The featured article was found posted in the Nigeriaworld.com of May 2nd, 2013. It has become a sad and recurring feature of the current state of Nigerian Catholicism, where bishops, acting like Nigerian politicians have vested interests and nepotic in imposing their own candidates, some not very well formed and qualified as episcopal candidates, and destroying the cogent work of evangelization and ministry that has occured over so many decades, just for their vested reasons and career advancements, and also creating puns and clones that would secure their inordinate and gullible financial tastes in retirement.
Ambition is the order of the day, and as a result different strategies and corrupt plots and machinations rule the day within the chamber of episcopal functioning, as becoming a bishop today has become in the fast filling fold of priestly ministry, the one major distinctive meal ticket that favours a cliques' flight from poverty, and assure a life of Trojan bestraddling over the affairs of the humble and heaven-oriented faithful.
This rupturing bizarre turn of events has attracted the vociferous condemnation of one bold and courageous Nigerian priest, the Rev. Fr. Dr. Joseph Francis Mali, PhD, an intelligent theologian and renewing agent of Christ-like faithfulness, have authored a book on this issue regarding the poor qualitative nature of selection of episcopal candidates in many northern Nigerian dioceses. Such courageous witness is rare, but Fr. Mali is an oddity. Many Nigerian priests cower and are afraid of countering the illness and rut within the system because it may impede their own subtle and well-masked ambition to tower over others rather than serve. Like the rest of the wider Nigerian society, no one wants to confront the truth, the heinous dirts and criminality that refracts upon the dynamics of power as an abusing and traumatically tyrannizing experience that has hijacked the God-given happiness of Nigerians as God's noble creatures.
]The article below points to the magnitude of the issue. Yet, what has not been boldly asserted is the role of the Francis Cardinal Arinze in the Ahiara debacle, and the hubris of power, through which he is lining up his "Anambra boys" for episcopal office. One of Cardinal Arinze's boy is Archbishop Jude Okolo, the incumbent Papal Nuncio to Chad and Central African Republic, whose role in the later country's problem of CAR African bishops and priests, reflect an image of a bestial order, who is trying to do right to please the power that be within the church, with an eye upon more lucrative ecclesiastical and prestigious diplomatic posting.
Triste also is the fact that a recent Nigerian Cardinal, John Olurnfemi Onaiyekan, is a known sexual pervert, a known zipless molester and harrasser of Nigerian nuns. There is also the case of the ill-celebrated Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah is a fly in the ointment of all corrupt political heads of government in Nigeria, an Igbo-hater and cunningly ambitious iconoclast of all that is wrong with Nigeria; that celebrates hero worship, even is that hero is a demagogue and hydra-monstrous personality.
These evil men wearing the tiara of power in God's name are killing the faith, and are uplifting grave evil masking as angels of light, fakes using God's name to bolster their own positions and privileges.
Featured article in www.nigeriaworld.com
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Chinedu Mbawuike Thursday, May 2, 2013
mbawuikec@yahoo.com
Fr. PETER OKPALEKE & THE "AHIARA SPRING"
"God in the beginning created human beings and made them subject to their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments; loyalty is doing the will of God. Set before you are fire and water; to whatever you choose, stretch out your hand. Before everyone are life and death, whichever they choose will be given them." (Sirach 15:14 - 17)
uch of the debate arising from the principled rejection of Fr. Peter Okpaleke as Bishop of Ahiara diocese centers on the attempt to unmask and expose the role played by ecclesiastical Godfathers from the Onitsha ecclesiastical metropolis to continually reward their cronies with vacant Episcopal positions in the South East and some places in the South West. Very little has been said about the man who ill-advisedly accepted this ill-inspired appointment. The ongoing attempt by some bishops from places as various as Owerri, Okigwe, Benin, Awka, Abuja, etc. to impose him on the indomitable people of Mbaise by frenetically scheming and plotting to pillage and militarize their beloved diocese occasions the need for scrutinizing his ambition, probing his motive to ascertain why he is so doggedly bent on using military force to become a bishop. Adversities and challenges have a way of exposing the stuff of which people are made; they give indications of the underlying motivations of people.
A cursory look at the profile of Father Peter Okpaleke suggests that he has had sustained and active interest in ecclesiastical administration as can be gleaned from the themes of some of his published writings: The Administrator of Diocesan Property, Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution in the Church, Pastoral Visitation: Towards Knowing the significance and Necessary Preparations, The Role of Deans in Diocesan Apostolate, The Establishment Competence, Function, and Organization of Diocesan Pastoral Council, etc. While his interest in Church administration might have issued from the desire to better equip himself for the competent discharge of the many administrative/managerial positions he has held in his 20 years priestly "career", his fierce determination and unprincipled quest to bulldoze his way into the Episcopal see of Ahiara suggests that his writings were calculated and designed to favourably position himself as an incontrovertibly qualified candidate for the episcopacy whenever any seat in the zone of influence of his Godfathers was vacant.
While he might have arguably constructed for himself a sterling ecclesiastical administrative resumé, he unavoidably comes off as inordinately ambitious and disturbingly overcome by the lust for power. The impulse for domination, hidden and buried under his stellar credentials has been exposed by the ruthless militancy with which he intends to "resolve the conflict". Notice that he is the author of: Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution in the Church. While not having read the book, I am familiar enough with the Church's approach to conflict resolution to expect that he could not have suggested the use of intimidation and military force to resolve conflicts in the Church. His approach to the current impasse in Ahiara suggests that he could have easily written the medieval political philosophical work, The Prince, in which the author suggests amongst other things that a ruler is justified to use any means possible to attain his objectives. Hence the saying "the end justifies the means".
If Fr. Okpaleke truly believes his theory and recommendations in Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution in the Church (all of which I am sure contradict his current practice), he should give up his alarmingly unchristian and unorthodox approach to the current conflict. He knows that nothing in the current conflict resolution teaching of the church would endorse an approach that would leave the faithful spiritually scandalized, psychologically terrorized, physically assaulted and perhaps have their properties vandalized. The idea around which Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution in the Church ought to be organized is "the salvation of souls" not "the scandalization of souls".
His recent move to storm Mbaise with his Godfathers, enablers and political elites armed with military power to claim the kingdom prepared for him from the beginning of the ages would no doubt be an unsightly spectacle, a spectacle that would completely pale in comparison with the ideals of the gospel. The very thought of bishops using threats and military force to assume a position of Christian service is, to say the least nauseating. Such a move is totally out of synch with ecclesiastical law and morality. It is an approach that is theologically unorthodox, liturgically indecorous, morally appalling, optically revolting and absolutely unchristian. Ecclesiastical authority does not flow from the barrel of the gun!
As a keen observer of the history of Episcopal succession in Eastern Nigeria, I can say without fear of contradiction that it has not been a very inspiring or spiritually uplifting one. Benin and Okigwe are good cases in point. The ongoing impasse in Ahiara would undoubtedly bring this unedifying history to a new low. If this happens, it would all come down to the injudicious decision of Fr. Okpaleke. He knows very well that this impasse will come to a peaceful resolution if he resigns.
Every choice, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, is a renunciation. If Fr. Okpaleke sticks to his guns, his ignominious obstinacy would be tantamount to renouncing peace, humility, and decency. The persons we are are the cumulative outcomes of the choices we make. Before now, the autobiographical narrative of Fr. Okpaleke has been unfolding and he continues to write this story by the choices he makes. To be sure, some of these choices are more defining and consequential than others. The decision he ultimately makes (wise or unwise) in the coming days/weeks would unquestionably factor very prominently in defining the kind of person he is. The person you are, who you are is different from what you do or the positions you hold. So what kind of person does he want to be?
The author of the Book of Sirach says, "Set before you are fire and water; to whatever you choose, stretch out your hand. Before everyone are life and death, whichever they choose will be given them." Fr. Peter Ebere Okpaleke, your life is at crossroads, you have been placed at the point of divergence between the treacherous alley of self-destruction and dignifying highway of honour. Which do you want? It is up to you. You are the DECIDER! Those whom the gods want to kill they first make mad. Your decision will ultimately confirm if you are mad with inordinate ambition or just testing the will of Mbaise people.
Over and above the unfolding profile of the man, the machinations of some bishops in this crisis is shaping up to be a story of ecclesiastical thuggery. In a sense, the principled rejection of Fr. Okpaleke by Mbaise people is a struggle to end the reign of ecclesiastical nepotism in Nigeria. The struggle of the People of God in Ahiara diocese is also the struggle of the people of God in Okigwe, Uromi, and Benin who have been forced to a state of disillusioned acquiescence to an authoritarian ecclesiastical establishment. The struggle is aimed not only at liberating the People of God in Ahiara from the forces of domination and nepotism in the Church, but also to ultimately usher in an ecclesiastical ethos that is consistent with the spirit of the gospel.
In the struggle of the People of God in Ahiara, we are seeing the awakening of activist consciousness that has the potential of emancipating and transforming the Church in Nigeria. In this struggle, in this "Ahiara Spring", we are seeing the birth of a new way of being Church, a Church that discourages nepotism and careerism amongst priests, a Church that is suspicious of cozy relationships between corrupt politicians and clerics, a Church that listens to the voices of the laity and encourages them to be more actively engaged in the life of the Church, and a Church that discourages the impulse to use threat, intimation and violence to execute Church appointments when the faithful justly demand for a review of such appointments.
The struggle of Mbaise people is not a struggle against Anambra people. It is a struggle against the decadent culture of ecclesiastical nepotism. Mbaise people have nothing against Anambra people. What they are against is the procedural injustice and the lopsidedness of Episcopal appointments that have too often been arguably masterminded by highly placed clerics from the Onitsha ecclesiastical axis. Their struggle is against a system that is dysfunctional, a system that damages faith, hope, trust and destroys the devotion with which the faithful regard the Church. It is a system in need of redemption and transformation. They are asking for the establishment of a system that would facilitate the salvation of souls, not the "scandalization" of souls.
Like all conflicts, this crisis offers the opportunity for growth and redemption. The outcome depends on the decision Fr. Okpaleke and his enablers make. In the interim, they need to remember that people are watching, the news is diffusing beyond the shores of Nigeria. The people of Mbaise are ready to utilize mass communications technology to expose the ecclesiastical militarism being visited upon them by men who ought to know better. On May 21st, we shall know which way they intend to follow, the way of self destruction or the way of honour.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost
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