{"id":64852,"date":"2025-04-25T16:00:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T16:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=64852"},"modified":"2025-04-25T16:00:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T16:00:42","slug":"akpabio-leads-nigerian-delegation-to-pope-francis-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/04\/25\/akpabio-leads-nigerian-delegation-to-pope-francis-funeral\/","title":{"rendered":"Akpabio Leads Nigerian delegation to Pope Francis\u2019 Funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Njoku Chijioke<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has sent a high-level Nigerian delegation to Vatican City for the funeral of Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at the age of 88.<\/p>\n<p>Senate President Godswill Akpabio is leading the five-member team, which includes Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu Ojukwu, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs; Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria; Archbishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto Diocese; and Archbishop Ignatius Ayua Kaigama of Abuja Diocese.<\/p>\n<p>The delegation will formally present a condolence letter to the Acting Head of the Vatican, expressing President Tinubu\u2019s heartfelt sympathy on the passing of the revered pontiff.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Francis, known globally for his humility, advocacy for the poor, and interfaith outreach, leaves behind a profound legacy that touched millions around the world, including Nigeria\u2019s large Catholic community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Njoku Chijioke President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has sent a high-level Nigerian delegation to Vatican City for the funeral of Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at the age of 88. Senate President Godswill Akpabio is leading the five-member team, which includes Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu Ojukwu, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs; Archbishop Lucius [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":64853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64854,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64852\/revisions\/64854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}