Joe Effiong, Uyo
The ongoing leadership tussle and alleged ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the African Church is taking the turn for the worse as the Calabar Province of the church has joined its Rivers counterpart to send bishops of Yoruba extraction packing.
Daily Sun learnt from a senior clergyman in Uyo Diocese that Bishop James Bamilede, from Ekiti State, who was at Fourtowns, Uyo, and the Archbishop of the Calabar Province, A.A. Odufuwa, have been sacked from their stations since the return of the embattled primate of the church, Bishop Emmanuel Udofia, penultimate Saturday.
The clergyman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that, apart from Bamidele and Odufuwa, other bishops of Western Province origin in Ughelli and Warri have since been sacked, even as Calabar and Rivers provinces are still making breakaway threats, if the Western Province of the church continues with the harassment of Udofia, the primate.
Daily Sun had reported that the Calabar and Rivers provinces had, during the reception for the primate in Uyo, last weekend, threatened to break away from the arch cathedral of the church in Lagos, if the current primate was not allowed to complete his tenure.
It was also gathered at the reception that Udofia is currently being threatened with sack, if he fails to leave the office by May, when he would have turned 60 years being the retirement age for primates of the church.
However, South-South members of the church are of the opinion that a new law could not be applied to Udofia who was voted into office on the detects of the old constitution, which put the retirement age of primates at 65.
Udofia, who was warmly received in a colourful ceremony at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Uyo on Saturday, was told point-blank by the laity and clergy of the two provinces, made up of Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Delta states, to temporarily relocate to Uyo until the crisis is over, especially with the alleged threats to his life and that of his family by some parishioners of the church in Lagos.
The vice lay president of Warri Diocese, Mr. Ezekiel Okorode,who spoke at Udofia’s reception in Uyo, said the indignities to which the Western Province of the church had subjected the primate were in a way bringing victory to Calabar and Rivers provinces.