Why Police sealed off Gov Udom Emmanuel’s church
EMERGENCY DIGEST – The police have sealed off a church in Uyo where the Akwa Ibom governor, Udom Emmanuel, attends.
Armed police officers in 10 trucks arrived Qua Iboe Church, at 112 Ikot Ekpene Road, early in the morning on Sunday and barricaded the church entrance, preventing worshippers from entering the premises.
One woman with her two children who wanted to get to the church was seen stepping down from Keke (a commercial tricycle). She and her children walked back and then disappeared into a nearby street, apparently frightened by the presence of the police officers.
Later in the day, around 10 a.m., some of the church members began gathering by the roadside, while the police continued with the barricade.
It was gathered that tThe police action is due to a lingering factional crisis in the church.
“The police have padlocked the main gate of the church, they don’t allow anybody to enter the church,” a security guard in the church told PREMIUM TIMES in the morning.
The guard who gave his name as Attah said he and a co-security official were the only two persons inside the church premises.
“The policemen came here as early as 6 a.m., and locked the gate after ordering people who were sweeping the church to leave,” he said.
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“Our church is not a police station, they should not be doing this! They should leave the place and go back to their station!” Samuel Magnus, the church youth leader, said angrily on the phone while preparing to leave home for the church.
Onofiok Ettang, the chairman of the church council said “the major problem in the church is that the United Evangelical Church wants to take over the church from Qua Iboe (Church), and they are using all means to do that,”.
The Qua Iboe Church
Qua Iboe Church was founded around 1887 by an Irish missionary, Samuel Bill, who served in Ibeno, in the present-day Akwa Ibom State.
The church, whose headquarters is in Akwa Ibom, derived its name from the Qua Iboe River which flows through the state into the Atlantic Ocean.
The 131-year-old church split into two factions in Nigeria about 17 years ago when some members, uncomfortable with the name Qua Iboe, pushed for a change of name to United Evangelical Church.
Some of the church’s branches across the country have embraced the new name, while others, mostly in Akwa Ibom, have stoutly rejected it because of a special affinity with the name Qua Iboe.
The Akwa Ibom governor, Mr Emmanuel, is a member and a deacon of Qua Iboe. He used to worship with his family in a branch of the church in Lagos before he moved down to Uyo on his appointment as the secretary to the Akwa Ibom government.
Mr Emmanuel, since he relocated to Akwa Ibom, occasionally worships at the church branch that the police have sealed off.
Source: Premium Times
