By Ononye VC
It’s another Easter celebration and expectation is high that the metropolitan archbishop of Onitsha, the Most Rev. Valerian Okeke, will pay his yearly Easter visit to the Federal Correctional Centre, formerly known as the Onitsha Prisons, where he will celebrate Mass on Easter Sunday and deliver welfare materials to the inmates.
The regular yearly Easter visit by the archbishop to the correctional centre since the start of his episcopacy is deeply rooted in his true feeling of love, empathy, sympathy and generosity for the less privileged.
This is well pronounced in his episcopal motto derived from the Gospel of St John 10:10 that says, “That they may have life and have it in abundance.”
The management, staff and inmates of the correctional centre always look forward to the archbishop’s visit every year and have high expectations that the archbishop will visit with a lot of material goodies and provide spiritual enrichment.
There’s a possibility that the archbishop will give an update on the new skill acquisition centre he erected for the inmates, which costs about ₦100 million.
The archbishop’s visit to the correctional centre about three times yearly has been attracting dignitaries like top government functionaries, which include state governors past and present, top clerics, legislators and other kind-spirited individuals.
