Obi Celebrates Easter With Prisoners, Saying, “We Are All Inmates.”

Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s Presidential Candidate in the 2023 general election, has urged prisoners not to feel isolated or defeated because everyone in Nigeria is in prison seeking the face of God for freedom and redemption.

Obi, who celebrated Easter mass with prisoners at the Correctional Centre in Onitsha, Anambra state, told the inmates that, according to the day’s reading, Mary Magdalene, the first to discover the resurrected Christ, was once unholy, but she is now reformed and privileged to discover Christ’s resurrection even before the apostles.

“That means that being incarcerated is not the end of life because they can be corrected and enjoy salvation even before the so-called free people.”

His Grace Valerie Okeke, Archbishop of Onitsha Catholic Archdiocese, who celebrated the Easter mass with about 12 other priests inside the Correctional Centre, said in a homily that if Mary Magdalene could transform into one of the early beneficiaries of Christ’s resurrection, even those in the Correctional Centre would become great in society and before God.

The dancing and elation of the inmates in their various cultural groups, all shouting his praises as a friend and father of the prisoners, were the highlights of Obi’s Easter celebration with the inmates, which he has been doing since his tenure as Governor of Anambra State (2006-2014).

During the dancing and praises, the LP standard bearer discovered Musochukwu Ejiofor, a one-year-old child whose mother is serving time in prison for a failed N250,000 business transaction.
Obi carried the child, who, like the mother, was dressed in dancing attire, and celebrated with them and their cultural communities.
The former Governor, whom the Archbishop identified as one of the charity pillars keeping the Correctional Centre running, announced the donation of food and money for the centre’s project.