By Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
The crisis rocking the African Church since last year, for which the Archbishop of its Rivers Province, Most Rev. Dr D.P. Kaladokubo, was allegedly suspended, may not be over soon if current developments are anything to by.
TPCN can authoritatively report that a meeting scheduled to hold at the Church headquarters in Port Harcourt on Thursday, 5th September, 2019 was aborted following threats by one of the warring factions.
It was gathered that the purpose of the meeting was to look for a way forward in a bid to resolve the crisis raging in the church for the past one year.
However, while the initiators of the meeting were looking forward to a fruitful dialogue between the two warring factions which could possibly lead to permanent reconciliation, they did not know that one of the factions had a shocker for them.
TPCN gathered that few hours before the meeting which was scheduled to hold by 10 a.m. on that Thursday, 5th September, 2019, at the I.B. Johnson Street, Port Harcourt headquarters of the church, the faction opposed to Archbishop Kaladokubo allegedly issued threats, warning that any attempt to hold any meeting would be regretted.
Sensing danger of insecurity and violence, the meeting, according to an inside source, was quickly shifted to the church’s local branch in Buguma, headquarters of Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State.
But by the time the church officials got to the new venue of the meeting, they realized that they had been outsmarted by the anti-dialogue opposition forces as the gate of the compound was locked to deny them access into the venue.
Shocked and helpless, the church officials returned to Port Harcourt.
TPCN learnt that the action of the opposition faction in the church has further fuelled suspicions of high level sabotage, betrayal, backbiting, acrimony and rancour among key members of the church.
Our inside source, who is an elder in the church, revealed to TPCN on Thursday evening that both the Archbishop of the Rivers Province, Most Rev Dr Kaladokubo and the mediators who initiated the meeting are not happy with the development on Thursday.
The source, who said he has been a member of the church for thirty-six years, said: “The Archbishop and others who were to be at the meeting were overwhelmed at the level of desperation of these people in the other faction. Their reason for stopping the meeting is unclear because we believe that the meeting is for the good interest of our church. This crisis is not helping us in anyway and the earlier we resolve it, the better, otherwise it might affect our membership.”
On what led to the whole crisis in the church, the source, who hails from the riverine part of Rivers State, said: “My brother, it is a long story but to make it brief, it is all about leadership and colonization issue. To be frank with you, we don’t have a problem in this church but our brothers in the western part of Nigeria who feel they are in majority are the people insinuating the crisis. They want to control the entire hierarchy of the church and in order to achieve that, they are doing everything possible to push away the current primate of the church who is from the South-South here. They want him to quit before his tenure expires in the next three or four years and we know that this is wrong. So, because some of our clergy men, especially those from this part of the country are not in support of this injustice, that is why they are witch-hunting them and that is how this crisis started.”
Asked if this issue is linked to the suspension of their Archbishop in the Rivers Province, Most Rev. Dr Kaladokubo, the source said: “Of course this is the genesis of the problem that led to his suspension. From what I know as a key member and elder of the church, Archbishop Kaladokubo did not support the injustice against the primate because he also believes in due process. May be they felt disappointed that he did not support them, being that Rivers Province is one of the influential and biggest provinces. So, I believe that the so-called suspension is a way to punish him for not supporting their evil agenda.
“Archbishop Kaladokubo is a good man who has fear of God and has not committed any bad thing to warrant his suspension. That is why the suspension is of no effect. To start with, Rivers Province is not under their sphere of control, so how can they suspend him? “Besides, I’m aware that this issue is in court, so, again, how can they suspend him? As long as I’m concerned, the suspension is null and void. We in the Rivers Province have no problem with our Archbishop, apart from a few disgruntled elements who are being used by our western brothers.”
But a member of the other faction, who spoke to TPCN in anonymity, denied knowledge of any threats from his camp, insisting that no meeting was scheduled.
He added: “I was not aware of any meeting scheduled on Thursday or any threats per se. We have been having meetings in the church and we know how we go about it. Having a meeting in our church has never been an issue but it’s like some people want to make an issue out of nothing, may be to score a cheap goal. It doesn’t make sense for me. Are we not attending service in our church? Has anybody attacked anybody during service? So why will an ordinary meeting in our church be an issue? Although we may have our internal problems just like in every other large organization but that does not mean that it will escalate to the point where we cannot hold meeting to resolve it. All I’m saying is that no peace meeting was scheduled and nobody aborted any meeting either through threats or whatever.”
