AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS: THE UNTOLD STORIES… 33

Exploiting Bishop Chikwe’s Illness [iii]: Overseas Vacations

One of the constant features of Bishop Chikwe’s life and routine in the twenty two years and ten months he shepherded Ahiara Diocese was his love for his yearly vacation overseas. He did his very best not to miss out on his annual overseas vacation. It was a very significant, and in fact, an indispensable item in his annual schedules. Once the month of June knocked at the door, Bishop Chikwe packed his bag and off he headed to overseas for about a month or two in the name of his annual vacation. He would come home after every vacation looking highly refreshed, plump and energized to the joy and relief of both the priests and lay people of the diocese.

Nobody begrudged Bishop Chikwe of the fidelity he showed in spending his vacation overseas. Rather everyone in the diocese believed that his vacation was more than deserved. Considering his total gift of himself to his apostolate in the diocese, the way he carried out his assignment as bishop with all zeal and focus, many in the diocese could not wait for June to arrive each year for him to vanish from the diocese and take some deserved rest. Even when he delayed it a little bit because of unforeseen situations, many would begin to murmur and ask; what is he still doing here? He should leave immediately and get some rest elsewhere!

But it was not that Bishop Chikwe was headed to the beaches of Europe and America or to the cinema halls of France and Germany every month of June every year to enjoy a summer vacation. No. His hurrying to his vacation overseas every year had some purpose to it. He was always in search of some help both for himself and for the rural diocese he shepherded. And he needed such helps which were often only possible and available overseas. No wonder after some years traveling back and forth for his vacations he would describe his effort in this regard as a working vacation. The fact is that Bishop Chikwe did as much work when vacationing overseas as perhaps he did when working full time at home.

At the inception of Ahiara Diocese, vacation trips overseas were a period when Bishop Chikwe sought help to address specific needs of the diocese. Ahiara Diocese was starkly rural. It had practically nothing to help it take off properly as a modern diocese in Nigeria. The diocese needed all the help it could get along the lines of equipment, vehicles for transportation and all what not. Since donors of such materials were not readily available in Nigeria, Bishop Chikwe believed that he could get some help along the lines of procuring used equipment from those being thrown out and thrashed in Europe and America to kick-start his diocese. And he went full time into doing just that. He would come home from every vacation only to await some shipments of fairly used equipment with which he started addressing some basic infrastructural deficiencies in Ahiara Diocese.

Casting one’s mind back to the beginning of the diocese some three decades ago, it would be easy to visualize the clutters of used computers, cyclostyling machines, motor vehicles, musical equipments like pianos and organs, etc, filling the limited spaces of the bishop’s residence at St Brigid’s Rectory. And when the bishop eventually moved over to the newly constructed Bishop’s Court, the expansive compound became partially a junk yard of those used equipment whose lifespan had expired and were of no use again. The true story of Bishop Chikwe’s vacation overseas was that he spent it working as hard as he could to see that his diocese took off on a sound footing.

One particular need of the bishop and the diocese as well would be immediately impacted as a result of his overseas vacations after the inauguration of the diocese. That was his campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS. The bishop needed help on the campaign against HIV/AIDS which he had launched throughout the rural diocese of Ahiara Mbaise shortly after his installation. He had made it his passion to alert the people of the diocese on the ravages of the deadly disease that was fast spreading into Nigeria and Africa as a whole. The bishop had begun the campaign with the analogue film projector which he owned or had rented from I-do-not-where. The programme had become very popular in the parishes of the diocese. Many people were looking forward to the bishop carrying the campaign down to their own parishes. So he needed the appropriate equipment for it and believed that he could get some help from overseas.

In one of his vacation trips, the bishop would get a real help along this line when he procured a state-of-the-art digital film projector that took the HIV/AIDS campaigns in the diocese to a new level altogether. Armed with such a powerful projector that produced some spectacular images of what was happening in the scary world of the new virus called HIV/AIDS, Bishop Chikwe would traverse the length and breadth of the diocese educating people on sexual morality and warning them about the dangers of contracting the deadly disease. All through the late 80s and early 90s Bishop Chikwe would visit almost all the parishes of the diocese with his vigorous campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS using the great machine he had procured in one of his vacation trips overseas.

However, what made Bishop Chikwe become addicted sort of to his overseas vacations every year was his health needs. His yearly vacation was not the normal vacation which ordinary folks take to relax, debrief and recharge. Rather his was always the time to visit his doctors, refill his prescriptions and learn new ways of keeping healthy. And the result of this strategy showed in his life and ministry. He always came back from his annual vacations full of life, more healthy, energized and more enthusiastic in his apostolate.

But Bishop Chikwe’s love for overseas vacation carried some risk. While in overseas he was out of his comfort zone. He was out of sorts and was exposed to everybody even those whose motives bordered on exploitation and manipulation for personal benefits. While vacationing overseas, he was in fact vulnerable and weak. His principles were sort of relaxed. And some who sensed that such had become the case tried to capitalize to exploit and manipulate him. Because of his simplicity, humility and soft-heartedness, Bishop Chikwe was totally available to his people overseas. And that kind of availability meant different things to different people. While on vacation he could sacrifice the last thing he had to try to satisfy a request made to him by anybody from any place. That was the way he was. He made a total gift of himself to as many people as possible that encountered him during his vacations.

One factor that sustained Bishop Chikwe’s love for overseas vacation was his army of loyal acolytes who worked closely with him to accomplish his main goals during vacations namely keeping healthy and procuring some of the things he needed to keep his rural diocese running. Perhaps what Bishop Chikwe did far better than many of his contemporaries and colleagues in the Nigerian episcopacy was to help a good number of his priests travel overseas for higher studies. Despite the initial hiccups the diocese suffered at the very beginning with finding places for studies and ministry for her large army of priests, it would not take long before a large number of Mbaise priests and religious clustered in places like North America and Europe. And no matter which diocese or religious congregations Mbaise priests and religious belonged, once they traveled overseas, they became one and showed total allegiance to Bishop Chikwe. As a result, there were quite a few categories of Mbaise priests and religious living abroad during the time of Bishop Chikwe and his vacations overseas.

Our reflections on this series would not be complete if we did not spend some time reflecting on the different categories of people Bishop Chikwe had to deal with during his vacations. Every one of these categories made quite a deep impact on him as the shepherd of Ahiara Diocese. In our view, there were about three categories of priests, religious and lay people Bishop Chikwe interacted with as he spent his vacations overseas every year. The first group comprised those who had genuine love for him as their shepherd and genuine love for the diocese that was given to the people of Mbaise. This first group of people did everything humanly possible to make Bishop Chikwe’s vacations overseas worth the while. They looked forward to it every year and made adequate preparations to ensure that the bishop achieved his goals in the period he would spend with them.

This first category was dominated by the priests and religious in Europe especially in Germany and a few others in the Americas. Mbaise priests and religious in Europe especially in Germany made an enormous sacrifice towards achieving the goals for which Bishop Chikwe hurried out to overseas vacation every year. This effort was led by a great son of the diocese in the person of Fr Sylvester Iheanacho Ihuoma, the diocesan chief representative in Germany. This young man and a very wise priest for that matter, contributed immensely towards keeping Bishop Chikwe healthy during his yearly overseas vacations. He fished out great doctors who could attend to his health, negotiated on behalf of the bishop, often took care of the cost either personally or on behalf of his group in Germany, and made accommodation, feeding and every other thing possible for the goals of Bishop Chikwe’s overseas vacation to be achieved.

Fr Sylvester Ihuoma was a great mobilizer and motivator of his brothers and sisters in Europe especially in Germany towards helping the bishop get all the medical helps and every other help he needed towards fulfilling the goals for which he embarked on his annual vacations overseas. Without imagining that the death of Bishop Chikwe might come soon after, I often noted to Fr Sylvester Ihuoma that the entire Ahiara Diocese owed him a debt of gratitude for helping to keep the bishop alive for the number of years he had lived on earth. There is no doubt that Fr Sylvester Ihuoma, Fr Pius Adiele, Sr. Ifechukwu Veronica Ahamefule, and a host of the Mbaise and Ahiara Diocesan team in Germany made a great contribution towards keeping Bishop Chikwe alive for the nearly twenty three years he served as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese. They also contributed in many other ways which are not germane to our issue of reflection here. For yours truly, Fr Ihuoma and his group in Germany represented the best of Mbaise and Ahiara Diocesan priests living abroad during the tenure of Bishop Chikwe.

The second category of people who interacted with Bishop Chikwe during his vacations overseas comprised the numerous priests, religious, laity who encountered him either accidentally or designedly during his vacations. People in this category were found in all the countries where people from Mbaise and Ahiara Diocese lived and Bishop Chikwe visited. Many in this category had different motives for which they encountered Bishop Chikwe. While a good number of them rendered great help to the bishop during such encounters, many others capitalized on his characters of softness and humility to try to exploit him.

As Bishop Chikwe was never the talking type, it is not possible to estimate the amount of benefits or damage which such encounters brought to him during his vacation overseas. What is absolutely clear was that many people in this category exploited Bishop Chikwe to no end. There were many in this category especially priests and religious who capitalized on Bishop Chikwe’s softness and kind-heartedness to deprive him of the little material things he had. As Bishop Chikwe hardly ever ignored requests made by desperate people he dispensed of the little he had trying to take care of the needs of the many who flooded to him during his vacation expressing need of one thing or the other.

There was an alleged case that proved almost embarrassing to him and to his hosts. One of his priests in one European country, who realized that his bishop had some huge medical bills to take care of, brought him a considerable amount of money to help him out. Shortly after the donor had left, one of the pretentious beggars arrived cringing and crying as usual that he or she had nothing to eat and had not eaten for years! The bishop handed the entire money to the desperate beggar in the very envelope it was donated. And the pretentious beggar mischievously went and showed the loot to the donor whose address was still on the envelope. This nearly proved embarrassing to everybody involved. But that was classic Bishop Chikwe! He usually went out of his way to try to help no matter what was the motive of the person presenting himself or herself as in need. He was always after satisfying needs without judging motives.

The third category comprised people who pounced on the softness, meekness, humility, weakness and the vulnerabilities of Bishop Chikwe during his vacations overseas to not only exploit but to manipulate him. The softness and humility of the great Bishop Chikwe made him a prey to a few people with ulterior motives who interacted with him. Some of them went all out of their way to try to capture and manipulate him for their own selfish ends. Some of them capitalized on the fact that he needed medical helps and posed as people who could help along that line. But their motive was mainly to exploit and manipulate.

However, there were not many people that belonged to this category. But the few who belonged to it in countries like the USA and Germany caused a lot of havoc in the life and the operations of the great bishop as he convalesced during his vacations. As Bishop Chikwe’s illnesses progressed and became much more complicated, so did the activities of his manipulators become much more complicated to the extent that people of the last category began to have a field day.

There was hardly any place the influence of the people of this last category did not reach once they got the ailing and hobbled bishop backed into their corner. Some of them became so powerful that such things as assignments of priests in the diocese bore their finger prints. Whoever they recommended got promoted and whoever they loathed got demoted. That would result in lopsided and unbalanced assignments that became a constant feature of the later years of the great bishop’s ministry in Ahiara Diocese. Some of them had their kinsmen and relatives planted at strategic areas of the diocese. As Bishop Chikwe’s health continued to spiral downwards so did the power of those who had taken control of him become much more prominent. From 2009, the great bishop of Ahiara Diocese began to lose grips of his diocese. His focus became much more centered on his health. What resulted was that his aides took over some vital aspects of the diocese and cornered them for their advantage. That was and is still the story of Bishop Chikwe and his overseas vacations!

To be continued ….