To Kill In The Name Of God Is Outrageous Murder – Archbishop Obinna

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THE CHINUA ACHEBE 

FOUNDATION INTERVIEW SERIES

  April 2006

All Rights Reserved ©

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*Archbishop Obinna during the interview 

Dr. Anthony J.V. Obinna, the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri, is one of Africa’s foremost theologians and scholars. Born on June 26, 1946 in Emekuku (near Owerri), and educated at St. Peter Claver Seminary, Okpala (near Aba), and Bigard Memorial Seminary, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on April 19, 1972. Obinna graduated with First Class Honours in Divinity, from the Bigard Memorial Seminary, an affiliate of the Pontifical Urban University, Rome. He left for Rome for a Masters Degree in Theology, and then for the United States for another Masters in Religious Studies, concentrating on Religion and Culture, and then a PhD in Education and Theology.

A former lecturer in the Religious Studies Department of the Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, Archbishop Obinna is the current Chair of the Education Committee of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria (CBCN). He was ordained a Bishop on September 4, 1993, and became the first Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri when it was created in 1994.

In this interview with UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE, Archbishop Obinna canvasses an attitudinal change, which he hopes will help steer Nigeria out of its present political, moral, and economic descent, and reroute it to the path of progress and lasting development.

Excerpts:

Your Grace, do you think we can in all honesty say that we have freedom of worship in Nigeria today?

Well, constitutionally there is freedom of worship. So, to some extent, it is possible to say: yes, Nigerians worship as they choose. But we have had problems in certain parts of our country, where people were prevented from worshipping, as they desire. There have been attempts to muzzle Christians in some parts of the country, and that goes to show that the freedom of worship enshrined in the constitution is not given its full play. In the more Christian-dominated areas, I believe that there is no prevention of anybody from being a Moslem, from worshipping God. But in some areas of our country, there have been churches that were bulldozed, and land allocations have been refused to Christian worshippers.