Abakaliki, 15 July, 2022 / 9:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Fr. John Okwoeze Odey, the member of the Clergy of Abakaliki Diocese in Nigeria who was suspended in November last year in relation to a book he authored has apologized and denounced the content of the published book as “contentious” and replete with “half-truths and innuendos”.
In his letter obtained by ACI Africa Friday, July 15, Fr. Odey acknowledges the damage his book caused, and, regrets the fact that he disobeyed call for him to change his “way of thinking and acting”.
Bishop Peter Nworie Chukwu who has been at the helm of Nigeria’s Abakaliki Diocese since his Episcopal Ordination in July 2021 suspended Fr. Odey on November 3, 2021.
“I was suspended from performing my priestly functions as a result of a book, ‘The Forbidden Truth and the Clouds of Witness: How Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Obuna Ruled and Crippled Abakaliki Diocese’, which I published and launched on October 23, 2021,” the Nigerian Catholic Priest wrote on July 8, the day before he was expected “to make a written, public apology in St. Theresa’s Cathedral, during the ordination of our new priests”.
In his letter, Fr. Odey, “with full consent”, apologizes to his Bishop, “the Presbyterium, and the entire Christ's Faithful of Abakaliki Diocese, this day 9th July 2022 at St. Theresa's Cathedral Abakaliki for publishing the said book without the Bishop's imprimatur and Nihil Obstat of the Diocesan Censor Deputatis.”