![Rev. Fr. Anthony Odiong, a US-based Nigerian Louisiana Catholic priest, was arrested in Florida on Tuesday for possessing child pornography, according to law authorities. The suspect is reportedly accused of many other cases of sexual assault. The Waco, Texas, Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday that officers detained Father Anthony Odiong in Ave Maria, Florida, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service. Waco police announced in March that they had received "credible information" about a sexual assault allegedly committed by Odiong in Texas in 2012. “During the subsequent investigation, a case of possession of child pornography was uncovered,” the police said. The priest was apprehended in Florida by the Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. The Waco Police Department said that he will be extradited to Texas. Odiong had previously served in the Archdiocese of New Orleans before being removed as priest in December of last year due to controversy over homilies in which he claimed, among other things, that the Catholic Church was being taken over by "the gays." At the time, the priest was also accused of abusive behaviour; a Louisiana lady claimed in U.S. bankruptcy court that Odiong had committed both financial and sexual abuse against her. Prior to joining the New Orleans Archdiocese, Odiong served in at least two Texas parishes. On Tuesday, Waco police stated that during their sexual assault investigation, "the presence of other survivors was revealed." “Multiple women have come forward to tell similar experiences as the sexual assault survivor who reported the initial allegation,” the police department said. “Survivors’ experiences ranged from sexual assault and indecent assault, more commonly recognised as groping, and financial abuse, with some survivors experiencing every element of Anthony Odiong’s manipulation.” The police said they “believe there may be more survivors, and we wish to speak with anyone who [has] had similar encounters” with the priest. The Archdiocese of New Orleans issued a brief news release on Tuesday noting Odiong's arrest in Florida. The archdiocese “encourages anyone with any information to contact law enforcement,” the release said.](https://chronicle.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ezgif-6-4730550ede-300x200.jpg "Odiong: US-based Nigerian Catholic priest convicted over sexual assault")
By Nicholas Adesina
It is quite perplexing the need that some persons have to emerge from secluded and dank recesses to stoke ambers spent all in a bid to sink others alongside them or as in this case throw mud in the market place and hope that some stick at intended targets.
It would not be out of place to regularly take Adoke’s utterances with a pinch of salt or skim over them so fast if it were cream, it would be whipped for they are usually laced with lies, falsehoods, slander and the most wildest of conjectures that one begins to doubt the sanity of the brilliant mind that is Adoke’s.
Be not fooled though for he is in full control of his faculties, the brilliant Lawyer that is an erstwhile Attorney General of the federation usually engages this peek-a-boo just about when the heat is very close to home and he wants to deflect some, or how else would you explain his intentional ruse of dragging the name of the Vice President unto a matter that solely involved his company and had nothing to do with Prof. Osinbajo as an individual.
While it would be rhetoric to state that the Vice President’s law firm was a legal entity and as such its actions are not completely expected to be laid at his feet, a learned fellow and an esquire of the law to boot just simply alluded to that perhaps thinking that the average Nigerian would not be able to point that out. (Good thing some of us paid attention during business education back in secondary school.)
Yet were one to further highlight the claims even further the direct lies come up with the simplest investigations into the matter for quite contrary to Adoke’s rendition, attorney fees in the Pfizer case were not factors of the damages to the victims or Kano State Government.
The fees were agreed with Kano State Government which constituted part reimbursement for the Government’s cost in prosecuting the cases over the years, and the significant costs associated with protracted negotiations which included multiple international travels by the team of lawyers.
The lawyers were not paid from the fund created for the victims, and were not paid $16 Million or via any individual and Adoke knows this because he defended Pfizer and even tried to procure a different type of settlement on Pfizer’s behalf.
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Were we to dove tail further and put his actions which have over the years implicated him in not just the Halliburton and the OPL245 scandals amongst many others one would find an individual that is lacking in any moral capacity to speak on the legal luminary that is the person of the Vice President.
In conclusion Adoke would best be advised to dust up his memories for the Netherlands’ are of a mind to prosecute in conjunction with separate cases already filed in Italy and in Nigeria, the actions of Shell and Eni in the OPL245 which has come to be accepted as one of the biggest oil scandal of all time and who was rank and file in bed with these corrupt oil company officials but Nigeria’s very own Mohammed Adoke.
![Rev. Fr. Anthony Odiong, a US-based Nigerian Louisiana Catholic priest, was arrested in Florida on Tuesday for possessing child pornography, according to law authorities. The suspect is reportedly accused of many other cases of sexual assault. The Waco, Texas, Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday that officers detained Father Anthony Odiong in Ave Maria, Florida, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service. Waco police announced in March that they had received "credible information" about a sexual assault allegedly committed by Odiong in Texas in 2012. “During the subsequent investigation, a case of possession of child pornography was uncovered,” the police said. The priest was apprehended in Florida by the Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. The Waco Police Department said that he will be extradited to Texas. Odiong had previously served in the Archdiocese of New Orleans before being removed as priest in December of last year due to controversy over homilies in which he claimed, among other things, that the Catholic Church was being taken over by "the gays." At the time, the priest was also accused of abusive behaviour; a Louisiana lady claimed in U.S. bankruptcy court that Odiong had committed both financial and sexual abuse against her. Prior to joining the New Orleans Archdiocese, Odiong served in at least two Texas parishes. On Tuesday, Waco police stated that during their sexual assault investigation, "the presence of other survivors was revealed." “Multiple women have come forward to tell similar experiences as the sexual assault survivor who reported the initial allegation,” the police department said. “Survivors’ experiences ranged from sexual assault and indecent assault, more commonly recognised as groping, and financial abuse, with some survivors experiencing every element of Anthony Odiong’s manipulation.” The police said they “believe there may be more survivors, and we wish to speak with anyone who [has] had similar encounters” with the priest. The Archdiocese of New Orleans issued a brief news release on Tuesday noting Odiong's arrest in Florida. The archdiocese “encourages anyone with any information to contact law enforcement,” the release said.](https://chronicle.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ezgif-6-4730550ede-450x300.jpg "Odiong: US-based Nigerian Catholic priest convicted over sexual assault")
