AHIARA DIOCESE IN CROSSHAIRS: THE REAL STORIES …36 [EXCERPTS FROM A BOOK IN PRINT]

Chapter 14: Countdown to Catastrophe [i]

The month of May would ring in with a fever-pitch tension all across Mbaise land. This was how the countdown to Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke’s scheduled ordination on May 21, 2013, would announce its commencement. The tension was about what would happen to Ahiara diocese, her unique Catholicism and the people of Mbaise in general, both on the day of the said ordination, and generations after. There was palpable fear that Mbaise land might suffer a double whammy on the day of Msgr. Okpalaeke’s Episcopal ordination.The belief was that if military force and police violence became factors in the effort to establish Msgr. Okpalaeke as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese, innocent Mbaise Catholics would certainly be murdered in the process and this would ultimately lead to the end of Catholicism as it had always been known in Mbaise land.

In other words, the bishopric crisis had become another occasion for a dreaded history of the Mbaise people to try to make a comeback. That is to say, if care was not taken innocent Mbaise citizens might be murdered again in the public arena for a crime they did not commit. Many Mbaise citizens who were honed in the history of their homeland became fully primed not to allow this tragic event to ever repeat itself in their own time. Like the Jews after the holocaust, it appeared as if all citizens of Mbaise land had declared with one voice, “Never again.” Even without publicizing it in the mass media, it became more than obvious that all Mbaise citizens across the world had become united in their determination to oppose any foreign invasion of Mbaise land.

These ominous signs of a looming catastrophe over Mbaise land were eliciting so many questions. What would be the nature of Catholicism in Ahiara Diocese after May 21? Would the bishopric of Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke, if and when it commenced, foster or destroy the peculiar Catholicism of the Mbaise people? What type of a Catholic missionary would a Bishop Okpalaeke make in Mbaise land since he appeared eager to herald his Episcopacy in Ahiara Diocese through deadly barrels of guns? What would remain for a Bishop Okpalaeke to shepherd after securing for himself scores of dead innocent Mbaise citizens felled by the volleys of deadly bullets his rented military and police armoured cars appeared intent on unleashing in Mbaise land on May 21, 2013?

On the other hand, would Mbaise people of the 21st century respond better than their ancestors did over a hundred years ago when they were attacked by better equipped government forces? What would Mbaise land look like after the titanic battle of May 21, 2013? How could Mbaise people come out of the struggle victorious in view of the monstrous odds that were stacked against them? The questions were endless, especially among the few of us who were constantly reviewing the pros and cons of the struggle. There was anxiety everywhere.

As the tension mounted, nearly every group of people in Mbaise land sped off in furious mobilization and preparation for what was seen as an imminent decisive war against foreign invasion.The youths of Mbaise intensified their training vowing never to allow a repeat of ancient Mbaise genocide in their time. Even the butchers at Afor-Ogbe Market Square mobilized with their sharpened machetes to carry out random slaughters of the so-called invaders from Anambra State on the day of the said ordination.On their own part, the members of continued to spit fire, threatening to unleash hell on anybody who would try to invade Mbaise land by force. The masses were not left out in the build-up to a potential Armageddon on May 21. Everybody was being instructed to get ready to troop out en masse on that day in order to form a human shield around the Cathedral against any invasion.

The call to arms would not to be left to Mbaise citizens at home only. Many Mbaise sons and daughters living in Aba, Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Enugu, Abuja, Lagos, etc, began to indicate that they would return home as early as the weekend before May 21 to join the battle for the defence of Mbaise land. Hundreds of Mbaise students in tertiary institutions in both Imo and the neighbouring states sent over information that they would occupy the whole compound of Maria Mater Ecclesiae Cathedral as early as the midnight of May 20, 2013.Not to be left out in the war preparation were the motor park touts in Ahiara junction who were said to have entered into a pack of territorial defence with their counterparts from Owerri to help them take over and block off Ahiara junction for any vehicular movement on the day of the ordination.

The fever-pitch tension of the period reached as far as overseas. Mbaise citizens in diaspora became hysterical with their commentaries, faxes and phone calls aimed at calling the attention of the world to what they saw as a Rwanda-like genocide about to occur in Mbaise land.They contributed money, erected billboards and bought pages on church and national newspapers to register their opposition to what they saw as a monumental threat to lives and properties and a territorial violation of the sacred land of the Mbaise people. Their petitions, fax messages and telephone calls bombarded the Vatican to draw Rome’s attention to the tragic mistake that would become the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese with military force and police violence.

In a perfectly strange twist, the Nigeria-Biafra civil war scenario situation in Mbaise reincarnated and reinvented itself in the Ahiara bishopric crisis. Some Mbaise people who were old enough during the civil war would recall that about six months or so before the final surrender of the defunct Republic of Biafra to the Nigerian government of General Yakubu Gowon, when it became clear that the war had decisively tilted against the fledgling Republic of Biafra, Mbaise sons and daughters in the Biafran army at the different sectors of the war returned home to defend Mbaise land. As a result, the invading Nigerian soldiers were stuck for months all around Mbaise boundaries.General Yakubu Gowon’s army was pinned down in Okpala, Obiangwu, Emekuku, Imo River banks, Umunwanwa Bridge sectors, etc, by the gallant Mbaise warriors.

Mbaise sons and daughters then vowed that the Nigerian army would not be allowed to set foot in Mbaise as an invading force.And that was what had happened. The Nigerian army stole into Mbaise in early January, 1970, in twos and threes, and within the next few days after their infiltration into Mbaise land the war was over. Many Mbaise elders noted that the threat to invade Mbaise land and install Msgr. Okpalaeke by force as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese was evoking the same patriotic feeling that made Mbaise sons and daughters return home during the waning days of the civil war to defend their home land.

As I beheld all those build-ups to a potentially catastrophic war in the once peaceful Catholic Church in Mbaise land, I began to have frequent hallucinations of heaped bodies of my innocent Mbaise Catholics mauled down by the military tanks hired to ensure a successful bishopric ordination for Msgr. Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese. I was scared to death by my hallucinations and premonitions. As a result, I came to a conclusion that should we ever get to the point of engaging in a blood-spilling battle to resist the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke in the Cathedral of Ahiara Diocese, the Catholic Church in Mbaise land would have been dealt a mortal blow for which it would never fully recover again. And should such ever happen, I remember telling myself, it would mark a monumental failure of leadership for us the priests and leaders of Ahiara Diocese, the Catholic bishops of Nigeria and the universal Catholic Church. And history would never spare any of us for letting the whole situation spiral into the shedding of innocent blood in the name of a bishop.

As I reasoned along this line I would come to a firm conviction that what was about to happen in Ahiara Diocese would benefit no one as it would amount to a net-loss to the Catholic Church everywhere. When I realized the enormity of what we were getting ourselves into, I began thinking about what I could do as a person to avert the disaster. I would also pray earnestly in my mind that God might offer us an escape route from the disaster that was threatening to engulf our beautiful diocese.

The first sign that God might steer the entire diocese away from the looming disaster would occur when one of the harshest critics of the diocese embarked on a peace and fact-finding mission to the diocese. Since his return from the conclave that elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio, former Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as Pope Francis, in March, 2013, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Metropolitan Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, had become a very harsh critic of the resistance against the bishopric of Msgr. Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese. Like many other bishops of Nigeria, Cardinal Onaiyekan had taken to every medium available to him to unleash harsh criticism of the behaviour of the priests and the lay people of Ahiara Diocese.

In a mail he sent to the president of Nigerian Diocesan Priests Association, Fr Martin Onukwuba of Onitsha Archdiocese pleading with his organization to intervene in the Ahiara crisis, Cardinal Onaiyekan had noted how the crisis had gained a worldwide attention leading to embarrassing questions about the Church in Nigeria.The cardinal noted that issues concerning the dire situation in Ahiara Diocese had featured prominently in the pre-conclave conferences of the cardinal electors. And returning to Nigeria after the conclave, Cardinal Onaiyekan decided to inject himself more deeply into the crisis.Showing sadness Cardinal Onaiyekan would plunge himself into the Ahiara crisis through some one-sided criticisms of the clergy and laity during the Holy Week of 2013. His criticisms at the Chrism Mass in his archdiocese of Abuja on Wednesday, March 27, 2013, almost took the tone of vitriol.

But Cardinal Onaiyekan’s Chrism Mass homily criticism of Ahiara Diocese would not go down well with a large spectrum of Mbaise people and their sympathisers across the land. There was instantly a coalescence of opinions to mount some push-backs against Cardinal Onaiyekan and his criticisms. He was being charged of unfairness towards the people of Ahiara Diocese.Many of the Cardinal’s critics would agree that as one of the most distinguished clerics in the Nigerian Church, he had no right to offer such criticisms without getting a firsthand knowledge of what was happening in the diocese. Not a few expressed outrage that the cardinal was yet to make a personal contact with the people of Ahiara Diocese to try to find out how he could be of help in resolving the crisis.

As criticisms of his Chrism Mass homily mounted, it became clear that the cardinal was being pushed from all corners to make effort to visit Ahiara Diocese and listen to the other side of the story before deciding on what to condemn and criticize. His Chrism mass criticism would become fodder for internet commentators. And from all corners he began to face some barrages of criticisms on his overall attitude towards the crisis in Ahiara Diocese. It looked as if all his critics were challenging him to show some leadership as a cardinal in the Catholic Church by visiting Ahiara Diocese to learn issues personally and not through some second-hand talebearers.

It would not take long before signals started to reach Ahiara Diocese that the cardinal was feeling some heat from the criticisms he was receiving. In response, he reached out to the administrator of the diocese, Msgr. Theo Nwalo, to chat him up on the issue.Msgr. Nwalo seized on the opportunity to repeat the complaints of many people from Ahiara Diocese and beyond that the cardinal should have visited the diocese and found things out personally before embarking on his own criticisms. Msgr. Nwalo challenged the cardinal to visit the diocese in no distant time so as to know firsthand the true position of the people of Ahiara Diocese.

Without much hesitation, Cardinal Onaiyekan agreed to take up the challenge. He told Msgr. Nwalo that he would immediately rearrange his schedule in order to make a quick visit to Ahiara Diocese.He requested that a few priests be called together for some chats and consultation with him. To prepare the ground for the meeting, he sent down ahead of him some excerpts of his controversial homily to the administrator as well as a copy of the letter he had sent to the president of Nigerian Diocesan Priests Association urging them to intervene in the matter. These documents would be studied very closely by many in the Caucus as the cardinal was being awaited.

Cardinal Onaiyekan’s impromptu visit to Ahiara Diocese would take place on Saturday, May 4, 2013.In a brief chat with a select group of Ahiara Diocesan priests, the cardinal apologized for not making the visit a little earlier. According to him, the delay had resulted from his personal involvement in the conclave that elected Pope Francis and other pressing matters of his.

Immediately after his apology Cardinal Onaiyekan zeroed in on the homily he had given in Abuja on March 27 that had elicited a lot of comment.He said that he made the comments during the homily in good faith and in a spirit of frustration over the standoff in the diocese.He regretted how the comment had been understood by the people of the diocese both in Abuja and back home. Finally, he told the gathering that having heard and read all that needed to be read on the crisis, he was in Ahiara Diocese to listen to the priests and see if there could be any way to move the issue a little towards resolution.

At the conclusion of the cardinal’s remarks some four priests spoke and responded to him. The priests who spoke were very candid with him especially on what the ordination and bishopric of Msgr. Okpalaeke might do to the diocese if allowed to go ahead. The cardinal was alerted to the disaster that was looming if there would be any attempt to use force to try to ordain and install Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese on May 21. All the priests in attendance pleaded with Cardinal Onaiyekan to intervene strongly in the matter in order to save Ahiara Diocese from becoming a theatre of bloodshed because of a bishopric crisis.

In his own contribution, the chairman of the indigenous priests association, the group spearheading the struggle in Ahiara Diocese, Fr Austin Ben Ekechukwu, knelt down and begged the cardinal to use his authority as a cardinal to intervene in the crisis so that Catholicism would not become history in the diocese.He informed him that there was no way the bishops would come to Ahiara Diocese to ordain and install a rejected bishopric candidate without being vigorously challenged.And should such a challenge occur as it would, if the bishops insisted on coming, there would necessarily be dead bodies all over the place.

After listening to lots of pleas from the people that gathered for the consultation, the cardinal confessed that his visit to the diocese had given him a new perspective on the crisis.He promised that when he got back to Abuja he would put in place some processes through which a dialogue between some select members of the Nigerian bishops and a group of priests from Ahiara Diocese would be initiated. He expressed optimism that through such a dialogue an amicable solution might be found to avert the crisis.

Cardinal Onaiyekan noted that his visit to Ahiara Diocese had come at a very right time because the bishops of Nigeria would be meeting in a week’s time in Abuja for their annual retreat being organized and preached by His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Arinze.He promised that he would use the occasion of the retreat to put in place some sessions of dialogue between Ahiara Diocesan priests and some bishops including the Nuncio and perhaps Cardinal Arinze himself whose name was constantly being mentioned in the crisis in the diocese.

It was on that note that the brief meeting with Cardinal Onaiyekan would break up on Saturday, May 4, 2013.The cardinal, who was hurrying home to get himself prepared for a trip to South Africa for a conference, was immediately driven back to Port Harcourt Airport where he caught a late evening flight that took him back to Abuja. The meeting would rise with some modicum of optimism that some sessions of dialogue along the lines being proposed by both Cardinal Onaiyekan and Archbishop Joseph Ekuwem might succeed in averting the catastrophe that appeared headed the way of Mbaise land.