Two pastors of the Assemblies of God Church Nigeria and their supporters turned yesterday’s worship service to a fighting bout as each group battled over who should control the 27 Mount Street Parish of the church in Enugu.
THIS DAY gathered that the latest battle is a new dimension in the leadership crisis rocking the church over who between Rev. Paul Emeka and Rev. Chidi Okoroafor is the authentic General Superintendent of the church.
One of the pastors, Rev. Nathaniel Udeze, came with letters of posting and other court documents in preparation to be installed as the new pastor, but his arrival with his team of supporters was resisted by the resident pastor, Rev. Amaechi Agbo and his supporters, who vowed not to shift ground for any “intruder.”
The matter is currently in several courts including the Supreme Court to determine the true GS of the church.
The fracas at the 27 Mount Street Parish of the church was therefore a demonstration of power tussle between loyalists of the two contending General Superintendents fighting for the soul of the parish considered to be very lucrative.
The development attracted the attention of officers of the nearby Ikirrike Divisional Police, Idaw River Enugu, who stormed the church and ordered the shutting down of the church to avoid break down of law and order.
However, the decision to shut down the church appeared to have been arrived at as a last resort by the police after several hours of mediation yielded no dividends.
Both factions stuck to their guns as the incoming pastor, Udeze insisted that he was posted to the new parish by the leadership of the church under Emeka and that Agbo had been transferred to another parish since May, 2015.
But Agbo resisted, insisting that he was still in-charge of the parish as he was yet to be written by the Rev Okoroafor’s leadership of the church.
Trouble actually started as early as 7a.m. when supporters of both pastors arrived and started sharing different versions of the Sunday school manual in preparation for the main service.
The sharing of the two different manuals led to inflamed passions as supporters of the two factions came close to exchanging blows even before the arrival of their respective pastors.
But when the factional pastors arrived, the situation broke down completely as one of the pastors was seen shoving the other and their members engaged in fisticuffs before police intervened and ordered everybody out of the church.
The Divisional Crime Officer (DCO), (name not known as at press time) was the first to arrival with a team in a police Hilux van and he quickly engaged the leadership of the two factions in a dialogue which dragged on till around 11a.m. when the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Dennis Ayara, arrived and took charge of the negotiation.
