By Obinna Odogwu And Aloysius Atah
Rev. Father Christopher Eze of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Abba, Anambra has called upon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigeria-born international writer to stop griping about his criticism of her during her mother’s burial and learn to live with it. 
He was responding to the mention of the incident in a keynote address presented by Adichie last Monday, at the 62nd Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA-AGC). Held at the Eko Atlantic City, Victoria Island, Lagos, Adichie had, in the 33-minute keynote address that she delivered as the guest speaker, made reference to the case while trying to call for peace anchored on justice.
Noting that she had been seen as “troublesome” in some quarters for holding strong views on some issues, a view which she said does not sit well with her, she cited the incident in which she was unfairly criticized by her local Catholic priest, during a thanksgiving outing for her mother’s funeral. Some months earlier before the death and burial of her mother, she had granted an interview in which she criticized the Catholic and other churches in Nigeria for laying much emphasis on money, through fundraising and other activities.
But she said that during the thanksgiving service meant to honor her mother, Rev. Fr. Eze saw it as an opportunity to call her out over the interview and to tongue-lash her publicly for holding such a view. She noted that while she was not against the priest for holding a contrary opinion to hers, she was however disappointed that he chose her mother’s funeral not only to criticize her but also to misrepresent her view. She added that while she is not against anyone who wants to help the church out financially, she is totally against the church extorting the poor under any guise.
She stated that even though she took her time that day to explain this much to members of the church in Abba community where she hails from, the local priest continued to malign and misrepresent her. She regretted that the Catholic Church had not deemed it fit to either punish him for desecrating her mother’s funeral or ask him to offer apologies to the family for what he did.
She said: “I was not asking for peace. I was asking for justice. I wanted the Bishop (in charge of the area) to do the right thing, to take responsibility, to reprimand the priest in the same public way that the priest had desecrated my mother’s funeral, to set a precedence for consequences and therefore make sure that no other priest could turn what was one of the saddest days of one’s life into a venue for settling petty scores. Anyway that didn’t happen. I can tell you that as I stand here I am still filled with a shimmering, flowering unending rage.”
Saturday Sun’s attempt to get the Awka Diocesan Catholic Director of Communications, Rev. Fr. Martin Anusi to explain why that had not been done proved unsuccessful as he was said to be away in Rome for the inauguration of Bishop Peter Okpaleke of Ekwulobia Diocese in Anambra State as a Cardinal, a ceremony which takes place today in the Vatican City.
But Rev. Father Eze, the priest at the center of the storm was not happy that Adichie is still griping about the incident. He shot back thus when the paper asked him the same question: “The whole world has heard her unhappiness. Then what about it? I preached the good news. She didn’t accept it. Good for her. She is free.”
But in her explanation during the keynote address on why she brought in the story, Adichie noted that the incident and its aftermath of almost everybody who heard about it asking her to let go of the matter made her “realize how often in this country we sweep aside injustice in the name of peace. It’s always a fragile and hollow peace because as long as we refuse to entangle the knot of justice, real peace cannot thrive.”
She noted that “in the name of peace, we say things like, ‘ok, just leave it’; ‘ok, it is enough now’, ‘ok, it was very bad, but you should just stop talking about it,’ ‘ok, just manage it now, don’t do it.’ But she remarked that by calling for peace without justice, “we continue to make mediocrity our norm. We fail to hold our leaders accountable and we turn what should be transparent systems into ugly opaque cults.”
She stated further: “My experience also made me start to think that there is something dead in us, something dead in our society. A death of self-awareness, a death of self-reflection, a death of compassion, a death of intellectual curiosity, a death of the ability for self-criticism. And I think it is time for a collective resurrection, so to speak. We cannot refuse to practice self-criticism and yet criticize the government. We cannot ignore the abuse by our religious, our traditional, our community leaders and focus only on the abuses of political leaders. We cannot want to hide our own institutional failures while demanding transparency from government institutions. The first question we must ask is: what is the right thing to do? Not what is the materially beneficial thing to do or what is the institutionally beneficial thing to do. If we continue to sweep injustice for the sake of a hollow peace, then we will leave behind for our children and their children an utterly bleak inheritance.”
But some Catholic faithful who weighed into the matter felt that the accusation about the church extorting money from poor people might not be totally correct. While one of them argued that the whole money and fundraising is not restricted to the Catholic Church, another wrote: “That’s her business. Who cares? Leave some of us who love to give.”
One Athonia Eghrudjge argued: “When you see what you don’t like, ask questions and don’t conclude. This last Christmas, my parish in Asaba fed about 1,000 families and they are not Catholics. From such money, workers are paid; priests are taken care of; families in need are cared for. I don’t know about other denominations but in Catholic, every money given and spent is accounted for, at least in my parish. They help in paying people’s bills, eg hospitals, prisons, schools, etc. for those who can’t afford it”.
Uche Ogbodo said: “Please, just say your church in the village does it. Not the Catholic Church because they hardly ask people for money.”
Another respondent added a ludicrous angle to the argument when he wrote: “Accept Jesus as your personal savior before it’s too late. Time is running out. I come in peace.”
At the NBA conference, Adichie implied that reactions such as the foregoing give her some creeps. She said: “I have had the distinct pleasure of being called troublesome. Because sarcasm can often be lost in speeches of this sort, I think I should clarify that I used the word “pleasure” sarcastically. Of course, it is never enjoyable to be called troublesome or controversial, or provocative. At least, it isn’t enjoyable to me. I have never set out to provoke for the sake of provoking. Not only do I think that it is quite a juvenile way of being in the world, but it is not my nature. However, I refused to silence myself for fear that I might inadvertently provoke. What guides me, in general, is never the question: will this attract criticism? But rather the question: is this true? Do I truly believe this? And will this potentially result in a greater good?
“It has always been important to me to say what I believe, to speak up for causes I feel strongly about, to call out injustice…Throughout history, those who have maintained principled positions and fought for justice have often been viewed as troublesome. Even the principal figures of Christianity and Islam were considered troublesome in their time. But a potential problem with the word “troublesome” is the assumption that the troublesome action is itself the point. The troublemaking is not the point. What matters is not that we are troublesome. What matters is: why are we troublesome? The remarkably humane and resilient African-American civil rights leader, John Lewis often spoke of the necessity of making “good trouble” which I understand to mean, not trouble for the sake of making trouble, but trouble to achieve a greater good and in this case, justice.”