From March next year when he will lead the over 18 million Nigerian Anglicans, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh will bring strict conservatism of his military background and years of close collaboration with out-going Primate Peter Akinola to bear on the Church, write Hendrix Oliomogbe (Asaba), Lawrence Njoku (Enugu) and Wole Oyebade (Lagos)GENERALLY, Christianity is founded on strict conservatism. The heads of nearly all the old Christian groups are known for their conservatism. The heads practically take to heart the Biblical saying: As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it be, a world without end!
The world should not expect any thing less from the in-coming head of the Anglican Communion in Nigeria, Archbishop Nicholas Dikeriehi Orogodo Okoh who will assume office in March next year. Primate-elect Okoh will be an iron-cast conservative, given the constituency he is coming from: The military.
Until 2001 when he retired from the Nigerian Army as a Lieutenant Colonel, Okoh has not known another profession since adolescence. He worked for about four years with his uncle in private business after leaving primary school at the age of 12 in 1964.
On the current issues tearing the worldwide Anglican Communion apart, Archbishop Okoh is on the same plane as the man he will succeed on March 25, 2010, the ultra-conservative Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola who literarily looked the worldwide Anglican Church eye-ball to eye-ball and proclaimed that the Church was wrong to have looked the other side on a vital issue of spirituality. Since 2003 when Archbishop Akinola took the stand against the dilution of the priesthood with confessed gays in the United States (U.S.) and homosexuality, the Communion has not been the same again.
The worldwide Anglican Communion should not expect any deviation from Archbishop Okoh. In fact, he has been one of the greatest and most fastidious supporters of Archbishop Akinola on the Nigerian Anglican Communion's stand against the "sins" of the Episcopal Church of the North Americas on the matter of embrace of gays and homosexuality in the Church.
Elected unanimously at the recent Congress of the House of Bishops held at St. Stephens Cathedral Church Umuahia, Abia State, on Tuesday as the fourth Primate of the Nigeria Anglican Communion, 56-year old Archbishop of Bendel and Bishop of Asaba Diocese, Rt. Revd. Okoh was born at the rustic Owa-Alero, Ika North East Local Council of Delta State on November 10, 1952.
The tone for the selection of the successor to Revd. Akinola had been set with the sermon by Bishop of Aba Diocese, Rt. Revd. Ugochukwu Ezuoke when he called on his colleagues to seek God's intervention and shun materials and financial inducements, which he said could corrupt and derail the direction of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps, not giving in to chance and widely held speculations that homosexuals have in fact infiltrated the church with a view to ensuring that the next successor to Akinola would come from that divide, the 146 Bishops, who constituted themselves into what is known as House of Bishops, began the day with a communion service.
In the about one hour service called "divine service", which was strictly attended by only the Bishops, they took time to dwell on Biblical injunctions and prayers for guidance in the would-be successor among the four contenders said to have indicated interest in the plump position.
Revd. Ezuoke had said that the trying times which the Communion was passing through called for more dedication, prayers and hard work from the House of Bishops, as leaders who are being looked upon to salvage mankind and redeem the image of the church, stressing that the position taken against practices of the Church in the western world should not be compromised.
He said that time had come for the leaders to dedicate the effort spent in quarrelling to the service of God, stressing that God's standard could never be compromised no matter how it was looked at.
The Church of Nigeria, he continued, must rise above selfish desires and tendencies that were drawing it backwards, adding that, leaders must respect and obey God at all times.
For over five hours, balloting upon balloting took place, appeals for understanding and prayers for God's intervention for the emergence of the likely successor. And exactly at 4.10 p.m., there was clapping inside the cathedral hall. There were shouts of praises, hugging and back slapping. Five minutes later, Dean of Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) His Grace Maxwell Anikwenwa, emerged with the General Secretary of the Communion, laughing and clutching his file. He announced the election of Archbishop Okoh to the primateship.
Speaking on the development, Rt. Revd. Segun Adeyen, the Bishop of Kwara Diocese, said that the communion has survived another litmus test, stressing that the crisis that brought divisions among other internal bickering in the Church in Nigeria made the issue more complex.
"But having survived this exercise and the interest and commitment shown by all, you will agree with me that the Church of Nigeria is marching forward", he said.
Although he agreed that Archbishop Okoh was faced with the difficult task of ensuring unity and restoration of peace in the communion in line with biblical tenets, he said that with the support demonstrated by the Bishops, there was no going back in what had been entrusted in his hands.
"All we need do is to continue in prayers and increase the support. We are very comfortable with the way and manner this exercise was held. No body complained. In fact, at some point, when it became obvious that he was headed for victory, others began to withdraw showing that it is not a do-or-die thing", he added.
An elated Bishop of Enugu, Rt. Revd. Emmanuel Chukwuma, said that the will of God triumphed, stressing that the Church must toe the path of righteousness to enable it over come her crisis.
Archbishop Dr. Peter Jensen, general secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) welcomed the election saying: "Nicholas Okoh was present at the foundation of GAFCON and has played a leading part in the movement. Archbishop Okoh has made a significant contribution as the Chairman of the Theological Resource group. He is an able and committed Christian leader and we warmly welcome his appointment."
Okoh's journey to the pinnacle of the Anglican Communion in Nigeria began soon after he joined the Nigerian Army in 1969 during the Nigerian civil war. He rose through the ranks to commission as second Lieutenant (2/Lt.) in 1982. He retired in 2001 as a Lt.-Col., shedding his khaki for full cassock work. Just as he left the army, he was appointed the Bishop of Asaba in March of that year.
A self made man, Okoh attended St. Michael's Anglican School, Owa-Alero from 1958-1964 where he obtained his First School Leaving Certificate. He had a four-year stint in business under one of his uncles.
While in the Army, Okoh continued his education and passed his Ordinary Level (O/L) General Certificate in Education (GCE) in 1974 and Advanced Level GCE in 1976, by which time he was already at Vining Christian Leadership Centre, Akure, Ondo State where he trained as a Catechist from 1975-1976.
Between 1976 and 1979, he was at Immanuel College of Theology, Ibadan, Oyo State for his pastoral studies. There, he obtained a Diploma in Religious Studies and Theology. Later that same year, he left for the University of Ibadan where he obtained a Bachelor's degree in 1982 and a Master's in 1985 in the same discipline.
Ordained a Deacon in July 1979, he became a priest the following year and seven years later was made a Canon. About14 years after, he was appointed an Archdeacon in 1991. Consecrated as Bishop of Asaba Diocese on May 6, 2001, he was elected Archbishop of Bendel Province on July 22, 2005.
On October 4, 1996, he got married to Nkasiobi and is blessed with five children.
During his time in the Nigerian Army, Okoh was the Chaplain of the 3 Armoured Division Garrison, Jos, Plateau State and was also the Vicar of St. Luke Military Church, Yaba, Lagos. Between 1984 and 1989, he was the Vicar of All Saints Church, Abalti Barracks and Army Headquarters Garrison Chaplain, Ojuelegba, Lagos.
Primate-elect Okoh who left Umuahia for Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory after his election, will superintend over a flock of about 18 million in Nigeria.
It is the support of this huge congregation and the support of the African Provinces with that of Canada that has aligned with the stand of the Nigerian Communion that Archbishop Okoh would bring to bear on the worldwide Communion on the yet-to-be resolved split in the body.
The crisis reached a crescendo in 2003 when the Diocese of New Hampshire, the U.S. elected Rev. Gene Robinson as Bishop.
The Most Revd. Akinola, in his views on homosexuality and the ordination of openly-confessed gay bishops, two controversial issues which have caused friction in the church, said that homosexuality is contrary to the scriptures and cannot be advised.
He said that the practice violates the first principle of the Communion's Quadrilateral and indeed the fundamental basis of Anglican Christianity.
Archbishop Okoh in a joint statement by the Council of African Provinces, in Africa called on the deviant Episcopal Church of the U.S. and the Anglican Church of Canada to repent and bring their practice in line with scripture and with the mind of the Lambert Conference.
He explained that after the election of Robinson, many provinces chose the only instrument of discipline available: Declaration of impaired or broken Communion. In February of 2004, 13 Global South Primates, including eight from Africa, denounced the actions of the Episcopal Church as a "direct repudiation of the clear teaching of the Holy Scriptures, historic faith and order of the church". Donations from pro-gay American Dioceses are treated as leprous.
The Office of the Primate becomes vacant when the incumbent has held office for 10 years or attains the age of 70.
The Anglican Communion is an international association of national Anglican churches. There is no single "Anglican Church" with universal juridical authority as each national or regional church has full autonomy. As the name suggests, the Anglican Communion is an association of these churches in full communion with the Church of England (which may be regarded as the mother church of the worldwide communion) and specifically with its principal primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, recognized as symbolic head of the worldwide communion. Among the other primates he is primus inter pares, (first among equals.) The status of full communion of the church means that there is mutual agreement on essential doctrines, and that full participation in the sacramental life of each national church is available to all communicant Anglicans.
Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion in the world, with about 77 million members. Some of these churches are known as Anglican, explicitly recognising the historical link to England, Ecclesia Anglicana, meaning the 'Church of England'. It considers itself to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and to be both Catholic and Reformed.
The Anglican Communion is a relatively recent concept. The Church of England (which until the 20th century included the Church in Wales) initially separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1538 in the reign of King Henry VIII, reunited in 1555 under Queen Mary I and then separated again in 1570 under Queen Elizabeth I (the Roman Catholic Church excommunicated Elizabeth I in 1570 in response to the Act of Supremacy 1559).
The Church of Scotland separated from the Roman Catholic Church with the Scottish Reformation in 1560, and the split from it of the Scottish Episcopal Church began in 1582, in the reign of James VI of Scotland, over disagreements about the role of bishops.
The first mission of the Church of England was set up in 1842 in Badagry, in present Lagos State by Henry Townsend. In 1864 Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba and former slave, was elected bishop of the Niger. Lagos became a diocese of its own in 1919. Leslie Gordon Vining became bishop of Lagos in 1940 and in 1951 the first Archbishop of the newly inaugurated Province of West Africa. He was also the last bishop of Lagos, of European decent.
The Church of Nigeria is the second-largest Province in the Anglican Communion, as measured by baptized membership, after the Church of England.
Since 2002 the church of Nigeria is organised in 10 ecclesiastical Provinces. It has rapidly increased the number of its dioceses and bishops from 91 in 2002 to 122 (as at May 2007). The administrative headquarters is located in Abuja.
On February 24, 1979, the 16 dioceses of Nigeria were joined in the ecclesiastical province of Nigeria with Timothy O. Olufosoye, then bishop of Ibadan, becoming its first archbishop, primate and metropolite. Between 1980 and 1988, eight additional dioceses were created. In 1988, J. Abiodun Adetiloye became the second primate and metropolite of Nigeria and the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) was founded.
In 1989 the diocese of Abuja was created with Peter Akinola as first bishop.
The 1990s were the decade of evangelization for the Church of Nigeria. They consecrated mission bishops for the mission dioceses of Minna, Kafanchan, Katsina, Sokoto, Makurdi, Yola, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Egbado and Ife.
Between 1993 and 1996 primate Adetiloye founded nine dioceses, Oke-Osun, Sabongidda-Ora, Okigwe North, Okigwe South, Ikale-Ilaje, Kabba, Nnewi, Egbu, and Niger Delta North. In December 1996 five more mission dioceses in the North, Kebbi, Dutse, Damaturu, Jalingo and Oturkpo.
In 1997 and 1998 four more dioceses were established, Wusasa, Abakaliki, Ughelli and Ibadan North. In 1999, the Church of Nigeria added 13 new dioceses, four in July (Oji River, Ideato, Ibadan South and Offa), eight in November (Lagos West, Ekiti West, Gusau, Gombe, Niger Delta West, Gwagwalada, Lafia and Bida) and Oleh in December.
So, within 10 years, there were 27 new regular dioceses and 15 mission dioceses created. The archbishop of Canterbury declared the Church of Nigeria to be the fastest growing church in the Anglican Communion.
In 1997, the Church of Nigeria was split into three ecclesiastical provinces.
Province 1 consisting of the dioceses in the West and headed by archbishop Adetiloye who remained primate of All Nigeria.
Province 2, consisting of the Eastern dioceses, headed by Ben Nwankiti bishop of Owerri as archbishop. Province 3, consisting of the Northern dioceses, headed by Akinola, bishop of Abuja, as archbishop.
In 2000, Archbishop Akinola succeeded Archbishop Adetiloye as Primate, following the retirement of the Primate and Archbishop of Province 1, the Most Revd. J. Abiodun Adetiloye. Primate Akinola saw the need for a new focus and, indeed, a vision for the Anglican Communion. As the holy Bible puts it in Proverbs 29: 18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish".
He saw the beginning of his tenure as a timely opportunity to chart a new future for the Church.
He believed that the process of charting this new future must involve the various hierarchies of the Church so that they, together, will evolve a shared vision. Primate Akinola therefore used the occasion of his presentation in Abuja on March 25, 2000 to flag off the process of articulating the vision for the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion).
The Communion under him, recognized that the failure of the Church, national governance and society at large has led to a situation whereby Nigeria as a country is faced with such problems as lack of genuine unity, religious and ethnic conflicts, corruption, indiscipline, lack of exemplary leadership and moral decadence, among others. In the face of the foregoing challenges, the Church of Nigeria was provoked to set objectives and goals that will lift it on to a higher pedestal, and to design strategies and programmes that will lead to the attainment of the desired goal.
One of his first actions as primas was, to get together 400 bishops, priests, lay members and members of the Mother's Union to elaborate a vision for the Church of Nigeria under chaired by Chief Ernest Shonekan, a former Head of Interim National Government.
The vision elaborated was: "The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) shall be: bible-based, spiritually dynamic, united, disciplined, self supporting, committed to pragmatic evangelism, social welfare and a Church that epitomizes the genuine love of Christ."
In 2002, the Church of Nigeria was again reorganised, this time in 10 ecclesiastical provinces. In 2005, as one of the goals of the Vision of the Church of Nigeria, the church-owned Ajayi Crowther University in Oyo was granted license to operate as a private university in Nigeria on January 7, 2005.
Like others in its class, the communion has also had its own fair-share of internal rancour. One effect of the Communion's dispersed authority has been that conflict and controversy regularly arise over the effect of divergent practices and doctrines in one part of the Communion have on others. Disputes that had been confined to the Church of England could be dealt with legislatively in that realm, but as the Communion spread out into new nations and disparate cultures, such controversies multiplied and intensified. These controversies have generally been liturgical and social.
During the crisis, Primate Akinola issued the communiqué: Why I object to homosexuality and same-sex unions: "Our argument is that, if homosexuals see themselves as deviants who have gone astray, the Christian spirit would plead for patience and prayers to make room for their repentance. When scripture says something is wrong and some people say that it is right, such people make God a liar. We argue that it is a blatant lie against Almighty God that homosexuality is their God-given urge and inclination. For us, it is better seen as an acquired aberration.
"The issue is such an important one, such a defining one, with the potential of splitting the Communion, because it has become a chronic aberration, which is being defended and promoted in the Church of God. On the authority of the word of God, we see homosexuality as a rebellion against God, like that typified by Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. A rebellion cannot be relative.
"Moreover, homosexuality is flagrant disobedience to God, which enables people to pervert God's ordained sexual expression with the opposite sex. In this way, homosexuals have missed the mark; they have shown themselves to be trespassers of God's divine laws.
"Protagonists of homosexuality try to elevate this aberration, beyond divine scrutiny, while church leaders, who are called to proclaim the undiluted word of God like the prophets of old, are unashamedly looking the other way.
"The practice of homosexuality, in our understanding of the scripture, is the enthronement of self-will and human weakness, and a rejection of God's order and will. This cannot be treated with levity; otherwise the Church, and the God she preaches, will be badly deformed and diminished.
"Homosexuality does violence to nature. As someone puts it: 'It contradicts the very light and law of nature.' Romans 1.26-27 says it this way: 'For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.'
"The issue is such a defining one because two cannot go together except if they agree. To overlook this fundamental departure from scripture is not safe for faith or conscience; it means 'walking in the counsel of the ungodly.' The consequence is to risk the displeasure of God.
"What we are talking about is an attack on the Church by some whose aim is to discredit the gospel, pollute the Church, neutralise its power and pull it down. Christ has forewarned: 'He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad' (Matthew 12.30).
"If those who are promoting this energy-sapping and unnecessary controversy were to be a little more spiritually sensitive; if they were to walk closely with the Lord and accept the authority of his word as revealed in the scripture, they would not need to be persuaded about what is at stake.
"The acceptance of homosexuality and lesbianism as normal is the triumph of disobedience; the enthronement of human pride over the will of God. This lifestyle is a terrible violation of the harmony of the eco-system of which mankind is a part. As we are rightly concerned by the depletion of the ozone layer, so should we be concerned by the practice of homosexuality."
In conclusion, he said: "With this tragic topic on the agenda of the Anglican Church worldwide, the Church has regrettably come to crossroads, but we hope that the Compass Rose will be able to give direction on the safest way home - to peace and communion. The majority of us still believe that communion is important, and it is cherished by us all.
"However, this is not at the expense of vital communion with God, and certainly not at the cost of shepherding more than 17 million Nigerian Anglicans into harm's way by leading them into the wilderness of morally empty theologising. Homosexuality or lesbianism or bestiality is to us a form of slavery, and redemption from it is readily available through repentance and faith in the saving grace of our Lord, Jesus the Christ," Akinola said.
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