The Mount Street Parish of The Assemblies of God Church, Enugu, was on Sunday, locked up by Police as two pastors and their supporters engaged themselves in fisticuffs over who oversees the parish.

Crisis had been spun-out in the church for more than three years as one Dr. Chidi Okoroafor, and Professor Paul Emeka were each laying claims to be the Parish’s General Superintendent or Overseer.

The drama started when one of the pastors, Rev. Nathaniel Udeze alongside his followers, came with letters of posting and other court documents as part of measures to be inaugurated as the new pastor at the parish.

However, the resident pastor of the parish, leading the opposition, Reverend Amaechi Agbo, with his supporters, repulsed all attempts by Rev. Udeze to take over. It was disclosed that he was promptly resisted on arrival with his team of followers.

Pastor Udeze, upon inquiry, was seen as an interloper but he stood his ground to say he was officially posted by the leadership of the church and he didn’t just wake up and decided to ordain himself.

He argued that his opponent, Rev. Agbo had been transferred to another parish since May 2015, an assertion which was disputed by Rev. Agbo who on the other hand, maintained he was still in-charge of the parish as there was no recognizable formal letter from the leadership to that effect.

The controversial issue is currently before the Supreme Court.

From a further gen, it was also ascertained that the matter became excruciating during the Sunday school session in preparation for the Sunday main service at about 7a.m, when supporters of both pastors arrived and started sharing different versions of the manual and when both pastors arrived, the situation got out of hand wholly as the pastors started jostling each other and before long, members of the two blocs engaged in a fight.

The Divisional Police Officer, Dennis Ayara, who later arrived at the scene, did everything within his will to put the fight to an end to no avail.

Consequently, the Police vehemently sent everybody out of the premises and shut the church, requesting the presence of the two factions at the station.