Cardinal John Onaiyekan said the Nigerian politician Hyacinth Alia, the governor of Benue State who is a suspended priest, should not be regarded as a Catholic cleric.
Speaking on local television in Abuja, Cardinal Onaiyekan said Alia was no longer qualified to be referred to as a Catholic priest because he disobeyed his bishop by venturing into politics.
Onaiyekan, the 82-year-old former Archbishop of Abuja, said Alia’s bishop had refused him permission to pursue his political ambitions, and when Alia insisted on running had responded: “Okay, if you go, I suspend you.”
Governor Alia was suspended from public ministry by Bishop William Avenya of Gboko on 20 May 2022, a year before he became governor.
Alia remains suspended, Onaiyekan said, and does not meet the criteria to function as an active Catholic priest while holding political office, although he has not been laicised.
Fr Hyacinth Iormen Alia, 57, stood for election in 2023 as a candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the party of Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu.
Alia was just a year into his tenure as a parish priest in the Diocese of Gboko, having spent about eight years as a priest and hospital chaplain in the United States.
His educational background and experience in the US appear to have helped him secure a landslide victory in the governorship election.
Ordained to the Diocese of Makurdi in 1990, as a serving priest Alia was best known for his healing ministry.
“He healed people who were possessed by evil spirits, and he was very effective at it,” Fr Vitalis Torwel, who attended seminary with Alia, previously told reporters.
“People who came and received healing from their various sicknesses started circulating the message to their friends and family, and from there, Fr Hyacinth Alia’s healing Mass became the talk of every house in the state and across the country.”
His ministry became a theme of his campaign for governor, with one campaign advert reading: “Heal the Land. Heal Benue.”
In the US, Aliea earned a master’s degree in education from Fordham University in the Bronx, New York, and another master’s and a doctoral degree, both in biomedical ethics, from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
He served as a parish priest at Immaculate Conception Church and Our Lady of the Cenacle Church, both in Queens, New York, where he also performed chaplaincy duties at Jamaica Hospital.
He also worked as a chaplaincy administrator at Catholic Health Services in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, and at St Joseph’s Mercy Health System in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He returned to Benue in 2005.
In a letter to the Diocese of Gboko where Alia was serving when he ran for office in May 2022, Bishop Avenya referred to Canon 287 §2: “Clerics are not to play an active role in political parties or in directing trade unions unless, in the judgment of competent ecclesiastical authority, this is required for the defence of the rights of the Church or to promote the common good.”
The bishop said Alia’s suspension would remain in effect until he “ceases from contumacy”. However, the suspension did little to diminish Alia’s popularity in Benue, a predominantly Catholic state, where Alia won a large majority the following year.
Alia was not the first Catholic priest to become governor of Benue. Fr Moses Orshio Adasu accepted suspension from the priesthood and was elected governor on on 2 January 1992.
Adasu founded Benue State University and developed the economy before he was forced to leave office two years later following a military coup.
Despite his suspension, Alia continued to wear his clerical collar during his nine-month campaign, despite the objections of fellow priests who knew of his suspension.
Since wearing clerical dress at his inauguration, however, Alia has generally donned traditional clothing or Western business suits for public events. Alia has said he plans to return to the ministry after his public service ends.