AFRICA/NIGERIA - Fr. Harrison Egwuenu released

Abuja (Agenzia Fides) – Fr. Harrison Egwuenu, dean of St. George's College in Obinomba, is free again.
According to Fr. Benedict Okutegbe, administrator of Sacred Heart Cathedral in the city of Warri, the priest was released on the evening of Sunday 21, March. “He is doing OK. Of course, he needs time to overcome the traumatic experience,” he said. Fr. Harrison Egwuenu was kidnapped March 15. He was seized by unknown gunmen at about 8 p.m. in Oria-Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government Area. (see Fides, 20/3/2021). In Nigeria, priests and religious are also repeatedly victims of kidnapping for the purpose of extorting ransom.
The widespread insecurity in Nigeria is repeatedly denounced by the population, as emphasized by the country's Catholic bishops, to whom the faithful complain about the precarious situation in which they live. In his homily on Sunday March 21st, Bishop Godfrey Igwebuike Onah of Nsukka said that "Nigeria, our country, weeps, our country cries out in pain".
"We are in the dark. Everyone is confused and we are currently proposing answers that will multiply our problems. The change of government in the absence of a change of attitude does not change anything in any country", he added, referring to the election of the current President, Muhammadu Buhari. "Nigerians believed that by 2015 their problems would have been solved once they changed their president and governors. It is not so".
"I think our situation in Nigeria today has gone beyond what we would like to see. We need to see Jesus. This is the only way we can return from the path of destruction that is crushing us all", he concluded. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 26/3/2021)

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