The Sun News On-line/man in the pulpit

Rt Rev Dr. Samuel Chukwudi Ezeofor is the bishop of the Missionary Diocese of Ogbaru with its headquarter at Atani in Anambra State. Missionary Diocese of Ogbaru is one of the dioceses created by the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion early last year.

In this interview which he granted before Christmas, he spoke on the crises in the Anglican church worldwide where he disclosed that it was not only the issue of same sex marriage and gay priest ordination but the revisionist tendencies of the West as the cause of the disagreement between the bishops of Africa and some white bishops that brought about the decision of his fellow Nigerian bishops not to attend this year’s Lambert Conference of the Anglican Bishops in the world.

He also spoke on the challenges facing his diocese and other national issues.

How has it been, being the bishop of a new diocese like Ogbaru?
Well, it has been challenging in the sense that Ogbaru land is a difficult terrain in all areas of life. So, it has been quite challenging for us since the inception of the diocese, but we thank God that we are making progress.

When you say, "it is challenging", what kind of challenges are they?
You know, a new diocese needs a number of things to be able to stand: infrastructure, human resources, financial resources, material resources. And when we look around, we find out that we don’t have these infrastructure and also not enough human resources to do the work and also inadequate financial resources for the work. So, these are the challenges we are facing because in this area, the people are, let me not say too poor, but as you know, the poverty level in the country is affecting everything. But this area is really backward and so poverty is one of the problems facing the church.

Now you have outlined the challenges facing the diocese, is there any way the mother church is helping the diocese to overcome these challenges?
I don’t know the mother church you are talking about, is it Church of Nigeria or the Diocese of the Niger or what? (Interjection, Church of Nigeria) well, Church of Nigeria has given us a task and what they expect us is to get the result and from where you get the result, is your concern. But there is the encouragement at least because they are backing us spiritually.

But then, the Diocese on the Niger which is as it were, the mother, has this responsibility of sponsoring the new diocese with N3m for three years. And they have given us the first N3m for 2007 and the other support they are giving is that the churches in the Diocese on the Niger still come for missionary work here and there are a number of projects they have on hand which the bishop has assured us they are going to complete them, they are not going to leave them at the level they are before the diocese was created. So, those are the encouragements they are giving to us.

My Lord, Nigeria is seen as a religious state, yet there are many crimes and negative things here and there. What can you attribute this to?
First, let me say that the crime wave all over the world is high, it is not just Nigeria and so if l take it from that angle, l will say it is part of what the Bible talks about that in the last days, various crimes will come, there will be lawlessness all over the places. And so when you see lawlessness around, it is part of the signs of the end of time. Though Nigeria is a religious state, it’s still part of the world and so the things that are happening globally will still affect Nigeria.

But let me also say that if not for the presence of the church or the religion - if you like to use that word - in Nigeria probably the crime wave would have been higher that what it is today. So, l believe that Nigeria being a religious state still has something to do with the level of the crime because if not, the crime wave I believe would have been higher than what it is today.

If you were asked to assess the performance of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua so far, how can you rate him?
I will say so far so good. Though some people call him Baba – go – slow, meaning that he is not always in a hurry, l think by looking at him on what he has done so far, he has laudable agenda and it appears he knows where he is going and we believe that with the support of Nigerians, he will get there. So, we can give him a pass mark for now.

How do you see his recent order to Inspector - General of Police to re-open some unresolved murder cases and do you think the police is capable of resolving those cases?
Well, if he has given such an order, it probably means, he wants justice to be done. And that is one of the things l am saying. Justice is very important, if there will be peace and order. And so he wants justice to be done in whatever cases that come up in the country. Then on police, really I believe that if the police want to do their work, they are capable of doing it because I know they are trained properly but somehow there are some problems they have. Sometimes you see them coming out and doing their work the way it is supposed to be done, showing you that they have the potential, they have the training, they have whatever it takes to do their work properly. So, that’s why l am saying if they really want to do their work, they will be able to do it but who knows whether they want to do it and the other variables around.

In Igboland there is really disunity among the leaders, there is quarrel and disagreement among themselves. Are you religious leaders concerned and doing anything to unite them for the good of the people of the area?
Well, in terms of being concerned I know we are concerned and last time when they did Igbo day in two different places one in Enugu and one in Awka, it was a big concern for us. I know the matter came up in a meeting and we did say clearly that we would not be part of such thing because if we begin to attend such rallies, it means we are helping them to continue the division. But our not attending would show them that we are not in support of what they are doing. And it will also help to look for avenues to bring them together.

Talking about disunity, your church, Anglican Communion worldwide is under the threat of break-up due to same sex marriages and gay priests’ ordination in America, do you see this happening?
Well, let me begin by saying that as human beings we may fumble but God owns His church and the Lord Jesus said He has built His church upon the rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The current problem within the Anglican communion is quite a serious one but I don’t see it destroying the church of God no matter how people talk about it and what they say about it, because this church is solidly built on the rock and solidly built on the Bible. This church cannot be destroyed and that is my own believe and stand. We pray about these things, believing God that one way or the other, He will still have to sort us out from the problem.

The Lambert Conference is coming up this year, but the African bishops particularly the Nigerian ones are saying they would not attend due to these problems. Do you think that not attending is the best thing to do?
Well, let me say first of all, that it is really not the same sex marriage that is the only problem. It is just one of the problems; we are talking about the revisionist agenda of the west where people are now talking about doubting the virgin birth of Christ. In fact, all the things we know to be the foundation of Christianity some people are questioning them and to the point that somebody is saying, "well we wrote the Bible and we can rewrite it."

So, you find that it is not just the issue of the same sex but it the whole issue of the revisionist agenda and if you like modernism. That is what we are fighting. Well, not attending Lambert conference is the decision of the Church of Nigeria and some other national churches not only Nigeria for now, it is not that we are saying we will not attend but we want the matters on ground to be settled biblically because if we throw away the Bible then there is no bases for us attending the conference.

So, that is what we are saying we will attend when the atmosphere, the climate is conducive based on the fact that we are saying these things that are on ground, let us resolve them. That is the matter there.