By Chimaobi Nwaiwu

NNEWI—INTERNATIONAL Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Inter-society, has expressed shock and disappointment over what it called “zero participation of members of the clergy and the laity of the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha and its Awka and Nnewi counterparts in Tuesday nationwide protest by the Catholic priests against killings and attacks on churches by gunmen in Nigeria.

Clergymen prepare to bury 17 worshippers and two priests, who were allegedly killed by Fulani herdsmen, at Ayati-Ikpayongo in Gwer East district of Benue State, north-central Nigeria on May 22, 2018./ AFP PHOTO

Intersociety berated “the Onitsha Catholic Archdiocese for having the status of an Ecclesiastical Province and being the oldest place where the church started in Igbo land in late 19th  and early 20th  centuries; yet it has led other two dioceses of Awka and Nnewi into silence of the graveyard and inaction  in the ongoing anti Christian butcheries in Nigeria.”

Intersociety in a statement by its board chairman, Emeka Umuagbalasi and Head, Civil Liberties and rule of law Program,Obianuju Igboeli, titled: “Processions Against Killing of Christians In Nigeria: What is Wrong with Anambra Catholic Bishops?” alleged that the three Catholic Bishops in Anambra state did not show any interest in the protest and therefore prevented their priests from participating.

“Our field reports corroborated by media reports clearly indicated that with the exception of skeletal and scanty parish processions in Ekwulobia, Adazi, Alor and somewhere at Fegge Housing Estate, Onitsha the rest of the state had the all important processions collapsed.”