According to a report by Vanguard, there is a severe war of words raging between authorities of the Anglican Diocese on the Niger and among its priests, Rev Canon Lumenkriti Ebo, who was recently sacked for alleged unethical acts.

While the church accused Ebo of fertilizing a lady who went to his adoration ministry by informing her she had to sleep with him to get recovery, Ebo likewise accused the church of taking his lawfully married better half and accommodating her outside her matrimonial home.

The fight came to a head when the bishop withdrew the ordination license of Ebo over alleged unethical acts efficient in undermining the track record of the church.

Until the withdrawal of his ordination license just recently, Ebo was running a love ministry at Umunya in Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State.

The embattled priest also recently accused the bishop on the Niger, Rt. Rev Owen Nwokolo of high-handedness, declaring that the bishop was requiring the amount of N3 million from him every year for operating the adoration ministry and infringing on his basic human rights.

He also dragged the bishop to the Federal High Court, Awka at the heat of the dispute with the church.

However speaking on the face-off in between the priest and the Diocese, the deputy chancellor of the Diocese on the Niger, Mr. Ben Uzuegbu (SAN) said the church decided to withdraw Ebo’s ordination license due to the fact that it could no longer tolerate his excesses.

He said: “The former priest was doing things that were unbecoming of a priest. The bishop had to call us, the legal group of the Diocese, to choose how to deal with the man.

“With what he had done, he ought to remain in prison, however the church decided to be lenient with him, thinking that he would alter. But he declined to change and his unethical acts ended up being a scandal such that it remained in the public domain that he impregnated his secretary and was constantly beating his other half to stupor.

“He was later on suspended and when it was obvious that he did not wish to repair his ways, the church decided to withdraw his license.”

According to him, the Diocese on the Niger has a constitution that guides the activities of its priests, adding that it was wrong for Ebo to accuse the bishop of collecting N3 million from him every year when he, the priest, is an employee of the church.

Uzuegbu included: “If a priest obtains home, it belongs to the Diocese. Cash paid by parishes come from the Diocese, not the bishop, as he claimed.

“It was even found that he registered his love ministry with the Corporate Affairs Commission in his name in 2017, which of his secretary and overlooking his lawfully married partner, contrary to the constitution directing priests working in the Diocese.

He was likewise implicated of informing a woman that having sex with her would recover her condition which, according to the church, was something that might not be condoned in the church of God.

But Ebo stated that as priest of God, nobody can sack him, including that he stays a priest in the order of Melchizedek.

He said: “Let me state that I did not quit the priesthood. A priest is chosen by God, and I remain a priest. What I did was to turn in my resignation as priest of the Diocese on the Niger to my lord Bishop Owen Nwokolo.

“What took place was that I have a special call by God to spread his word in a strange way, and to minister to souls, recover the sick and bring God’s true blessings upon souls. For this reason, I was moved by the holy spirit to start working in a parish which later on metamorphosed as God in Action Adoration Ministry.

“This course of ministration by me is what I can say initiated antagonism and persecution from angles managed by Bishop Owen Nwokolo. It was challenge set and promoted by him that forced me to resign as priest of the Diocese on the Niger. “I have actually stayed for sometime the single largest contributor as priest with churchgoers, to the diocese. I have offered to the church without recalling, and to my lord Bishop himself, as God offered.

“I bought a land and turned over to the diocese, and my monetary contributions were unparalleled, and this I say with humility. I am the only priest in the diocese who is not on the wage list since I rejected salary. Nevertheless, my Lord Bishop later on called me and firmly insisted that he desired himself and his spouse to be consisted of as trustees in the signed up titles of the adoration ministry. When I hoped about his need, I got clear revelation that God had various purposes for the Bishop, but not within the love ministry, and I communicated this message to him. He threatened to prohibit my activities within the diocese and to bring me down for this rejection, however I depend on God.

“Even if they kill me tomorrow, some persons know my correspondences with the Bishop on this matter.

On the accusation that his marriage had actually broken down, Rev Ebo stated: “Sadly it is so. My lovely better half within the situations of my travails with the diocese unexpectedly turned tiger. Since God had earlier exposed to me that I would have additional obstacle from that quarter, I was not taken aback. They bought my wife over and she started to annoy me.

“As we speak, my other half lives in a house spent for by somebody who knows that she is another man’s better half. It has actually truly affected me as a young man who is allowed to wed, and who has coped with a female, because certainly though I am a priest, but like our Lord Jesus while he was on Earth, I likewise eat and drink like a normal human being”.

ToriNG