Pope Francis threatens to sack Nigerian priests

Pope Francis has laid down an ultimatum to defiant Nigerian priests: lose your job if you don’t obey me and your bishop.

According to a report by Associated Press, Pope Francis met June 8 at the Vatican with a delegation from the Ahiara diocese, south-east Nigeria where priests have been refusing to accept the 2012 appointment by the then pontiff, Benedict XVI, of the local bishop.

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, reporting the pope’s unusually harsh order, said on Sunday that Francis was acting “for the good of the people of God” by threatening to suspend the priests from the ministry if they didn’t pledge in a letter, by July 9, “total obedience” to Francis and accept Bishop Peter Okpaleke’s appointment.

Mr. Francis told the visiting delegation he was “very sad” about the priests’ refusal to obey and ruled out tribal loyalties as explaining the refusal.

Africa has been one of the continents where the Catholic church is growing. The faithful and clergy there often imbue their practices with local culture in dynamic contrast to more traditional routines in Europe or North America.

Francis’ move to end disobedience to the Vatican aims at ensuring the growing church there will be loyal to the pontiff.

His remarks to the visiting delegation indicated how dangerous he viewed any rebellion against papal authority.

Those priests opposing Mr. Okpaleke’s taking up of his office “want to destroy the church, which is not permitted,” the pope said in his address to the delegation.

He added: “the pope can’t be indifferent” to the rebellion.

He has often taken a conciliatory tone in resolving disputes, but in this one he was entertaining no diplomacy. He demanded that each priest in the diocese write to him asking forgiveness and “clearly manifest total obedience to the pope.”

They must also accept the bishop chosen by Rome. If, within a month, each priest doesn’t do so, he will be “ispo facto suspended,” such as from the celebration of the sacraments, and “will lose his current office,” Francis warned.

Francis acknowledged that his move “seems very harsh.” He added that he had even considered the extraordinary remedy of suppressing the entire diocese but didn’t, so as not to hurt rank-and-file faithful.

He said he thought the rebellious priests might have been manipulated from outside the diocese or even abroad, but named no culprits.

In 2015, the diocese served around 520,000 Catholics, out of a local population of about 675,000, and had 128 diocesan priests and seven other priests. It wasn’t immediately clear how many of the priests were involved in the rebellion against the bishop’s appointment.

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Nigeria trying to prevent another civil war

In a brazen move on Tuesday (June 6), a coalition of youth leaders in northern Nigeria handed an ultimatum to all Igbos (the ethnic group from southeast Nigeria) resident in the 19 northern states to “relocate within three months.”

The coalition said a failure to relocate will see it “mobilize” northerners “against” Igbos resident in the north. The coalition defended its ultimatum saying the continued secessionist calls in Nigeria’s southeast have “led to the impediment of other people’s rights.” That claim was a reference to the recent commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s civil war in parts of the southeast. Despite not being a public holiday, a sit-at-home order by the secessionist groups to mark the day was widely observed.

The ultimatum evoked bitter memories from 1966 when Igbo people were forced to flee from northern Nigeria following continued massacres. In response, southeast leaders declared independence from Nigeria in May 1967 to form the Republic of Biafra, claiming the national government had failed to protect Igbos. The attempted secession resulted in a three-year long brutal civil war that claimed the lives of over a million people.

But this time, in a swift response, governors of the 19 northern states have denounced the coalition’s ultimatum. The government of Kaduna state, where the ultimatum was issued, has also ordered the prosecutionof the members of the coalition. For his part, Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s acting president, denounced what he described as “hate speech.”

The swift responses from various sections of government are noteworthy as it appears lessons have been learned from two of the country’s worst security crises over the last 15 years.

The Boko Haram insurgency which has devastated much of the northeast since 2009 is often attributed to the government’s failure in dealing with the group’s potency while at its infancy despite repeated warnings. The government’s eventual intervention resulted in the death of Boko Haram’s erstwhile leader while in police detention, sparking violent reprisals by the group’s new leadership.

Meanwhile, in Nigeria’s volatile oil-rich south, starting in the early-2000s, militant groups frequently carried out rogue operations, kidnapping expats for ransom and carrying out large-scale oil theft. Despite a presidential amnesty program which kicked off in 2009 to resolve the crisis, militancy resumed last year with groups damaging oil installations and hobbling Nigeria’s production capacity. A fragile peace currently holds after the government ceded to the groups’ negotiations demands.

Quartz

Boko Haram attacks Maiduguri, Nigeria

Suspected Boko Haram fighters attacked the city of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria on Wednesday, the Islamist militant group's most serious assault on the regional capital in a year and a half.

The raid comes six months President Muhammadu Buhari said Boko Haram had "technically" been defeated by a military campaign that had pushed many jihadists deep into the remote Sambisa forest, near the border with Cameroon.

Aid workers and Reuters witnesses reported explosions and heavy gunfire for at least 45 minutes in the southeastern and southwestern outskirts of the city. Thousands of civilians fled the fighting, according to Reuters witnesses.

Nigeria's military said it had contained the attack.

"The situation in Maiduguri is under control," it said in a statement, urging the city's inhabitants not to panic.

Maiduguri in Borno state has been the epicenter of the eight-year fight against Boko Haram but has been relatively free of violence since the beginning of 2016, barring sporadic suicide bombs on its outskirts.

Fighter jets roared overhead as soldiers and police sped toward the scene, the Reuters witnesses said. Three children were hit by bullets, one witness said.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram's campaign to establish a mediaeval caliphate in the Lake Chad basin. A further 2.7 million have been displaced, creating one of the world's largest humanitarian emergencies.

Despite the military's success in liberating cities and towns, much of Borno remains off-limits, hampering efforts to deliver food aid to nearly 1.5 million people believed to be on the brink of famine.

Reuters