By Charles Igbo
Says “Nobody has visited me since I was released except Peter Obi
An Anglican Archbishop, His Grace, the Most Rev. Godwin Okpala, has narrated his hellish experience in the hands of kidnappers. He described what he went through as hellish and traumatic – something he would never wish on anybody. Those who kidnapped him, he concluded, were no human beings.
The revered retired Archbishop of the Anglican Communion, who was given a National Honour – Officer of the Order of the Niger, OON – by President Goodluck Jonathan, said his abductors had no respect for his status as a Cleric or his age. He said that even though they knew his status as a Bishop because he was in his cassock and collar, it did not bother them. They stripped him to his pants all through. They kicked him and treated like thrash all through. For the period he was in captivity, he never brushed his teeth, or took his bath. He fed on leftovers.
Mercifully, the Archbishop who spent both Christmas and New Year with his abductors was released on January 3, 2024, alongside his driver.
He seems in a better frame of mind now, and strong enough, which is why he was able to tell the story of his harrowing experience to Peter Obi, former Anambra State Governor, and the 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party when Obi paid him a solidarity visit at his Nnewi residence. Full of thanks to God for his release while he received Obi, the Archbishop, surprisingly, revealed that since his freedom on January 3, nobody had visited him except Obi, not even the Governor of his State, Anambra, Professor Charles Soludo, in whose domain he was kidnapped.
Okpala’s story:
“Throughout my stay, I never took a bath, brushed my teeth, or wore anything other than my pants.
“Those 27 days were hellish because the people were not behaving like human beings. They kicked us about like thrash.
“They kept us in a very thick forest and none of them cared.
“I was in my cassock and they knew that I was a Bishop, but they didn’t care. They pulled down my cassock, asked me to undress and I had only shorts, a shirt and my collar on.
“For the 27 days that I was with them, I didn’t take my bath, I didn’t brush my teeth. They were giving me water which I don’t know the source.
“They were giving me one meal a day and it was either rice or garri. The food was usually remnants from those they gave to boys who worked with them.
They have cooks who prepared food there.”
Appreciating Obi, Archbishop Okpala thanked him for having time to visit him, explaining that none other had extended the courtesy of a visit to him since his release.
Okpala: ”Since my return from the kidnappers’ den, no one has visited me until now”.
“Obi has, again, shown the humanity in him. I’m not the first person he is coming to see in this manner. I want to say thank you to Peter Obi who came to visit me after my travails.”
On same Thursday of Obi’s visit, the Nnewi Catholic Diocese on Thursday buried Rev. Fr. Tobias Okonkwo, a Pharmacist and native Nnewi South Local Government Area. Okonkwo
was murdered on 26th December in Ihiala by yet to be arrested gunmen.The murdered Priest was the Manager of the Schools of Nursing, Midwifery, and Medical Laboratory at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Ihiala, Anambra State.
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