AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS: THE UNTOLD STORIES… 35

The Day Bishop Chikwe Died [updated]

Thursday, September 16, 2010, went down as a day like no other in the history of the Catholic Church in Ahiara Diocese and Mbaise land as a whole. It was a day in which the bright shining superstar of the Mbaise nation was snuffed off by a sudden death. Until that particular day a day like it had never occurred before in the history of our people. It was the bleakest day in our history as Mbaise Catholics. And the fervent prayer has remained till today that such a day may never come around again in our foreseeable future. The nightmare of losing Bishop Chikwe quite suddenly on that fateful day has remained one of the most sorrowful days in our history.

However, that particular day not only robbed the Mbaise people of their greatest hero ever, it also became a day that exposed the abject incompetence of many people who served Bishop Chikwe as his personal assistants in Ahiara Diocese. It was a day in which the men charged with the responsibility of helping the ailing bishop live a little longer on his job were found wanting through and through. As a result that fateful day became a day that exposed the gnawing incompetence, ineptitude, lack of wisdom and hollow vision and imagination on the part of the people who until that point in time paraded themselves as the bishop’s wise counselors, most trusted aides and personal assistants.

There is no claim or presumption here that anybody besides the Almighty God could have prevented the death of the great bishop of Ahiara diocese on that fateful day. No. This is not the point. Rather the point is that if the dying bishop had had more competent aides, the circumstances surrounding his death on that strangest of days could have been handled differently, and who knows, perhaps much more positively. Unfortunately the circumstances of Bishop Chikwe’s death were handled in such a bizarre manner that they could not have sufficed even for the humblest family in Mbaise who might be challenged to respond to the dying moments of their beloved someone.

First, there was no prior hint to his aides and to the Presbyterium of the diocese at large that Bishop Chikwe was approaching his death on that particular day. His health had been bad for a while but it was not something that anybody would be particularly concerned about. Everybody knew that the bishop took a very good care of his health. He did not need much help from anybody in that regard. So, there was a general belief among his aides and even among the priests in general that the bishop was handling his health issues very well.

Moreover, in the very week that the death eventually occurred, Bishop Chikwe’s aides took him to the most advanced hospital in south eastern Nigeria called Niger Foundation Hospital Enugu owned and operated by a foreign religious institute/congregation known as the OPUS DEI. The visit had occurred on Monday of that very week. The medical consultants of the hospital having given him some preliminary treatments scheduled him for a return to the hospital on Friday of the same week for a thorough physical examination. The bishop and his aides looked forward to returning to the hospital the following Friday. But as he got back home, his situation began to worsen.

Unfortunately, his aides were at a loss on what to do. None of them could consider the option of declaring him a grave health emergency thereby rushing him back to the hospital in Enugu that was already on his case, or take him to a more advanced hospital nearby. There were many of such hospitals they could have easily taken the bishop to. Such hospitals as Federal Medical Centre Owerri or its counterpart in Umuahia Abia State or Imo State University Teaching Hospital Orlu were all less than twenty kilometers away. Each and every one of these hospitals could have been ideal for handling the case of the dying bishop even on an interim basis.

But his aides rather contented themselves with providing him some local medical treatments from the Drug Store of Agap at Afor Ogbe Market Square, or shuttling him back and forth to Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru which was more or less a glorified maternity home as they waited endlessly for Friday to arrive to take him back to the Niger Foundation Hospital in Enugu. That was classic pedestrian thinking that did not help matters any bit in the dying days of Bishop Chikwe’s life!

Then the Wednesday that led to that fateful Thursday arrived. As was widely reported by his aides, the night of that Wednesday that yielded to the fateful Thursday was a nightmare for everybody in the house as Bishop Chikwe could barely sleep all night. He would be in terrible pains all night long sounding as if he was about to give up the ghost. Yet his clueless aides felt no real challenge to do something different. They rather contented themselves taking him back to Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor, a basic medical facility that had absolutely nothing to address the deteriorating situation of the dying bishop. In their crass ignorance and ineptitude they felt comfortable taking the great hero and father of the Church in Ahiara diocese to a hospital that was yet to graduate fully from its former status as a maternity home! That was incompetence at its most dangerous state!

A story that could illustrate the levity in which the deteriorating health of the dying bishop was treated on that Thursday morning took place with yours truly as one of the characters. I had programmed myself to visit with the bishop that Thursday in his office. I had planned to be in his office around 10.00 a.m. that morning. As I got myself ready to go an important guest visited my parish. I had to stay back a little to attend to her needs. Around 12.00 noon, I remembered that I was running very late as the bishop might be retiring from his office around 1.00 p.m. So I rushed to the secretariat only to discover that his office was closed. I went straight to the office of his secretary around 12.30 p.m. and he was there all alone flipping papers and turning files. I enquired about the whereabouts of the bishop. His secretary told me that he was in the house a little indisposed. There was absolutely no hint that anything was wrong. The secretary was there in his office doing little or nothing and attending to no one. So I left and returned to my parish with the belief that Bishop Chikwe was resting in his house as a result of a little illness he had.

But unfortunately, the bishop who was only a moment earlier described by his secretary as a little indisposed and resting in his house would die at Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru, ten minutes after I had left the secretary’s office!

This situation raises lots of questions that border on the competence and sincerity of the late bishop’s aides. Ten minutes before he would die at Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru, his secretary and chancellor was still in his office attending to I-do-not-know-whom. All that was happening while the secretary’s principal was at the point of death in a nearby hospital! And the bishop’s situation was not a sudden illness that was unknown to his household. No. The same secretary and his colleagues of the bishop’s household barely slept the previous night because of how seriously ill their principal had felt.

What was the secretary doing in his office while his principal was at the point of death on that fateful day? Was he not being periodically briefed by his subordinates on the spot about the deteriorating health condition of his principal languishing in a makeshift hospital? Why was he not out there hustling and scrambling to see what could be done to save the life of his bishop? Why was it necessary for him to keep his office open while the bishop was dying in the hospital? The action of the secretary on that fateful day seems extremely strange when we think through the events of that strangest of days in Ahiara Diocese.

While it may not be fair to charge any of them with bad will and insensitivity, it appears well in order to charge the secretary and the bishop’s aides in general of gross incompetence, negligence and lack of vision and imagination. If they had been fully alive to their duties as the most trusted aides of the dying bishop, after going through their ordeal the previous night, they could have mobilized all the emergency vehicles in the diocese and as the morning of Thursday broke, ferried the dying bishop to any of the nearby hospitals for emergency treatment. To allow the bishop of Ahiara Diocese to die at the makeshift Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru, a hospital that was then barely a maternity home is by all standards the height of negligence and ineptitude! The question that remains unanswered till today is; what was the secretary doing in his office ten minutes before the death of the bishop of Ahiara Diocese?

The director of Ahiara Diocesan Medical Services confided in me that when the condition of the dying bishop became most dangerous and the medical consultant who had long been awaited had eventually arrived from Owerri, he was sent to go to the Drugstore of Mr. Agap at Afor Ogbor and buy some specific drugs to treat the dying bishop. He rushed and procured the drugs immediately. Unfortunately it came too late to help the dying bishop.

In fact, this is about the clearest demonstration of the scandalous state of the hospital in which our Lord Bishop Chikwe died. But the question remains; why would any sensible person contemplate keeping a man as important as the bishop of a diocese in a hospital in which the drugs to treat his severe case would first be purchased from a roadside drugstore? This is a perfect proof of the dangerous ineptitude and crass ignorance of the people the bishop surrounded himself with as his aides? It is a terrible understatement that Bishop Chikwe was not well served by his aides at the moment he needed them the most. Perhaps the dying bishop was partially the architect of his own misfortune. He surrounded himself with a bunch of staff that were terribly incompetent and unimaginative. And that had resulted in his being terribly under-served at the moment he had needed them the most.

But where was Bishop Chikwe’s Vicar General when all this was happening? Where was the number two person in the diocese when the bishop had become completely incapacitated by his illness? Why was he not there from the get go? An account has it that immediately it became obvious that Bishop Chikwe was dying, the vicar general was called to the hospital. He immediately rushed to the place but was short of ideas on what to do. As a result he began making sporadic calls to the other senior priests of the diocese who arrived shortly afterwards. But that did not help much as the dying bishop was at the point of no return. The later arrivals did not know what to do either. Everybody appeared bemused as the dying bishop counted his breath during his last moments on earth.

At exactly 12.40 p.m. the Catholic Bishop of Ahiara Diocese Mbaise, Most Rev Bishop Victor Adibe Chikwe gave up the ghost at the Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru. As this tragedy unfolded in the full view of the few priests gathered at the hospital, the degree of ineptitude of the bishop’s aides would also explode exponentially. As would be expected in such a situation, the vicar general, the senior priests and the aides of the deceased bishop were in a state of convulsion and shock. Tears flowed uncontrollably. However it would be their subsequent reactions over the tragedy that demonstrated clearly the depth of their ineptitude.

Rather than secure the place immediately, cordon off the whole room, or arena or building, restrict movements in and out of the place and control the outflow of news and information so that a clearer picture could be established and presented to the public at the proper time, what did the late Bishop Chikwe’s Vicar General and his aides do in that very challenging moment? How did the take control of the very chaotic situation? Were they able to rise to the occasion and take control of the situation? What did they do at that material moment to show that the prophecy of the dying bishop that “Ahiara Diocese was in good hands” had any prayer of being fulfilled?

The true answer to all these questions is a resounding NO. Rather than take control, many of them turned to their phones and started calling their friends far and near to announce to them that the bishop of Ahiara Diocese had died. Nobody remembered that the news of the death of the bishop belonged solely to the Metropolitan of the province to announce and that only he had the authority to release the official information in that regard at the proper time. Rather they were all announcing the news of the death here and there without any control or discipline. This was a great scandal and the height of immaturity and ineptitude!

Many in America and Europe would get the news of Bishop Chikwe’s death streamed to them live and in real time as it was happening. Many got the news first and spread it all over the world long before the priests and lay people at home would get any bit of it. That was the greatest achievement of the aides of Bishop Chikwe and the few priests that had gathered at Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru to witness the slow dying of the bishop on that fateful day.

Now, in their chaotic and confused behaviour what would they do to the body of the deceased bishop? True to their inept character they left it almost as it was when he died in a small bed uncovered. When yours truly arrived at the hospital I was shocked beyond my imagination that the lifeless remains of my beloved bishop had remained uncovered almost four hours after he had died. He was lying there helpless and clad in the simple wears he had been taken to the hospital in while people were streaming in and out from the room. I instantly started to bemoan the terrible ineptitude of his aides.

As this tragedy unfolded at Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru on that fateful day, I was tucked far away in my parish of St Gregory the Great Ihitteafoukwu, which was about ten kilometers to the place. I was totally ignorant of what was happening. Around 3.30 p.m., my phone rang. A senior priest who was my closest neighbor in the parish called me. He asked me whether I had heard anything about out bishop and the diocese. I told him that I had visited his office around 12 noon and was told by his secretary that he was a little indisposed and was relaxing in his house. So I turned back and returned to the parish. He asked me whether that was all that I knew about him and the diocese. I said, yes. Then he hung up the phone. It would be long afterwards that I would be told that the senior priest that had called me on that fateful day was in fact among those the vicar general had called to the hospital as the death of the bishop appeared imminent. He was there when the bishop died. But when he called me he refused to break the news to me.

Shortly after receiving the call of the senior priest, one of my relatives, a reverend sister called me from Enugu. She told me that our bishop had died. I disputed it insisting that I had been to his office that morning. But the reverend sister insisted that the bishop had in fact died. She urged me to rush immediately to the secretariat and join the other priests who were gathered there. I hurried to the secretariat only to behold clusters of priests who were openly weeping. Having ascertained that it was at Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru that he had died I took off immediately and found myself at the hospital in a matter of few minutes. And behold everything the reverend sister had told me from Enugu was true. The lifeless body of our bishop was lying there in a very small bed. I was beyond devastated!

As I beheld the lifeless body of the great shepherd of Ahiara Diocese lying there unmoved, so many ideas buzzed in my head. I began asking myself some series of questions. Admitted that the death of the bishop on that fateful day was the will of God, why was there no real fight to try to save his life by his aides and the entire Ahiara Diocese? Why would our great bishop die in such a humble place? Why was it that nobody remembered to take him to a more equipped and dignified hospital to die in a more decent environment? And why would I get the news first from a religious sister living in the far away city of Enugu rather than from my diocesan secretariat? Why was the news of the death of the bishop so ineptly mismanaged by his vicar general and his aides? So many questions kept flooding my head and I did not have any answers to them.

But as I gradually came to terms with the tragedy of that fateful day, an answer to all my questions came to me. And it has remained with me till this day. The answer to all the questions that cluttered my head on that fateful day was ineptitude, vacuous thinking, incompetence on the part of the vicar general and the aides of Bishop Chikwe. They were a people challenged by a very difficult situation on that day but who refused to think. They could not take control of the situation. They allowed the situation to take control of them and they failed in their responsibility to provide good leadership on a day the diocese and all Mbaise people had needed them the most.

A few days after that fateful Thursday, I began to conjure up some hypothetical scenarios to compare with the abysmal performance of Bishop Chikwe’s aides on the day he died. I said to myself; suppose the health crisis that took Bishop Chikwe’s life on that fateful Thursday had happened say in Germany where another set of his aides operated under the leadership of Fr Sylvester Ihuoma and his group, what could they have done differently?. The answer to this hypothetical question came streaming quickly into my mind.

Fr Sylvester Ihuoma and his group would have immediately rushed the ailing bishop with the fastest vehicle available to the nearest hospital competent enough to handle his case. They would never have dumped him in a glorified maternity home to die a painful slow death. Rather they would have mounted a huge fight, a fire-brigade kind of struggle to try to save his life. And if and when the battle to save the bishop’s life had been lost, they would never have allowed his lifeless body to lie helplessly on small bed with little dignity. The room where the bishop died would have been cordoned off and movements in and out of it restricted to the barest minimum. The German aides of Bishop Chikwe could have managed the news about his death very well so that it could be released to the public at the appropriate time with dignity and by a competent authority authorized to do so.

All these vital steps the inept aides of the bishop and his bemused vicar general failed to take on a most significant day in the history of the diocese. Rather they unleashed a chaos and mayhem that have endured till this day. The confusion that would trail the death of Bishop Chikwe in Ahiara Diocese originated from the chaos unleashed by his aides on that fateful Thursday he died. Ahiara Diocese crisis that lasted for nearly seven years began gradually from that fateful Thursday Bishop Chikwe died. The first crisis of the diocese after the death of Bishop Chikwe was caused by the ineptitude of his vicar general and his aides. The crises thereafter were more or less a continuation of the confusion that took the centre stage on that fateful Thursday Bishop Chikwe died.

The tragic confusion of Thursday September 16, 2010 would reach some acceptable resolution when the lifeless body of Bishop Chikwe was preserved in a makeshift funeral parlor that was hastily put together by the workers and morticians of Holy Rosary Hospital Mortuary, Ogbor Nguru. But the ineptitude of Thursday September 16, 2010 would resurface and continue the very next day. This was a day to start charting a way forward in a diocese whose soul and heart had suddenly been ripped off and lay dead cold in the mortuary of Holy Rosary Hospital Ogbor Nguru. But where was the leadership to move the bereaved diocese forward? In fact, there was absolutely none. The vicar general was as blank as all the members of the late Bishop Chikwe's College of Consultors. The entire Ahiara Diocese was in a state of stupor. Everybody appeared cold dead with the bishop!

The vicar general could neither inform the Metropolitan and the other bishops officially about the death of the bishop of his diocese nor seek their advice on the way forward. Rather he started to act in his own ignorance relying solely on his reliable Canonist who was a member of the College of Consultors. Unfortunately for them the so-called Canonist who was said to have the ultimate degree in Canon Law was in fact a know-nothing Canonist. His first advice to the College would turn out the worst disaster of the tragedy of the period. He had opined that with the demise of Bishop Chikwe the administration of Ahiara Diocese had been transferred to the Presbyteral Council with its President as the new administrator of the Diocese. This opinion made out of politics rather than from known facts of the law would set off a ruckus and a ripple effect among Ahiara Diocese Presbyterium. It instantly became a matter for caricature in the Canon Law community of Nigeria. Our diocese was momentarily turned into a laughing stock for not knowing the basic facts of the Canon Law. Fortunately the Metropolitan and the bishops of the province would intervene quickly to quell the streaming confusion.

Thereafter the College of Consultors was advised by the Metropolitan and the bishops of the CBCN on the proper procedure of establishing an interim administration in a Sede Vacante Diocese. Following the directions of the bishops, the former vicar general was elected the new administrator of the diocese by a vote of all but one of the members of the College of Consultors present. But his confusion and ineptitude continued unabated. His primary concern, apart from ensuring that the diocese took off immediately to prepare for the funeral of the great bishop appeared to be to try to skew everything in the diocese to give a leg-up to the one he was projecting to replace the dead bishop. All his initial actions were apparently geared towards giving his favored priest some undue advantage.

Moreover with Bishop Chikwe out of the way it appeared that a start-off whistle was blown for the different caucuses to start jostling for their preferred candidate to take a pole position in the race to replace him. So, while preparation for the funeral was going on, clandestine meetings were holding in the two caucuses to perfect ways to influence the choice of Bishop Chikwe's replacement. This jostling and hustling lie at the root of the crisis that would engulf the diocese after the announcement of Msgr. Peter Ebele Okpalaeke as the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese on December 7, 2012.

The lesson of that fateful Thursday in which Bishop Chikwe died is quite simple. Authorities whether in the Church or in the secular world should always endeavor to recruit their personal aides and assistants from among the best available. They must always avoid the temptation to recruit their assistants from among those who would not challenge them intellectually. Many in authority are so insecure in their positions that they will always recruit their assistants from among those who will not hold them back or resist them even when they are in danger of destroying themselves. But to recruit from the least endowed intellectually among the subjects of any authority is a terrible risk that is not worth taking.

A philosopher king is usually one who tolerates the greatest intellectual challenges from his assistants and subordinates. The more a leader is resisted and challenged intellectually, the wiser he or she grows and the more efficient he or she becomes. Unfortunately such wisdom does not sell in the highly politicized world in which we live. Leaders are almost prone to recruit their assistants from sycophants and bootlickers. And all such aides will be found wanting on the day they are needed the most. A word is enough for the wise.

THE END

This concludes blogging on the series: “Ahiara Diocese Crisis; The Untold Stories”. A new series on Catholicism in Mbaise, Igbo land and Nigeria, will begin very soon. Thank you for patronizing our blog. God bless.