In 1973, what is today known as Abakaliki Diocese was carved out of Ogoja Diocese and in September of the same year, Bishop Thomas McGettrick, a veteran missionary of St. Patrick's Society who had been Bishop of Ogoja since 1955 was installed as its first Bishop. It should be recalled that in 1973 before the old Ogoja Diocese was divided, there were only 64 priests in the diocese. When the first native Bishop of Ogoja, Bishop Michael Okoro, was ordained in 1977, the then Abakaliki province had taken a pedestal of autonomy. With the division in 1973, it had 21 senior seminarians and 57 junior seminarians.