Chimamanda Wants Fr. Eze Defrocked for Criticing Her

… Accuses Bishop Ezeokafor of “Supporting Him”

By Rev Fr Robert Anagboso

A trending video of Chimamanda Adichie criticizing the Catholic Church in Nigeria, particularly Fr Christopher Ezeh, and Bishop Paulinus Ezeokafor; both of the Awka Catholic Diocese, has surfaced on the internet. It was gathered that this was not the first time such videos would be making rounds because the literary icon had in the last two years, repeatedly told her stories in multiple fora, even, as she admitted, with a feeling of ‘shimmering, glowering, unending rage’.

In the current circulating video, Adichie could be seen telling her “personal story” to a huge audience. In an apparent comparative analysis of a subject she was speaking on, Chimamanda referenced to an interview she granted two years ago where she said that ‘The Catholic Church in Nigeria has become too much about money’, arguing that her assertion ‘is flagrantly, self-evidently true in so many churches all over this country’.

According to her, ‘The point of calling this out is so that church leaders might curtail this unchristian practice which is driving people away from attending service’.

Going further with her story, Adichie narrated that her ‘constructive criticism’ did not go down well with a few church leaders, including Rev. Fr. Christopher Ezeh, who, according to her, took the occasion of her mother’s funeral to ‘crudely and verbally attack me for daring to criticize the Church’. She added that Fr. Eze’s Bishop and superior ‘who apparently was also upset that I had dared to criticize the Church for being materialistic, supported this priest’.

Arriving at her conclusion, Adichie posited that she spoke to a number of friends whom she knew to be very vocal in criticizing the government but all of them begged her not to go public as matters like that were rather treated privately. She was disappointed that while some people asked her to forget the whole thing, one of them offered to take her to see the Bishop, so that the priest might be punished privately for the sake of peace. ‘But I was not asking for peace, I was asking for justice’, the famed writer added.

Reacting to the current video, Bishop Ezeokafor expressed surprise at the story. He recalled that the said Adichie came to the meeting of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) sometime in 2022 and narrated her story. When she finished, his brother Bishops asked to hear his side. He told them that he was surprised ‘to hear that such a thing happened and that Chimamanda, instead of calling my attention, decided to go public. Well, I cannot force her or stop her from going to the public, and, indeed, no one can stop her if it is what she really wants, but I am always open to dialogue any time, any day and anywhere’.

For his part, Fr. Christopher Ezeh, in a lengthy rebuttal which he entitled “Fr Christopher Ezeh’s Partial Response to Chimamanda’s Repeated Complaints against Church Hierarchies in her public speech posted in this platform”, stated what he termed as ‘actually expired’ between him and Chimamanda. The rebuttal went thus:

1. I hereby write to make this partial and brief response to Chimamanda’s public speech and complaints as posted in this WhatsApp platform as a matter of courtesy to all the members of the clergy and religious men and women of the Catholic Diocese of Awka who are not aware of what actually transpired between Fr Christopher Ezeh (this writer) and Chimamanda Adichie in 2021.
2. Chimamanda was a parishioner of mine at the time, who was living and residing overseas when I was serving as the parish priest of St Paul’s Parish, Abba.
3. Recapturing some of her statements in the attached post, she accused some of the church leaders of not accepting constructive criticisms. Secondly, she stated that for the past two years, she had been boiling with rage as a result of her encounter with her pastor, whose name she announced as Fr Christopher Ezeh, who corrected her publicly for her public unguarded utterances and false accusations against Catholic Churches in Nigeria.
4. In order to excite public sympathy, Chimamanda falsely claims that our encounter took place at her mother’s funeral which is NOT true.
5. Our encounter and the only encounter took place on a Sunday and the Catholic Church does not celebrate funeral on a Sunday. It was precisely on the first Sunday of the month when St Paul’s Parish, Abba, used to conduct their monthly Charity Fund Raising for all the parish’s poor that Chimamanda coincidentally attended thanksgiving Mass, which some families do if they choose, after they have finished with funeral.
6. Thus, it was an act of public deceit and manipulation for Chimamanda to claim bogusly that the incident took place at her mother’s funeral in order to incite public hatred against the Church and church leaders, thereby depicting them as those who lacked sympathy.
7. In her pretext of offering “constructive criticism” to the Church and church personnel, Chimamanda was simply making a name for herself and inciting public opprobrium against the Church and her leaders and sowing seeds of scandal for those who are not well informed.
8. Thus, in her public interviews and speeches, by television, radio, internet and other mass media, she had consistently, publicly and disgracefully accused the Church falsely, stating that all the Catholic Churches in Nigeria chase after money; that they even close church doors against worshippers, and would not let them leave the church in order to force them to make donations; Chimamanda further stated that for this reason, she would not attend Mass whenever she returned home to Nigeria.
9. Before we started the charity donations for the poor after the reception of Holy Communion and post communion prayer that day, I expressed gratitude to all present and informed them of the charity donations we had to conduct for the parish’s poor that day. I explained to all present what we use the money for and how we use it to address the needs of the poor people in our parish, namely, paying their hospital bills, school fees, house rents, distribute food, mend their houses and roofs, et cetera.
10. At this juncture, I politely, kindly and respectfully called the attention of Chimamanda to her public destructive criticisms of fund raising and donations in the Catholic Church. My address was not meant only for her but also for those who heard her public utterances.
11. I gently told Chimamanda that it was an over generalization and false to publicly accuse all the Catholic churches in Nigeria of chasing after money and locking church doors on the worshippers in order to force them to make donations because she had not even attended Masses in all of them as to be certain of what they all do in their churches.
12. Fr Ezeh assured Chimamanda that she would observe in her very own parish church that day, that church doors would be open, people going in and coming out while donations were going on. And so it was.
13. Finally, I told Chimamanda that to announce publicly that she was not attending Mass on Sundays whenever she returned home to Nigeria because of fund raising constituted public scandal and those who are not well informed might copy her bad example.
14. At this point Chimamanda flared up. Then stood up and rudely left the church in a violent rage of anger. Here she is. She publicly criticizes the church leaders for not accepting constructive criticism that she gives but she would not accept constructive criticism when it is directed to her coming from another. The moment she left the church, donations started, and overwhelming donations were poured in by the worshipping Congregation. Many donations were raised that day much more than we ever did in that church.
15. Hearing the great outstanding huge donations of the individuals through the outside powerful microphone, and regaining her senses, Chimamanda re-entered the church and pledged to donate one hundred thousand Naira for the poor which she never redeemed to date because it was all a pretext and no sincerity.
16. Her exiting and re-entering the church belies her false public accusations against “all the Catholic Churches” in Nigeria that they lock church doors on the worshippers in order to force them to make donations. Hence, she was able to exit and re-enter because the church doors were open.
17. After all donations had concluded and announcements made, she requested to speak to the congregation and she was offered the microphone.
18. She expressed gratitude to St Paul’s Catholic Parish for the befitting Catholic funeral accorded to her mother on the day of the Funeral.
19. In her speech, she acknowledged that she said all that Fr Ezeh said that she said. The moment she acknowledged what I said to be true, a wave of murmuring filled the whole church because they were expecting her to deny that she said them. When the murmuring died down, she continued by saying that the cause of her annoyance was that Fr Ezeh did not invite her privately to discuss it with her. There she goes again. She loves privacy but does not believe that the Church and her leaders are also entitled to privacy. She never consulted her home Bishop to ask for his advice before she went public to criticize all the Catholic Churches in Nigeria, but she wanted to be consulted privately before the public damage she did to the Church is rectified publicly. And, because she was not privately consulted, according to her whims, she has been “boiling with rage for the past two years” as she rightly testified in her public speech.
20. In the book of Jeremiah, the Prophet, the Word of God tells us, “Is my Word not like fire and like the hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Cf. Jer. 23:29). Chimamanda rightly acknowledged in her public speech that after her encounter with Fr Ezeh, she has been boiling with rage for the past two years to date. Yes, she is right because the flame of the Word of God spoken to her regarding her erroneous utterances against the Church ignited fire in her which has been burning, raging and consuming her satanic pride and arrogance and it will continue to burn, to put her on the stage round the world to complain shamelessly, exposing her ignorance to public mockery and laughter as a due punishment until all satanic pride and arrogance in her are burned out and she will come back to her senses to surrender to the Church to be forgiven for her unguarded utterances and restored back to peace. It is only then that the raging storm and the boiling rage in her will be abated.
21. Before I conclude, let me draw your attention to the fact that since Chimamanda has been boiling with rage for the past two years since my encounter with her as she acknowledged to the public in her speech, has it dawned on anybody that she has never for once posted any video clip or clips to demonstrate her claims against Fr Ezeh? Why is it that among all the video and photo coverages taken by friends, TV and radio personnel that day, Chimamanda did not post one or some of them to support her claims if they are true.
22. We are in a digital age when occasions are covered, recorded and stored digitally with all kinds of electronic devices. Her personal friends who used their phones to video a couple of things did not find anything to post against Fr Ezeh to justify her claims.
23. Besides, the reason why Chimamanda did not post any video clip of my encounter with her is that any attempt to post anything would disclose her lies and false claims to her shame. Any posting of video clips would display how gentle, kind and respectful Fr Ezeh was when he addressed Chimamanda’s public and erroneous criticism of all the Catholic churches in Nigeria.
24. Any posting of video clips would disclose that Fr Ezeh’s encounter with Chimamanda was not at her mother’s funeral but at a different occasion. So, Chimamanda knows why she never posted any video clip so that she would manipulatively use her lips to lie, to fake, to invent, in order to deceive the public and incite them to hatred against the Church and church leaders.
25. Display of any video clip of Fr Ezeh’s encounter with Chimamanda would disclose that most of the things she said to the public did not take place but were purely made up by her to make her speech presentation very enticing.
26. Display of any video clip of that one encounters at the Charity Sunday Fund Raising Event which was the only encounter that Fr Ezeh had with Chimamanda would disclose how incompetent Chimamanda was in controlling her anger and emotions and how disgracefully she left the church like a spoiled child because her pastor told her that it was a scandal to tell people publicly that she would not attend Masses in Nigeria because of donations in the churches.
27. The Catholic Code of Canon Law spots and condemns such incitements when it states that “a person who publicly incites the people to hatred or animosity against the Church, the Apostolic See or the Ordinary, because of some act of ecclesiastical authority or ministry…is to be punished by interdict or other just penalties.” (Cf. Can. 1373). This is exactly what Chimamanda is manipulatively doing to the Church in the pretext of publicly offering “constructive criticisms” to the Church leaders, but would not humbly take public constructive criticism when it is directed to her, but instead would seek justice against those who administered it.
28. In conclusion, some have suggested that I should have kept quiet in order to avoid trouble. And some suggested that I should have invited Chimamanda privately and talked to her in order to avoid trouble.
29. Jesus did not come into the world to avoid trouble but to ignite trouble, trouble that leads to redemption and salvation of souls and we are already trapped in that trouble by virtue of our vocation. We are called to imitate Christ, the Lord and Master of the vineyard. Any diplomacy that is crafted only for the mere purpose of avoiding trouble but not tinted with sincere love for God, for the Church and for the faithful, is empty and of no use to the Kingdom of God.
30. The Church does not handle public scandals privately because of the faith of those who might have been affected by or exposed to the scandal. The faith of the people affected by the scandal requires to see or to witness what is said or done to the one posing the scandal in order for them not to repeat the scandal. I was the proper pastor of Chimamanda at the time of my encounter with her. It was my duty as her pastor to address her issues that posed public scandals. And, I made sure that I addressed her public scandals when a proper occasion called for it and she happened to be present.

Let this be a food for thought as we daily engage in this spiritual combat in our various apostolates.

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