AHIARA DIOCESE IN CROSSHAIRS: THE REAL STORIES …38 [EXCERPTS FROM A BOOK IN PRINT]

Chapter 15: Catastrophe Averted! [i]

As the final full week before the scheduled ordination of Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke approached, tension gripped Mbaise land. Among the many Mbaise citizens who could look beyond the immediate crisis, there was palpable fear that any significant confrontation over the bishopric crisis anywhere in Ahiara Diocese might set Mbaise people and their Catholicism more than a hundred years back. The email message from Cardinal Onaiyekan assuring that the bishops would not use any military force to facilitate the ordination of the bishop-elect, which I had shared with many of our priests, was of little consolation to them after all. The fear was rife that the worst was about to take place in Mbaise land and her century of struggle against injustice was about to get to the head.

Cardinal Onaiyekan’s insinuation in his email that the Nigerian bishops had no control over what the government might do in the name of law and order when the Church ran into crisis did not help matters at all. Many priests suspected that the bishops were hiding something from them. They believed that the plan of the Nigerian bishops was to flood Mbaise land with soldiers and the police on May 21, 2013, and squelch any fledgling opposition against the bishopric ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke, something Mbaise people had vowed never to see happen in their land.As a result, there was fear all over the place. There was fear of the unknown; fear for the innocent Mbaise youths, who might lose their lives in the confrontation, and fear that Catholicism, which usually identified Mbaise people, might die an untimely death in her land after the debacle.

As the day of the ordination drew near, the stand-off became even stiffer and the stakes higher. I was personally frustrated by the fact that rather than tend towards resolution the situation was growing worse and more dangerous. I did not believe any of us understood the full implication of where we were headed.But I knew that it would not be for the good of any of us or for the entire Mbaise land. In my article in The Sun Newspaper of Thursday, May 16, 2013, I would capture the precarious moment thus:

A freak freight train is in full speed on its way towards Mbaise land.And a huge train wreck of nuclear proportion will happen on that day of the Msgr. Okpalaeke’s ordination in Ahiara Diocese if the Nigerian Catholic hierarchy and the elite Catholics of Mbaise land do not back down from this deadly dance.

The prospect of having a free-for-all fight in Ahiara Diocese over the bishopric of Msgr. Okpalaeke sent jitters down the spines of many of us. For me, as well as for many other Mbaise people, who reflected deep on the situation, what was looming in Mbaise was a disaster of unspeakable nature. There would have to be a way to nip the disaster in the bud and head off a monumental tragedy from swallowing up the great Catholicism of the Mbaise people, we reasoned. So we prayed and wished that there be no confrontation between the bishops and Ahiara Diocese on May 21, because we knew that such a nightmare, if it ever came to pass, would carry with it unforgettable consequences.

But all eyes were on the bishops of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria. The three key figures who were believed to hold the destiny of Ahiara Diocese, her Catholicism and her people in their hands were identified as Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, CBCN president; Archbishop AJV Obinna, metropolitan of Owerri Province and John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Cardinal Archbishop of Abuja Archdiocese. Everybody believed that they held the key to what would or would not happen in Mbaise land on May 21.

However, over the past couple of weeks, it had become practically impossible to know the positions of CBCN, especially those from Owerri Province. Almost all of them appeared to be hedging their bets. Many of them appeared to support Ahiara Diocese privately but lashed out at them with vehemence in every public gathering. The Nicodemus’ principles and practices would gain undue popularity during this strange period. Some would condemn Ahiara Diocese during the day and showed sympathy to her at night.It was impossible to know which utterances of the bishops represented their core belief about the crisis in the diocese.

Archbishop Obinna would become the one most priests of Ahiara Diocese and their counterparts in diaspora loved to hate. He, alongside the diocesan administrator, Msgr. Theo Nwalo, was being skewered by Ahiara Diocesan priests of all stripes.They were being blamed for everything that was happening in the diocese.And whatever they were overheard saying took extra wings in Mbaise land. Their body language was perpetually under the microscope.

In fact, as the day of the ordination came dangerously near, Archbishop Obinna was almost made into a villain. Even after he had denied over and over again that he would support any military invasion of Mbaise land for the sake of the ordination of the bishop-elect, he was still being accused of masterminding plans to bring soldiers into Mbaise on the ordination day. Some priests and the lay people as well would go to the extent of swearing to an oath that Archbishop Obinna had put pen to paper with the military barracks in Obinze Owerri for the garrison to provide the Nigerian bishops with soldiers and military hardware with which to invade Mbaise land on the day of Msgr. Okpalaeke’s ordination.As a result of all this, there was confusion galore in the way the bishops were being looked at in Ahiara Diocese. Almost all of them were being looked at as enemies of Ahiara Diocese.

And the greatest fear some of us had was that if the bishops ventured into Mbaise land on the said date with whatever military security they could muster, some of them would be targets of the angry youths.I was scared to death to see a Catholic bishop wounded or even killed in the holy land of Mbaise people. I kept saying to myself that should the bishopric crisis get to the extent of wounding or murdering a Catholic bishop in Mbaise land, there would be no Church again called the Catholic Church in Ahiara Diocese. As I thought through what could happen on May 21, I became more determined to see if there could be any way out.

Another layer of confusion would be added to the way the bishops of the province were being viewed in Ahiara Diocese when, around the middle of April, after releasing the date they had scheduled to have Msgr. Okpalaeke ordained in Ahiara Diocese, many of them travelled to Rome to attend the ordination of Archbishop Brian Udaigwe, an Orlu diocesan priest who was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Benin Republic by the retired Pope Benedict XVI on his full final day as an active pope.Archbishop Udaigwe was being ordained in Rome around that time. As a result many bishops from Owerri Province left for the ordination. There was a general feeling among the priests that Owerri Provincial bishops might have some sort of a meeting in Rome on the raging crisis in Ahiara Diocese.

However, it would not immediately become clear what else the bishops of the province wanted to accomplish in Rome apart from attending Archbishop Udaigwe’s ordination. Rumour was rife that they were planning some very important meetings with the top echelons of the Vatican on the crisis in Ahiara Diocese.But nobody knew how high their proposed top-level discussion could go and how much influence they could have on the outcome of their discussions. Would they have the time and opportunity to confer with some Vatican officials like the cardinal prefect for the office of Evangelization, Cardinal Filoni, or the secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, or even the Holy Father himself, Pope Francis about the precarious situation of Ahiara Diocese? And if they ever got such opportunities, would they muster the courage to tell their hosts that the problem in Ahiara Diocese could only end with the appointment of a new bishop for the diocese?

Many Mbaise priests were hoping that the provincial bishops would take the opportunity of their visit to the Vatican to tell the Vatican officials that they, the bishops of the province, and their counterparts of the CBCN, had done their very best to get Msgr. Okpalaeke accepted as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese, but had not been successful; that it was time to appoint another bishop-elect that would be acceptable to the people.However, that was only a wish. Nobody in Ahiara Diocese knew for certain whether the bishops of the province would be speaking in favour of Ahiara Diocese or against it. This lack of certainty on the true position of the bishops of the province would cause lots of anxiety and uncertainty among Ahiara priests as the deadline for the ordination raced towards the finishing line.

The only positive signal was that coming from the camps of Cardinal Onaiyekan and Archbishop Ekuwem.Both of them had indicated during their respective visits to the diocese that they would not support the use of military might in the ordination but rather would work to avert the deployment of the Nigerian security forces in any shape or form for the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke. Going further, they had promised that they would initiate some dialogues towards the resolution of the case. Their promise had brought some modicum of peace in the minds of many priests and the lay faithful of our diocese.

On the other hand, the promise of Cardinal Onaiyekan and Archbishop Ekuwem was also interpreted by some priests of the diocese as an indication that some form of cracks had developed among the bishops. The new reality which made many priests happy was that there had arisen some bishops who advocated dialogue while the rest advocated military might. According to this line of thinking, the hardliners who insisted on using the police and the military force to accomplish the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke had lost at least two key members of their ranks to a brand new group that is trumpeting dialogue as the only way forward in the crisis.

But while many of us would see such a potential crack as a relief and an opportunity to make inroads and get many more bishops to appreciate what Ahiara Diocese was going through, the overwhelming majority of our priests saw the so-called crack along the line of a ruse. As a result, the decision of a good majority would be to charge ahead without minding whether the bishops maintained a united or a divided front.Everybody cautioned that Mbaise people must not let down their guards because some bishops had suddenly become mellowed in their speeches, and would no longer threaten fire and brimstone against Ahiara Diocese. Rather everybody was being asked to keep his or her eye on the ball until the whole situation developed properly, or until there was victory in the horizon.

At that point in time, the whole attention was focused on the CBCN that was billed to gather in Abuja in the next few days for the bishops’ annual retreat. Everybody in Ahiara Diocese believed that the week of that retreat which would be the final one before Tuesday, May 21, scheduled for the ordination would be most crucial in the Ahiara struggle. So, efforts were being made to pack in as many events as would be possible so as to inform the bishops congregating at Abuja of the dire consequences of attempting to come to Ahiara Diocese for the ordination on May 21. The priests wanted to make it clear that they would not back down from their opposition of the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese.

To ensure that these final preparations against the ordination were carried out methodically, the Caucus decided on a few strategies.The first strategy was prayer.From the very beginning of the crisis prayer had been seen as a very important weapon in the efforts to grab a win against what was considered the forces of injustice.As a result, parish priests had always been instructed to include the welfare of the struggle and the diocese in their mass intentions. In all parishes of the diocese, the situation regarding the bishopric crisis was always included in the intercessory prayers of the Faithful. But as the feared doomsday date approached, the administrator, the College of Consultors and the Caucus called for intense prayers. All were harping unendingly on the need for intense prayers as a means to confront the uncertainty of the period.

To make sure that intense prayers were going up to heaven from every parish and every corner of the diocese on a daily basis, the diocese would decide on three prongs of prayers.On their own accord, priests of the diocese decided to be meeting for mass, fasting and prayer two times a week.On Mondays, priests met at the parishes of their various deans for a holy mass, prayer and sharing on the latest on the crisis.On Wednesdays of every week, all the priests of the diocese would meet at St Brigid’s Church for a holy mass and for other prayers. Because of the terrible anxiety of the period, these prayer days became very popular among priests who would converge in their large numbers every Monday and Wednesday of the week.

But to ensure that the whole diocese was praying along with the priests for God’s intervention in the crisis, the lay faithful were asked to gather every evening in their respective parishes for a rosary procession which was usually concluded with the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The various parishes of the diocese took this exercise very seriously. Every evening in many parishes of the diocese, there would gather a large number of parishioners who formed themselves into long lines of procession to pray and sing the rosary. It would also be decided that there would be novena masses in all the parishes of the diocese which would culminate and conclude on the day scheduled for the ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke.

Beside, many parishioners requested masses for God’s intervention or God’s will in the crisis in the diocese. The crisis would enhance the atmosphere of prayer throughout the diocese.People began to pray much more for God to intervene and prevent any loss of lives during the forced ordination of Msgr. Okpalaeke.So, as the countdown to the ordination date entered a very crucial stage, with the bishops huddled in Abuja for their annual retreat, and enmeshed in their efforts to decide the fate of Ahiara Diocese and her bishopric crisis, there were lots of prayers all over the diocese.All pious organizations were requested to embark on all sorts of novena prayers to procure the mercy of God for the diocese and for the people of Mbaise land in general.

The second strategy the Caucus would decide to carry out on this waning days of the struggle was to publish a very stringent in a renowned national daily warning of dire consequences should the bishops go ahead to visit Ahiara Diocese for the ordination of the rejected bishop-elect. The advertorial warned that the bishops, the Nuncio and all others concerned would be held responsible for any losses of lives during such an encounter.It read thus:

AN OPEN LETTER

TO

1. The Apostolic Nuncio To Nigeria; His Excellency, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja

2. Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria [CBCN], C/O His Grace, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, President, CBCN

3. Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, C/O His Grace, Archbishop AJV Obinna, President, CBCN, Owerri Province

4. Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops and Diocesan Administrators of All Catholic Dioceses in Nigeria

5. Secretary General, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja.

Your Excellencies,

1. The attention of the clergy and lay faithful of the Catholic Diocese of Ahiara, Mbaise, has been drawn to your highly orchestrated and publicised decision to invade our Diocese on Tuesday, May 21, 2013, to ordain and install with violence a rejected bishop-elect, Msgr. Ebere Peter Okpalaeke, who is purported to have been named by His Holiness, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, to the vacant Episcopal seat once occupied by the venerable Bishop Victor Adibe Chikwe of eternal memory.

2. It has also come to our notice that you, the Nuncio and the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria, are mobilizing for this unholy purpose a large contingent of Nigerian armed forces, the police and the other security agents, to unleash violence on the innocent citizens of Mbaise who are protesting what is clearly a criminal injustice and an act of evil corruption inflicted on them by your unjust acts.

3. We want to hereby place you, the Nuncio, the bishops and your collaborators on notice that all your plans will come to nothing as we, the Catholic faithful of Mbaise, priests and lay, will resist you and your cohorts to the last man. To get your overly ambitious candidate, Msgr. Okpalaeke ordained and installed in Maria Mater Ecclesiae Cathedral, Ahiara, Mbaise, you will have to kill the whole Catholics of Mbaise first.

4. It is shameful and smacks of arrogance and pride, that you, the so-called shepherds of the Catholic Church in Nigeria, are about to become wolves to the flock of Jesus Christ in Ahiara Diocese. But try as you may, we will resist your unholy efforts to kill and devour the flock of our Lord Jesus in our beloved diocese. Ahiara Diocese is our only home. We will never cede any grounds to you and your collaborators.

5. Also, we wish to inform you, the Nuncio and the Nigerian bishops, that should anybody lose his or her life or even be injured in the act of brigandage you are about to visit Ahiara Diocese with, the blood of such a victim will be on your hands. Since you are about to relinquish your duty of tending the flock of Jesus Christ to destroying them in Ahiara Diocese with military violence and police brutality, your rewards will be great in the kingdom prepared for those who fail to live up to their obligations as shepherds of our Lord Jesus Christ.

6. We hereby call on the President of Nigeria and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, His Excellency, Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, not to allow the Nigerian military to be misused in invading and perpetrating violence among the peaceful citizens of Mbaise. We ask the president to direct the Inspector General of Police not release any police for the unholy acts the Nigerian bishops are planning to embark upon in Mbaise on Tuesday, May 21, 2013.

7. We call on the Nigerian Ministers of Foreign Affairs, to call the Apostolic Nuncio to Nigeria, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja, to order. He is about to interfere in the internal affairs of our nation by engineering the use of wanton violence against innocent Nigerian citizens. If he refuses to back down, we suggest that the Nuncio be expelled from Nigeria. He should be reminded that it was his criminal blunder that caused the current crisis in Ahiara Diocese. The Nuncio chose not to follow due process in the selection of a new bishop. Should anybody become a victim of this crisis, the Apostolic Nuncio to Nigeria, the Uganda-born Archbishop Augustine Kasujja should be held personally responsible for it by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

8. Finally, we, the Mbaise Catholics, love peace. We want peace and are praying seriously that peace may reign in our diocese and throughout Nigeria. All we are asking for is that justice be done to us. We will not allow anybody to steal what is due to us by falsely and impiously misrepresenting the Holy Spirit and the Holy Father. We have credible and highly educated priests in abundance in our diocese. We make bold to say that we have more credible and highly informed priests than any other diocese in Nigeria. We demand that one of our own be made our own bishop like our brothers and sisters in Nsukka who recently were given one of their sons as their bishop-elect. This is our final stand. And we will not move any inch from it.

The third action embarked upon by the Caucus was to dust up an old plan that had been lying fallow for quite a long time. And that was that Mbaise Catholics would hold massive black-attire prayer rallies along the line of what was done on January 12, 2013, to formally launch the resistance. The rally was to become another replay of the type of rally the whole Owerri Province had embarked upon in September of 2010 to protest the rise of criminal activities throughout Imo State. The first of the two rallies would be carried out on Thursday of the final week of the countdown. The second rally was scheduled for May 21, the day of the ordination.

The rally on Thursday, May 16, would attract a mammoth crowd of Mbaise Catholics from all parishes of the diocese. Before ten o’clock when the rally was scheduled to kick-off the whole compound of St Brigid’s Church Ahiara had been filled up with protesters from all corners of the diocese. The demonstration of the resolve of Mbaise people to continue to resist the appointment of Msgr. Okpalaeke was overwhelming. The big crowd surged from St Brigid’s Church through Ahiara junction’s roundabout to the gate of Maria Mater Ecclesiae Cathedral and back to St Brigid’s Podium where it was addressed by the leaders of the Caucus.

As the long procession snaked through the highways of Ahiara Junction, internet savvy priests took pictures of the various segments of the procession and posted them on Facebook for the world to see. So many people across the world were getting pictures and news of the prayer rally in real time.

Both citizen journalists and Facebook enthusiasts were just a sliver of the press corps that covered the rally. Media organizations both from Nigeria and the world over were invited to cover the rally so as to report to the world that the bishops had been warned not to stage the ordination of a rejected bishop-elect in Ahiara Diocese. The representatives of the media came in their large numbers to the effect that the very next day, news and pictures of the rally appeared in many Nigerian newspapers and on the internet.

The final effort to try to forestall the invasion was the dispatch of four representatives to Abuja to meet with Mbaise politicians who were working hard to make sure that the army and the police of the Federal Government were not employed in the invasion of Ahiara Diocese on May 21. This group of four made up two priests and two lay people would fly into Abuja to assist the role being played by the members of Ezuru-Ezu Mbaise in getting the Nigerian government not to sanction the use of the military and the police in the invasion of Mbaise land.