Clerics Protest Closure of Church by Abia Govt

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia


Over 100 clergymen left the pulpits and took to the streets Thursday in the commercial city of Aba, protesting the continued closure of their church headquarters by the government of Abia State.

The protesters, who are ordained ministers of the Apostolic Christian Church Mission (ACCM) Inc., appealed to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu to unlock their closed church.

Ikpeazu had, on December 31, 2022, ordered the closure of the ACCM headquarters located at 34 Omuma Road, Aba, citing “the leadership crisis rocking (the church)”. The church has been in existence for 72 years with over 1,000 branches across Nigeria.

In the statement, the Secretary to the Abia State Government (SSG), Mr. Chris Ezem, said that the governor “has directed immediate ban on all religious and any other activity whatsoever in and around the premises” of the ACCM till further notice.

The SSG followed up with another statement on January 1, 2023 reminding the ACCM leaders that the ban on all religious activities extended to “the intended church convention”.

He stated that Ikpeazu directed that the planned convention “should not hold at the church premises, 34 Omuma Road Aba, or Eziama High School Aba or any other location in and around Abia State”.

Government then warned that “any attempt by any person or group of persons to contravene this government directive will attract severe consequences”.

But after bearing the closure of their church for the past 27 days, the ACCM ministers and apostles, clad in their cassock, trooped to Osisoma leisure park close to the new flyover, to lament the continued closure of their church.

Marching and singing church hymns and choruses, the clergymen expressed their grievances, which were also inscribed on the placards they carried. Some of the placards read: ‘Ikpeazu, unseal our church’; ‘Ikpeazu, respect God to avoid divine wrath’, ‘ACCM does not support tribalism’, ‘Ikpeazu should open our national headquarters’.

The spokesman of the church, Apostle Christopher Ogbuagu, told journalists that the crisis in the ACCM was instigated by “a tiny minority of the church elders mostly politicians who incidentally are relatives of the Governor of Abia State”.

According to him, the church was reeling in crisis because of those “who want to foist an unpopular bishop on the church due to the death of the former bishop and two other senior apostles who were next in line”.

Ogbuagu said: “The financial secretary of the church who is not a career missionary of the church rose up and is receiving the support of the governor’s kinsmen and political allies.

“The idea (of the protest) is to draw the attention of the public to the meddling of the state governor in a church matter that is even before the Court of Appeal.”

He alleged that Ikpeazu was “trying to intimidate the church into accepting a non clergy as bishop because his relatives and political allies are involved”.

While urging the Abia governor “to hand-off the church”, the ACCM spokesman added that the clerics have come out “to inform the world that should any harm come to any of their (church) leaders that the governor should be held responsible”.

Another ACCM cleric, Rev. Ugochukwu Onugha, said that the closure of the church has caused untold hardships to both the clergy and the laity, adding that the church was losing its members.