NIKE DIOCESE EULOGISES BISHOP  NWOKOLO, MARVELS AT HIS
CLEANLINESS, GENTILITY

By Alex Uzoigwe

The All Saints’ Cathedral auditorium, Onitsha, Anambra State, assumed a theatre of long drawn thunderous jubilations and unprecedented shouts of “O yes ooh” on  Sunday, February 27, 2022, when the Anglican Diocese of Nike, Enugu State, publicly sang the praises of the Bishop on the Niger, the Rt Rev Dr Owen Nwokolo, saluting what she described as the bishop’s cleanliness and his gentility.

The Bishop of Nike Diocese, the Rt Rev Christian Onyia made the earthquake
encomium in the 45-minute homily he said during the collation and preferment of Archdeacons and Canons of the Diocese on the Niger at the All Saints’ Cathedral, Onitsha.

He had in the preamble of the sermon said in part; “Let me thank our Father in the Lord, the  Bishop of the Diocese on the Niger, the Rt Rev Dr Owen Nwokolo, an amiable gentleman to the core. I watched him from a distance, I didn’t know him before I became a bishop. It was after I was elected about three years ago, that I came in contact with him and I watched him from a distance, and I observed his gentility, his comportment, his composure, his demeanour, his cleanliness, the majestic ways he does things. And after that my admiration, I couldn’t but desire to get closer to him.

  “And I want to thank God that finally, he has chosen to be our friend. He has chosen us as friends. Hé has accepted us as friends which have been demonstrated on this invitation to entrust his pulpit in our hands. I am not from Anambra, I am from Enugu. Ordinarily, people will say, “Haah, how can an Anambra man begin to parley with an Enugu man?”, but because of his nature, he has seen nothing wrong in that. So he has brought us closer, he has made us be here, we have had communion with him, and we thank God for him. The Rt Rev Dr Owen and Mama Elsie Nonyelum Nwokolo, God bless you, Ma. I want to thank God for you. May the Lord continue to bless you.

“You know, without struggle, your nature has been wrought up by your clergymen. Yesterday, (Saturday) I watched them with admiration, and I could see that gentility, that cleanliness; your clergymen are as clean as the clergymen of Nike Diocese. I want to thank God for all of you. You know, I watched how you related to them yesterday. I could say, “That’s the man who understands what it means to labour as a leader in the vineyard of God, not as a boss, not as an emperor, but as a brother to his clergymen. God bless you, Sir. Thank you.

“Let me also thank my two junior brothers; MB, is my Junior Brother, one, Obiorah is my Junior Brother, two. Whether or not they want to accept it, I am their Elder Brother, both in school and in this Episcopacy. So I am their Elder Brother.

Thank you to all of you, brothers, majority of the clergymen here, we are brothers, we know ourselves. God bless every one of you.

“Also, let me thank I don’t know what to call him; the man who made all of us; he made me, he made Ndubisi, he made Obiorah, he made almost all the clergymen here. He is Ven. Dr Emma Ekpunobi. I want to thank him very much. God bless you. Please accept my greetings.”