By Esther Onyegbula

Delta State Police Command, yesterday, alleged that the Parish Priest and Chaplain of the Force in Asaba, Rev. Fr. Pius Onwuegbuzie, has embarked on a campaign of calumny capable of promoting religious war if not checked.

The command in a statement by its spokesperson, Celestin a Kalu, was reacting to allegations by the chaplaincy that there were threats to his life following a ban on church activities beside the police headquarters in Asaba, Delta State.

On the circumstances that led to a face-off with the chaplaincy, the command said it was a case of illegal construction of a Catholic Church building project on an undeveloped Police land beside the Command Headquarters in Asaba.

She said: “It is pertinent to state that all administrative procedures employed by the Command to prevail on the officer to stop the illegal construction of the church yielded no positive result. He deliberately remained adamant in complying with such directives. This act is deemed not only to be unbecoming, but also an attempt to undermine the progressive policing style of the current management team in general and the Inspector-General of Police, in particular. Furthermore, it is also presumed that as a priest, the officer is expected to maintain a high level of discipline and show a leading example to his followers.”

Recalling what happened, she said: “The then Commissioner of Police, Ikechukwu Aduba, received a report that there was a construction of a massive structure at the undeveloped parcel of land and enquiries revealed that the structure believed to be a church was being constructed by the Roman Catholic Church in conjunction with the Police Chaplain.

“The building occupies one acre of land while another acre was also cleared for future use as car park for worshippers, Parish Priest house, toilets etc. However, based on the available facts as contained in the master plan of the command headquarters, a memo was raised by the command that the church building was not in the command’s master plan for the land, as the master plan only provides for church building in-between the State CID and the Department of Operations, which had already been built for serving members to worship and that the area was proposed for State Works, Transport/Works department, Transit Camp.”

“The allegations raised by the officer that he was sent out of the conference and called unprintable names by the State Police boss is unfounded. Rather, he was advised not to adopt confrontational attitude he showed to the immediate past Police boss and his second in command. He was further questioned on why he flagrantly disobeyed directives and continued with the construction project of which he offered no cogent reason. The Police boss also advised him to stop conducting services at the said church and restrict his activities to the existing Chapel within the headquarters complex.”