Igbos and Religious Dogmatism; way forward

By Dr Paul Okoye

REFLECTIONS OF THE PG,

Great Royalties good morning and a very great Sunday wherever you are,

The just concluded Unity Day Celebration brought us many tidings some positive while some negative. The next step will be to look inwardly in sorber reflection dot the i’s and cross the t’s and move on to 2023 anniversary.

However in doing this we must not lose sight of our mandate which consists in the unification of the Igbo Nation, restoration of peace and prosperity to Igbos in home and in Diaspora.

During my quiet time it seems to me that the Igbo man has lost touch of the realities of his existence and the realities staring us at the faces.

The question that kept coming is are we truly marginalized or is there something wrong with our psych or cosmic intellect?. It looks to me that, there are certain fundamental issues to address before we can establish our marginalization. In my continuous search to answer these question I get more bewildered.

The predominatly Christian ethnic group in Nigeria are Igbos. Conspicuously the mega churches in Nigeria belong to the yorubas and the Bendelites. Redeemed, Living Faith, Mountain of Fire, Christ Embassy, Omega fire ministry and most recently Dunamis.

Igbos cluster these churches and patronize them with their hard earned resources in the name of tight and offering but do not participate in governance or leadership of these assemblies.

The north are predominantly Muslims, the west are partly Muslims, traditionalist and Christians while easterners are relatively Christians.

Until the advent of pentecostalism we were catholics and protestants. There was competition between these two on who will develop alaigbo more than the other. Wherever the catholic build a school the Anglican will match it with their. Same for hospitals and all other activities. Most of us went to these church schools.

Today alaigbo is passing through neocolonialism in the hands of these Yorubas and Bendelites. The take all and give nothing. They only memories the leave are building more churches and organization of more crusades. Meanwhile the Holy Scripture says that faith without work is death.

Pastor Kumuyi said that he built the most sophisticated church in Africa, but that church was built with Igbo peoples money in Lagos. Couldn’t he have built a branch in onitsha or Aba where he come to organize annual crusade.

Adeboye and Oyedekpo has best universities and all are in Yoruba land. Chris is financing Ekpoma University and not IMT or Nekede.

Even Eneche built his hospital and police stations in benue and not even in Abuja where he built the largest church ever for monthly and daily tax collections by Igbos who always form the foundation and overwhelming majority of these churches.

The puzzle is why do these men of God keep their wealth and investment in their native homes and build ONLY churches for us in the east.

It will be pertinent to note that among the 50 member governing council of Redeemed there is no Igbo. Same for 25 team of MFM and 18 team of Living faith. Dunamis and Christ Embassy has different form of organigram but even in there, there is no Igbo. Same for all the rest.

To add salt to injury Igbos are not even qualified to head branches of these churches planted in the south east. Any regional head of all these churches in the south east is a native of origin of the founder of these churches. Not even one of them find an Igbo man worthy to head their churches. As if that is not enough every important branch is headed also by descendants of the founder.

Same way although with a little modification the Catholic and Anglican is controlled by the Yorubas. After a long battle the Anglican communion accepted to make someone from Delta the head of the Anglican in Nigeria. Delterian are more Igbos than most of us but many of them as a fall out of the war, have been brainwashed to accept that they are not Igbos or at least core Igbo. The Prelate is one of those.

Now come to the catholic church. It is also in the hand of the west. The decide who becomes a bishop and archbishops. My friend Rt Rev. John Bosco confided in me that all his mates in the west are already bishops.

Let me reveal to you also that Tansi is not yet a siant because of finance. If he were from the west the church could have mobilized to raise the fund.

Except Cardinal Arinze who has been in Rome since his creation how many cardinals have ever been created from the south east. Leave the most recent one out of it because it is a unique case and a decision of the mother church. Has any one from the south east ever headed the catholic church in Nigeria?

Are Igbos really marginalized or do we contribute to our marginalization? Are we the architect of our problems? Are we truly in control of our destiny? What exactly is our problem?

How come that, in a family in Yoruba land the father could be a Muslim, the mother a Christian and the children atheists, yet they live together in harmony unlike the east where each if fighting to dominate the others. Sometimes they tell us not to marry from other religion without providing alternative for us. I know of a family with four beautiful young ladies all single and approaching their fifties because the church prohibited from taking people of other denomination as partners. How did we get to this point?

To answer these questions and many more the secretary of the religious Directorate Rev Fr Mathew Enebeli has been directed to work on a religious conference mid – year. For logistics reasons this conference will be held at Asaba the capital of Delta State.

There is much work to be done.

Thanks again for your time.

Dr Paul Okoye
PG NIROH worldwide