appointed in the 70’s. Msgr. Ogbonna from Ngwaland was appointed rector immediately after the civil from nowhere. According to observers of the issues that had preceded his appointment, what necessitated the Ogbonna’s appointment was the bitter quarrel between the then Archbishop Arinze and the man whom the bishops of the then Onitsha province voted to be appointed rector, namely, Fr Albert Obiefuna. [It was never a secret that Arinze and Obiefuna had a disagreement that lasted until the death of the latter. In fact, it was alleged that it was the bitterness of that quarrel that resulted in Archbishop Obiefuna being humiliated with the appointment of his successor, Archbishop Valerian Okeke which eventually led to his premature retirement as the archbishop of Onitsha.]

By the time Msgr. Ogbonna completed his tenure of Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, the relationship between Arinze and Obiefuna had normalized a little bit allowing the latter to be appointed rector of the seminary. But when Obiefuna was appointed bishop, the next in line to be appointed rector was either Msgr. Mba or Fr Theophilus Okere. After serving as acting rector of the seminary, Msgr Mba was promoted out of the seminary system with his appointement as the rector of the Catholic Institute of West Africa in Port Harcourt. And from nowhere Fr Peter Damian Akpunonu was appointed the seminary rector by Archbishop Arinze. According to seminarians of that era, Onitsha Archdiocesan seminarians had demanded that Fr Akpunonu from Onitsha Archdiocese be made the rector of the seminary and Archbishop Arinze obliged.

The truth is from time immemorial, bishops, priests and seminarians from the Onitsha area of Igbo have had it ingrained in their psyche that they are a special breed among the Igbo people. Somehow they tend to believe that they constitute the royalties and the blue bloods of the Igbo nation. Besides using their connections to secure themselves plum positions in the Catholic Church, this group of people do not shy away from scorning their victims and boasting about their exploits. By so doing, they end up adding terrible insults to the painful human and psychological injuries they inflict on their victims.

It was these factors of injustice, injuries and insults that are at the heart of the bishopric crisis in Ahiara Diocese. The truth is that all such vain and worldly activities made it impossible for both the bishop-elect and Mbaise people to sit down together and iron out what was actually the beef of the crisis. For Mbaise people in particular, the prideful propaganda launched by their brothers and sisters from Awka Diocese made it overly difficult to contemplate the possibility of any negotiations that would allow Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke to serve even for a nano-second as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese.

After listening to all such slanders and loose-talks especially from Awka priests and their lay counterparts, Mbaise people felt terribly injured, embarrassed, unjustly treated and humiliated beyond imagination by the process that produced Msgr. Okpalaeke as their bishop-elect. And that necessarily led to the determination in Mbaise to employ whatever means that was available to try to secure a decisive victory in the fight against Msgr. Okpalaeke’s assumption of office in Ahiara Diocese. This malicious propaganda appeared to have started on the very first day the announcement of the appointment was made.

The first hint of the news that a priest of Awka Diocese, by name, Fr. Peter Okpalaeke, had been appointed the bishop of Ahiara Diocese would come from Awka Diocese around 11.30 A.M. on Friday, December 7, 2012. The bishop of Awka Diocese, His Lordship, Most Rev Paulinus Ezeokafor, was alleged to have made the announcement to the priests of the diocese after a funeral mass he had celebrated on that day. According to some eyewitnesses to the announcement, the bishop of Awka Diocese, Most Rev Paulinus Ezeokafor made the announcement in a most boastful manner. He had told his cheering audience, Anyi na-azufuta anyi na-ezigara fa [We train and give to them]. Moreover, immediately Bishop Ezeokafor made the announcement that one of their priests had been appointed the bishop of Ahiara Diocese, the priests present erupted into celebration, some going as far as to say in Igbo language: Anyi achikwaa fa ozo [We are ruling them again].

Such gloating and celebration revealed the mindset of majority of the priests from Awka and Anambra State in general towards their brothers and sisters from Mbaise and Owerri Ecclesiastical Province. Those priests of Awka were not celebrating that Ahiara Diocese had finally been given her long-awaited bishop; rather they celebrated the fact that their own man, a priest from their diocese, had been afforded another opportunity to continue their string of domination of their counterparts in Owerri Ecclesiastical Province. In other words, the priests that cheered and made all those loose comments had not credited Okparaeke’s appointment to the Holy Spirit but to their mundane creativity in truncating and manipulating the processes of appointing bishops in Igboland to favour priests from their own diocese. And this was the basis of the crisis that would erupt almost instantly. When the great Mbaise priests learned what Awka priests were up to, they said; eh eh! Not in our own backyard and not in our own time!

This was one of the main issues at the heart of the bishopric crisis in Ahiara Diocese. While Ahiara Diocese and the whole of Owerri Ecclesiastical Province looked for a good shepherd who would continue the good work begun in the diocese by the late Bishop Chikwe, Awka Diocese and some great men and women of Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province worked with a completely different agenda leading to the appointment of somebody with probably the mentality and agenda of domination. It would have been very hard to separate Msgr. Okpalaeke from the group that cheered his appointment; being a group that clearly saw his appointment as another opportunity they had been given to dominate Mbaise people. When the wise Mbaise priests recognized the ploy involved in the appointment of Okpalaeke as their bishop, a ploy that would have jeopardized their self-esteem and their Catholicism, they did not have any other choice but to revolt against the appointment.

Unfortunately, this loose talk uttered by not just a few priests when the announcement was made in Awka Diocese would become the mantra of most priests and bishops from Anambra State from thence. Everywhere Mbaise and Owerri provincial priests and the lay faithful looked, it was the same thunderous gloating that was being broadcast to the world that Awka people had been appointed to rule and dominate their brothers from Mbaise in Imo State. Some priests went as far as boasting that it was the duty of Awka Diocese to provide bishops to the rest of Igbo people and beyond.

One female religious boasted to her counterpart from Mbaise that now that an Awka priest had been appointed the bishop of Ahiara Diocese, Mbaise land would become organized so as to develop fast. According to her, the soon-to-arrive Awka bishop held the key to the development of the stagnated Mbaise land. That is to say, even before they came into Mbaise land, the new bishop and his sympathizers had primed themselves to discredit the great works of such Mbaise icons as the late Bishop Chikwe. Mbaise priests saw all this from a far and said, “No way!”

The whole implication of the slanderous propaganda against Ahiara Diocese was that Awka priests were born to become the genius organizers of dioceses while their counterparts from Owerri were condemned by their destiny to serve them. It seems this was a part of the grand design to destroy Mbaise priests psychologically so as to facilitate their domination by the new bishop. That was why the whole situation became absolutely embarrassing and unbearable for the people of Mbaise and Owerri Province in general. Many started to question what they had done to the Catholic Church to deserve such a humiliation by their historically less endowed brothers from Awka Diocese.

This would cause many priests from Owerri province to recall that they had trained with the new geniuses from Anambra State in the same seminaries in Igbo land. And none of them had shown any class or superior qualities over and above their counterparts from Owerri province. The question then became; when did they [Anambra priests] become that good as to pose as masters of their counterparts from Owerri province? Moreover, what Anambra people were up to was against the principles of Igbo culture. Igbo people do not like to be dominated by their brothers and sisters from other communities.

From time immemorial Igbo people and communities have been radically independent of one another. Any attempt at dominating other people has always led to a war. And to look down on anybody or any community was tantamount to an act of war. As an Igbo proverb states, nleli e leliri ogaranya ka ogbugbu e gburu ya njo – to show contempt or to despise a statesman or an accomplished Igbo person is worse than killing him. In other words, rather than insult a man better kill him. When it became obvious that Awka priests were using the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke to insult their counterparts from Mbaise, the human nature in the priests of Mbaise and Owerri Ecclesiastical Province in general took over. And the result was a total rejection of the bishop-elect.

From far away USA, some Awka priests who were instantly telephoned from home and given the news of Msgr. Okpalaeke’s appointment to Ahiara Diocese as a bishop began immediately to call out their friends from Mbaise to relay the news to them. And some of them prefixed the information they gave to their counterparts from Mbaise with such a blustery and triumphal gloating such as, Nna, anyi achikwaa unu ozo [My friend, we are ruling you people again].

Some priests from Ahiara Diocese living in the United States told the stories of how they felt when they got such calls from their friends from Awka Diocese. One of them told me, “when my priest-friend from Awka called me up early in the morning of Friday December 7, 2012 with the news that was prefixed with the statement; Nnaa anyi achikwaa unu ozo, I felt like the land could open up to swallow me. I was shedding tears that a tragedy had occurred in our diocese until I heard the great news that priests from Ahiara Diocese had rejected the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke. I felt that God had answered my prayer.”

However, boasting about the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke had in fact become a pattern for many priests from Awka Diocese and Anambra State in general. The appointment was generally couched as a defeat of the people of Mbaise and Owerri Ecclesiastical province in general. An Awka priest of Bigard Memorial Seminary, 1984 set, was quoted as stating in one of their class meetings that, Ndi Mbaise, fa lachasisaa nsi, anyi ga na-achi fa – [Mbaise people, after they had cleaned up the faeces mess with their tongues, we will continue to rule and dominate them]. For such a priest, what Mbaise people were doing protesting the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke as their bishop was tantamount to ilachasisa nsi [cleaning up faeces mess with tongues]!

On another occasion, a prominent Awka priest ordained in 1983 was quoted as boasting during one of their class meetings in Owerri that the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese, Msgr. Okpalaeke, needed not to worry about the protestation of Mbaise people over his appointment. According to him, since the Holy Father had spoken and appointed him the bishop of the diocese, Mbaise people were too insignificant to stop him from assuming his responsibilities as the bishop of the diocese. He said that he would advise him that immediately he assumed duties in the diocese, he should immediately open up a register so that any Mbaise priest who wanted to remain a Catholic priest would be required to register his name in the new register. But those that did not want to continue being priests under the new bishop would be sent home to their families.

This was the type of arrogant attitude Msgr. Okpalaeke was being prepared to come and unleash on Ahiara Diocesan priests. Hearing such blustery, Mbaise people had no other option than to fortify their trenches of resistance.

During the first meeting the bishops of the province had with Ahiara Diocesan priests regarding the bishopric crisis on Friday, December 21, 2012, two bishops from Anambra State made very unflattering and inflammatory remarks about Ahiara diocesan priests and the lay faithful of Mbaise. Bishop Solomon Amatu of Okigwe Diocese said to the hearing of everybody present in Maria Mater Ecclesiae Cathedral on that day: Ife a unu na-ekwu banyelu ndi Anambra na ndi Dunukofia, anyi anusisigo fa mbusu. O naghi ewute anyi. O masi unu, unu kwulu fa gaba. O gaghi ewute anyi. Ife m ne-ekwu banyelu ife a unu na-emegasi ugbu a bu na o diru mma ka ndi Ahiara priests na-emegasi amara dika Motor Park touts – [All that you people are saying about Anambra people and Dunukofia indigenes, we have heard all of them before. They do not worry us any bit. If you like, you can continue to say what you have been saying. But what I am saying about your behaviour on this occasion is that it is not good for you priests from Ahiara Diocese to be behaving like Motor Park touts].

The Anambra bishop serving in Okigwe Diocese compared Mbaise priests to Motor Park touts. That was a low-blow of no mean proportion. And to add insult to injury, the bishop of Aba Diocese, also from Anambra State, during that meeting on December 21, 2012, stated: Ife na-esi ndi Mbaise isi di fa n’ime – [Whatever is producing the stench about Mbaise people is embedded in their soul and bodies]. For this Anambra bishop the character of Mbaise people is so despicable that it could be said to produce some stench. And that type of character is congenital with them.

It was this type of slander and prejudice displayed openly by both the down-under and the higher-ups from Anambra State that made it possible for Mbaise people to consider the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke as an unwelcome aggression that must be defeated.