Community tasks Okorocha on religious crisis

Prominent indigenes of Ezuruezu Mbaise community, comprising Ahiazu, Ezinihitte and Aboh Mbaise, have made a passionate appeal to the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, to urgently intervene, and apply his administrative ingenuity to resolve the three-year-old religious crisis bedeviling the Catholic Church community in the area, over appointment of a substantive bishop of Ahiara Diocese.

Led by the Deputy Chairman of the state Council of Traditional Rulers, Owerri zone, Eze Chidume Okoro; a political leader, Nze Patrick C. Onuoha, and a leader of Ezuruezu Mbaise, apex body of socio-cultural groups in the area, Nnamdi Cajetan, on a visit to the governor, they regretted that the crisis which led to the destruction of economic and social activities, polarising the area, should be looked into and resolved, before it engulfs the Mbaise nation and by extension, the larger community.

According to them, the populist opinion of the people of the area should be listened to in appointing the bishop of the diocese.

Okoro regretted that the posting of an Indigene of Anambra State, Bishop Peter Opkaleke, by the Pope, to superintend the affairs of the diocese, has sparked the crisis, disclosing that a lot of people in the area want a qualified person among the legion of priests from the area, to mount the position.

They used the forum to thank the governor for the free education policy and citing of an arm of the state University, Owerri, and other facilities executed in the area.

In his response, the governor reminded them that his administration had been ‘exceptionally fair to their people, both in terms of projects and in terms of appointments’, adding that the people of the area were the greatest beneficiaries of the free education programme, stressing that the citing of the university was also notable, for the unending love he has for them.