From Phil Atansi
For the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), currently enmeshed in the controversy thrown up by the double registration of their gubernatorial candidate in the November 16 2013 polls, as the party yesterday incurred the wrath of the Anglican Church over the disruption of its Wednesday prayers Priests of the All Saints Cathedral Onitsha using masquerades.
A source close to the church yesterday confirmed that ,against the agreement reached with the party not to come to its Onitsha rally held at the cathedral in Onitsha with masquerades scores of masquerades where weighted at the occasion, me of which were said to entered the church building ,leading priests to depart the prayer venue in anger.
The prayers are usually held on every Wednesday in the main church building.
Indeed a master of ceremonies in the APGA rally held in cathedral field instructing masquerades to leave the arena in a programme monitored live on Nigerian Television Authority live transmission. In Ijele masquerade was sighted in on television.
But more than ten priests including Rev Mike Okoh, Rev Ekpunobi and Rev Abonne who were affected by the disruption deserted the prayer grounds yesterday, while a formal report on the development has reportedly been mad to the Anglican Bishop of Onitsha, Bishop Owen Nwokolo.
It is not exactly clear what the next line of action but source close to the Bishop said the church us seriously disturbed as what they called the desecration of the church premises and the inability of the party to keep to an agreement reached before the church agreed to the use of their filed for the rally.
‘’We were very clear about the inhibition f all sorts of masquerade in the premises and the least we expected was that the people with whom we entered this simple agreement will do their own part by keeping t the rules to which they agreed, but that has not happened and it is not a good story to tell at all’’ fume a pries who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have any authority to address the matter in the mass media.
