Police and Security Personnel’s has aborted the planned protest and procession organized by the Laity Council and Catholic faithful of the Catholic Diocese of Ahiara in Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo state over the appointment of Peter Ebele Okpalaeke as the Bishop of the diocese.
Over 3, 000 Lay faithful of the Diocese converged on the Mater Ecclesiae Cathedral, Mbaise in Imo State 1st July for a rally to register their total rejection of the embattled Bishop Peter Ebele Okpaleke but the Rosary procession/protest was aborted by Security operatives stationed at all strategic junctions leading to the diocese.
Inside sources gathered that both the Laity Council and the Priests in the Diocese rejected the appointment of Okpaleke by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 among other reasons on the grounds that he is not an indigene of the area.
The protest which witnessed Catholic men and women dressed in different church uniforms while the diocesan youths, who put on black attire, chanted solidarity songs to reaffirm their support for the position taken by the Ahiara Diocese Clerics and the laity council’s to rejection of Okpaleke.
According to the protesters, they were only fighting alleged imposition of a bishop on the diocese and not the Catholic Pontiff.
