Archbishop Ugorji’s Prophetic Address from Ikot Ekpene: A Call that Nigeria Cannot Ignore
By: Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Ãmos | September 15, 2025
At the ongoing second plenary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, at Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, the nation witnessed an intervention that has already begun to reverberate far beyond the ecclesiastical setting in which it was delivered. Few days ago, Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, President of the CBCN and Archbishop of Owerri, stood before the assembly of bishops and lay faithful and gave a speech that was both a lamentation of Nigeria’s wounds and a clarion call for her renewal.
The Archbishop did not waste words. He confronted the realities with searing honesty. As reported by CSN, he said:
Nigeria is sinking in many fronts. Insecurity continues to haunt us. Many towns and villages across the nation have become communities of fear, flight and funerals,
his voice echoing the grief of millions. The choice of words was not poetic exaggeration but the lived truth of citizens who daily endure kidnappings, violence, and economic despair.
At the heart of his address lay a moral diagnosis of corruption. He described it not simply as mismanagement but as a disease of the soul:
Corruption, understood as moral rottenness, which is spreading unchecked like a deadly cancer to all sectors of our national life, is silently eating up the soul of the nation.
Such a description shifted the problem from policy failure to a deep ethical crisis, calling for nothing less than national conversion.
Yet Archbishop Ugorji’s words were not confined to condemnation. He turned with passionate urgency to the laity, insisting that the baptized faithful cannot remain passive.
We are convinced that we have a formidable laity … \[who], being the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the leaven of society, can help to a large extent to transform the temporal order.
This is Vatican II’s theology of co-responsibility translated into Nigerian reality: the transformation of politics, economics, and culture is not the work of clergy alone but the vocation of every Christian.
Political participation became one of his sharpest emphases. With rising voter apathy and a culture of electoral malpractice, Ugorji issued a direct appeal:
Given the increasing voter apathy, political education in our country must stress the civic duty of all adults of voting age to possess their permanent voter’s cards and to vote at general elections responsibly, not allowing themselves to be influenced by bribes, promise of gratification, intimidation, or ethno-religious considerations.
In a nation where elections often collapse into chaos, this was more than advice; it was a moral imperative.
Nor did he spare Nigeria’s political elite. His critique of their priorities was blunt:
Many politicians … seem more preoccupied with the 2027 general elections and are less concerned with fulfilling their campaign promises. Relegating governance to the background, they are more concerned with pursuing their personal political ambitions.
In one stroke, he exposed both the ruling class and the opposition, holding them accountable to the common good they have neglected.
What made the Archbishop’s address stand out was its grounding in Catholic social teaching. By invoking Gaudium et Spes and Ecclesia in Africa, he tied the Nigerian crisis to the universal Church’s mission: the defense of human dignity, the pursuit of justice, and the call to infuse society with Gospel values. In doing so, he ensured that his critique cannot be dismissed as mere political commentary; it is rooted in theology, pastoral responsibility, and the prophetic duty of the Church.
Internationally, the speech tallies with the tradition of bishops who have spoken truth in turbulent times. One hears echoes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s prophetic denunciations during apartheid, of Latin American pastors who opposed dictatorship, of Pope Francis’ insistence that politics is one of the highest forms of charity when it is exercised for the common good. +Ugorji’s voice joins that chorus, reminding the world that Nigeria’s crisis is not only political but profoundly moral, and that faith must take flesh in the civic arena.
This address will not change Nigeria overnight. But if amplified, disseminated, and lived out, it has the potential to shape both conscience and practice. It calls the laity to rise, demands that politicians govern rather than scheme, and insists that corruption is not fate but a choice that can be unmade. At Ikot Ekpene, Archbishop Ugorji issued not a polite reflection but a prophetic cry. How well Nigerians listen will well be determined by the nation’s path in the years to come.
Fr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Ãmos is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Uromi and a Lecturer at CIWA Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
