AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS: THE UNTOLD STORIES… 31

Exploiting Bishop Chikwe’s Illness [i]: The 70th Birthday

The gradual deterioration of Bishop Chikwe’s health would become much more pronounced as 2008 dawned. That year was very significant for him as a person. He was turning 70 years old exactly at the middle of the year, June. And that translated to different things to different people in the diocese. But generally speaking, there was a lot of excitement throughout the diocese over the fact that Bishop Chikwe was hitting a great milestone in his highly accomplished life as the pioneer bishop of Ahiara Diocese. Without thinking of any celebration down the road, many were reminiscing where the Mbaise nation was before the creation of the diocese and how far Bishop Chikwe had taken the entire land within the two decades of his leadership as the chief shepherd of the diocese. And seeing how far the diocese had progressed under Bishop Chikwe, the entire Mbaise nation was poised to show him some profound gratitude. As a result so many in the diocese were vigorously searching for a way to show some love and gratitude to Bishop Chikwe personally over his monumental accomplishments in the diocese.

On the part of Bishop Chikwe personally, his 70th birthday appeared like an unnecessary inconvenience and a distraction which would add nothing to his vision for the diocese. Rather it would add more stress and worry to his already over burdened personal life. He was very dismissive whenever he was reminded that he would soon be turning 70 years of age in his life, twenty of which he had spent working tirelessly as the chief shepherd of the Mbaise people. In fact, all that kind of talk on his accomplishments in the diocese meant very little to him. He was not a man who had any ear for praises. In his heart of heart, Bishop Chikwe did not want to think about the fact that he was turning 70 years of age that year. As he would later confess, he was too busy to think about any particular age he was attaining or passing through in his life. He just wanted to continue going with his busy schedule in the diocese without allowing any distraction that could come from focusing on the calculus of his age. Moreover, he had myriads other concerns in his personal life that could not dispose him towards thinking about the so-called milestone in his lifespan called seventy years of age.

First among his grave concerns were his health problems which were becoming much more pronounced in every way. As 2008 dawned Bishop Chikwe could no longer hide the fact that his multiple illnesses were taking a heavy toll on his personal physique and psychological well being. But he was careful not to engage in anything that might expose the more how poor his health had become. He always wanted to treat his poor health as a personal cross he was bearing. As a result, in the twenty two years he would administer Ahiara Diocese, Bishop Chikwe never allowed the issue of his health to become a matter for public discussion.

Second was the fact that many in the diocese especially some priests around his age-bracket saw his 70th birthday as a veritable announcement that his retirement as bishop of Ahiara Diocese was imminent. And that meant for such people that preparation for his replacement would kick off immediately. In light of this development, the once apparently moribund groups and caucuses feeding on how his replacement would be appointed after his retirement began to reconvene all over again. As it would turn out, the remnant of the former groups that fought for the creation of Ahiara Diocese in the 70s and 80s still believed that they needed to be compensated with a bishop of their own choosing for winning the battle for the creation of the long desired diocese.

Uppermost in the wish list of those groups and caucuses was their belief that the bishopric of Ahiara Diocese should somehow be rotated among the various blocs of the diocese. And since Ezinihitte bloc had taken her turn in Bishop Chikwe’s tenure, it should make way for the other blocs to take their own turns as well. This was the view at the backburner of most things happening in the diocese all through the tenure of Bishop Chikwe. Some segments of the diocese always believed that after the tenure of Bishop Chikwe as bishop of Ahiara Diocese it would be the turn of their own section to produce the next bishop. So, once the 70th birthday of Bishop Chikwe became an issue for discussion in the diocese, the groups that had interest in picking the next bishop of the diocese were reactivated around some of the active leaders of the diocese as well as some of the former leaders of the struggle for the creation of Mbaise Diocese who were still alive.

As we indicated earlier in this series, the struggle for the creation of a diocese for the Mbaise people in the 70s and 80s had not been without some self-interest and ulterior motives. Many that formed the arrowhead of the struggle had done so mainly to benefit the moral leader of the struggle then who was schemed out in the power play that produced the first indigenous bishop of Owerri Diocese. But when one among the few Mbaise priests that allied with Bishop Unegbu clinched the bishopric slot in the new diocese of Ahiara, the group relented, played the patriotic card and cooperated fully in the building up of the new diocese. However, they always did that with a view that after Bishop Chikwe, the bishopric of Ahiara Diocese would be turned over to their own section.

But after twenty years in the new diocese and as Bishop Chikwe entered the twilight of his episcopacy by clocking 70 years of age, the remnant of the defunct group who could not make it the first time were determined to have a say on who would replace him as the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese. One of these groups formed around the former leader of the struggle who was himself going to clock 70 years of age later that year. As a matter of fact, the group was mainly an Ahiazu LGA affair. But in all fairness it was more or less an Ekwerazu group as it was headed by the two senior monsignors of the area. As this group did not have a clearly marked out candidate, it had its fall back candidate who was the younger priest working for a Vatican department for foreign affairs.

A counterpart of the Ahiazu group was the one that formed around the vicar general of the diocese. With the change of baton in the office of the Vicar General of Ahiara Diocese following the death of Msgr. Matthew Onyemma in July of 2003, another group of priests began to converge around the new vicar general of the diocese. The goal of the new group was to have a say in who would ultimately be appointed in Ahiara Diocese either as an auxiliary bishop or as a substantive bishop to replace Bishop Chikwe who was being expected to retire in five years time. The other leader of the group was the then powerful dean of one of the deaneries of the diocese.

Boosted by the position of their leader as the number two official of the diocese, this new group wanted to be a key player in producing who would eventually emerge as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese. And they had one or two specific young priests in mind as their candidates. So as the year 2008 broke these powerful groups or caucuses became a little more anxious. They wanted to know every bit of the happenings in the diocese. They did not want to be taken unawares in matters regarding the selection and appointment of a bishop in the diocese; be he a substantive or an auxiliary bishop. They did not want to be blindsided in the process through which the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese would be expected to emerge. So they cast their wary eyes perpetually on the activities of the bishop. They analyzed every activity of his and ran commentaries on all his initiatives.

However, the curious eyes of those two groups or caucuses were perpetually focused on another bloc that was yet to get off the ground. And that was the Ezinihitte bloc, Bishop Chikwe’s own home group. They suspected that Bishop Chikwe might be secretly working out something with the priests of Ezinihitte bloc by which one of them would emerge as the next bishop of the diocese. This was a scenario they were determined not to see happen, at least, not without a fight. Somehow, the two groups or caucus saw the Ezinihitte group as their common “enemy” or “competitor”. They appeared to have an unwritten agreement to work together and to do everything within their power to dissuade the bishop or to prevent him from facilitating the choice of an Ezinihitte priest as his successor in the diocese.

Even though the senior priests of the two blocs knew quite well that Bishop Chikwe saw the whole of Ahiara Diocese as one family and hardly thought of the origin of any priests in assigning duties in the diocese, they remained unconvinced that he would not at the end of the day favour his Ezinihitte brothers in the selection of his successor bishop in the diocese. They determined not to see that happen. So as Bishop Chikwe inched closer and closer to the year of his potential retirement as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese, the battle for his successor gradually escalated. The leaders of the two blocs began silently to mount an unnecessary pressure on him.

As Bishop Chikwe dealt with his deteriorating health he was also doing his best to try to quell the restiveness of those who had begun to agitate to have a say on who would be appointed as his successor in the diocese. The bishop chose to handle those issues very carefully with little or no comments even when it would have been necessary for him to offer some commentaries and explanations that could clear the air. He chose not to give any credence to the numerous rumors that were all over the place concerning the future bishop of the diocese. Bishop Chikwe was just doing his own thing without allowing any distraction or interruption from any of the agitating groups.

On their part, many priests from Ezinihitte bloc knew what was happening but preferred to quietly abide by the injunction of Bishop Chikwe that clannish organizations were banned all over the diocese because the bishop wanted to see the whole of Mbaise as one family. All through the twenty two years Bishop Chikwe administered Ahiara he kept emphasizing the fact that Mbaise was very small and constituted one indivisible family. He hated anything that tended to divide Mbaise land. He was often prompted to create deaneries and draw their boundaries according to the old clans that constituted Mbaise land. But he vehemently refused because he was afraid that resuscitating the ancient clans that constituted the Mbaise nation might bring about division in the diocese which he was utterly opposed to. So he played it safe and created his deaneries according to the three local government councils of Mbaise.

Another reason the priests from Bishop Chikwe’s home clan of Ezinihitte could not constitute a viable bloc that could match the other blocs of the diocese was the fact that they had no visible leader. There were no persons who occupied the type of position the leaders of the two other blocs had in the diocese as to provide the needed rallying point for the priests of the area. As a result what the priests of Ezinihitte bloc did was to watch with concern and sometimes amusement as the groups from the two other areas continued to scheme and maneuver to gain strategic positions so as to realize their objective of providing the replacement bishop for Bishop Chikwe when the later eventually retired.

The commonly used strategy of the caucuses of the two active blocs was to fish out and discredit whoever from Ezinihitte they thought had the potential to be considered for the position of either the substantive bishop or the auxiliary bishop of the diocese. This was a kind of a witch hunt. It gradually gathered steam as 2008 progressed. And the first target at that time was the rector of Mater Ecclesiae Seminary who was thought to be the first among Bishop Chikwe’s favorites for his replacement. Seeing the minor seminary rector gaining some personal plaudit and recognition because of the great job he was doing in the minor seminary, a coalition of the two groups went frontally after him. They provoked and attacked him at will in order to expose him as emotionally unstable. The leading men of the two groups transformed themselves into his personal “enemies”. They viciously attacked whatever initiative he pursued in the seminary or elsewhere. They were just after him.

Other prominent priests of the diocese many of who hailed from Ezinihitte routinely came under the attack of these groups. Their strategy was mainly to discredit them and paint them as unsuitable for high office. Some of them worked through the laity and coordinated with them to try to destroy the reputation of some outstanding priests from the Ezinihitte bloc. But the main focus of the two groups or caucus was on Bishop Chikwe. The bishop was being carefully watched and every utterance and step of his analyzed to the last letter to see if he could tip his hand on whom he was considering as his replacement. Their tentacles and antennas were spread all over the place trying to pick up the least signal from Bishop Chikwe concerning what he intended to do with regard to the appointment of an auxiliary bishop to help him, or a substantive bishop to replace him.

On his part, Bishop Chikwe knew what was happening and did not want to give out anything to those who used all sorts of subtle ways to pressure him for information in that regard. Rather he wanted to play all matters concerning his future successor down. He believed that things would sort themselves out at the appropriate time. But some of his critics in the diocese were getting more uncomfortable by the day. They nudged him to quicken the process of appointing an auxiliary bishop for the diocese who might eventually replace him. But Bishop Chikwe could not take their bait and was not tipping his hand on what he intended to do. As a result, his attitude appeared to frustrate and annoy some of the elderly priests who thought that they would be a part of his decision making in that regard. Many thought they would have a hand in helping Bishop Chikwe get an auxiliary bishop or be in the know when such decision would eventually be made.

As 2008 entered the month of June, there was a flurry of 70th birthday celebrations of bishops from the western part of Nigeria. But the desire to celebrate Bishop Chikwe’s 70th birthday would only hit home in the diocese when Archbishop Felix Alaba Job of Ibadan Archdiocese with whom Bishop Chikwe shared a lot in common including birthdays, celebrated his 70th birthday with pump and pageantry. There was clamor all over the diocese to replicate Archbishop Job’s birthday celebration for his bosom friend in Ahiara Diocese. Many priests and lay people insisted that Ahiara Diocese must match or outdo Ibadan Archdiocese in the celebration of the 70th birthday of their own beloved Bishop Chikwe. The whole idea became very popular among the leaders of the two groups or caucuses. They pressed for it with all passion. But their being front and centre in the demand for the celebration of his 70th birthday only made Bishop Chikwe a little more nervous and suspicious. It appeared to him that the protagonists of the 70th birthday celebration had something up their sleeves.

Bishop Chikwe would be completely unimpressed with the whole movement for the entire diocese to celebrate his 70th birthday. He saw through the clamor for the celebration and suspected that it had a hidden agenda to it. Somehow he believed that the whole idea was a kind of a Greek Gift, a Trojan horse to remind him that his time as bishop of the diocese was up. He was fully aware of the meetings of the different groups in the diocese focused completely on readying themselves for the announcement of his replacement. As a result, he wanted nothing to do with any birthday celebration. He was totally opposed to the diocese celebrating his 70th birthday. He hated to be used to advance any secret group agenda in the diocese. He loved and wanted to be above the fray in all clannish things going on in the diocese.

But the pressure was growing by the day. All kinds of people were enlisted to try to pressure him to allow his 70th birthday to be celebrated by the diocese. But the bishop remained adamantly opposed to it. His main argument was that the celebration of 70th birthdays for bishops was a tradition typical of the western part of Nigeria. According to him, Igbo bishops hardly celebrated 70th birthdays because it was a custom that was alien to them. Whenever confronted by those pressuring him to allow his birthday to be celebrated he would reel out the names of Igbo bishops who had attained and passed 70 years of age without celebrating it. He said that he would not want to be different from any of the Igbo bishops who had attained the age before him.

When they could not achieve much success with their pressure, the proponents of Bishop Chikwe’s 70th birthday celebration changed tactics. They insisted that he must allow the entire Ahiara Diocese to show some gratitude to him for the magnificent job he had done in shepherding the diocese for more than twenty years. They maintained that Bishop Chikwe deserved some gratitude from the generality of Mbaise people. But he remained largely unimpressed with their new argument. But the position of the 70th birthday celebration proponents would become stronger when they were joined by some of Bishop Chikwe’s trusted friends in the diocese. Everybody seemed to be arguing that the bishop must allow himself to be appreciated at least for once by the entire diocese. Yet Bishop Chikwe remained largely unimpressed. The whole talk about celebrating him or his 70th birthday appeared to him as a great inconvenience. But the pressure would not let up. Rather many more enlisted in trying to pressure Bishop Chikwe to agree to the celebration.

When the 70th birthday proponents could move the pole no further from where it had been with their incessant appeals to the bishop through his friends and brothers, the national leader of the Catholic Women who was then from Ahiara Diocese concocted a plan of mounting an intense pressure on Bishop Chikwe by recruiting three or four other women to accompany her to confront the bishop in his office and cry to him to allow the diocese show him some gratitude with the celebration of his 70th birthday. This last strategy would work to perfection. The women went to the office of Bishop Chikwe and cried their hearts out for the bishop to allow the diocese to celebrate his 70th birthday. Seeing the cry of the women, Bishop Chikwe caved in and reluctantly asked them to go ahead and do whatever they wanted to do for his birthday. This was how the battle to get Bishop Chikwe to allow his 70th birthday celebration was won.

However, by being won over with the cry of the CWO leaders, Bishop Chikwe revealed what was perhaps his greatest weakness in the 22 years he administered Ahiara Diocese. He was somebody who wilted whenever confronted with intense pressure. He could hardly ever withstand pressure. He hardly held up in the face of pressure. As a result many people took advantage of him and even used that weakness of his to hurt many other people in the diocese. Bishop Chikwe was notoriously a soft-minded leader. He believed being soft as being kind. And that made him vulnerable to manipulation. He suffered manipulations far much more than any other leader I have known in all of my priestly life. Many people preyed on his softness to take advantage of him and hurt their perceived “enemies” in the process

Bishop Chikwe knew full well that the clamor for the celebration of his 70th birthday meant different things to different people. Yet he caved in after a lot of pressure from all corners. However, it would not take long before what he feared about the 70th birthday celebration began to manifest. And that made him very sad. First was the perfunctory revelation by a leading member of the pastoral council of the diocese that came from the Ahiazu bloc. Immediately Bishop Chikwe gave a green light for the celebration of his 70th birthday by the diocese, a big committee was formed to oversee the celebration. The rector of the minor seminary of the diocese was appointed to chair the big committee which had so many other subcommittees working under it. In one of the meetings of the large committee one of the leaders of the pastoral council of the diocese quipped: “Let us finish the celebration of the bishop’s 70th birthday so that we could begin the preparation for the appointment of our next bishop.”

This rather unconscionable and innocuous revelation from a leader of the laity in the diocese did not go down well with the chairman of the planning committee who instantly relayed it to the bishop after the meeting. The bishop became so sad and agitated because his worst fears about the motive of the birthday celebration had been confirmed. It became somehow clear to him that some were clamoring for the celebration of his 70th birthday as a kind of send-off party for him from the bishopric of Ahiara Diocese. It appeared to him as if some people in Ahiara Diocese had grown weary of his long years as the bishop of the diocese and wanted to secretly see him off in that name of 70th birthday celebration. This revelation would change the mood of the bishop all through the celebration and afterwards. He was no longer a happy camper. He became a loner sort of and began to suffer confidence crisis.

Another revelation that would become clearer as preparation for the birthday celebration progressed was that the woman leader who had mobilized the other women to storm the office of the bishop in order to win his approval for the birthday celebration with tears had in fact some economic interest in the whole celebration. He had won the multi-million Naira contract to provide the uniform wrapper to be worn by all in the diocese during the celebration. She had invested millions of Naira in the production of the wrapper and was desperate to make her money back with some profit, of course. And the fact that the bishop was hesitating to sign on to the celebration scared the hell out of her. As a result she was prepared to use whatever means possible to get the bishop to be on board of the birthday celebration. And realizing that Bishop Chikwe was soft by nature and could not stand the tears of women she employed the strategy to perfection.

The celebration of the 70th birthday of Bishop Chikwe would take place in a very spectacular way. The entire diocese was in such a joyous mood and celebrated the bishop as a hero which in deed he was and still remains among the people of Mbaise till today. But one fact became evident after that celebration. The mood of the bishop had changed completely. Perhaps it became obvious to the bishop that some people in the diocese were clamoring for him to exit the stage. And this did not make him happy any longer. The revelations from the birthday celebration coupled with his deteriorating health condition began to cause Bishop Chikwe to become increasingly reclusive. Gradually he became less and less available and sociable. He was keeping to himself very much. Yours truly would become one of the few who noticed the changing mood of our bishop and complained openly about it.

The 70th birthday celebration which was lavishly lauded as hugely successful among the priests and lay people of the diocese did in fact mark the beginning of a new phase in the life of our amiable bishop. It marked the beginning of the phase of mood swings in the life of the once very amiable bishop. The bishop became increasingly irritable and moody at times. He wore in his face most of the times visible signs of worry and stress. Not many dared to ask him why smiles and laughter which he expressed so generously previously had suddenly become a rarity in his face. But nearly everybody knew that something had suddenly gone wrong with the great bishop of Ahiara Diocese.

To be continued…

.