Mbaka says ‘I will suffer in my new posting’

Ejike Mbaka, a reverend father and spiritual director of the Adoration Ministry Enugu (AMEN), on Saturday departed Christ the King parish, GRA, Enugu, for his new duty post at Our Lady Parish, Umuchigbo, Njinike, saying that he was going to suffer.

But he maintained that he would not fight anybody over the posting.

Mbaka, who said his posting out of Enugu was a witch-hunt, has been fiery in his comments on political developments in the country, particularly in the lead-up to the presidential election.

In January 2015, Mbaka, the most popular priest in the south-east, dealt a devastating blow on President Goodluck Jonathan by asking him to step down for Muhammadu Buhari, his major opponent.

In the video of the sermon, which went viral, Mbaka said. “I love President Goodluck Jonathan and I used to be his ardent fan, but I want good for my people and that’s why I want Nigerians to vote out Goodluck Jonathan and vote General Muhammad Buhari.

“I don’t care if Buhari is a Muslim and from the North; all I care about is that Buhari can save Nigeria. Jonathan has ruled for six years .We need change. NEPA is not working because of corruption. The privatisation of public companies has not yielded any fruit because of corruption.

“Look at our federal roads, we are not even asking for new ones, roads built by Buhari and Babangidas –  the so called Hausa people – cannot be maintained. Follow Enugu here to Onitsha, children born some years ago do not know that there was a lane along the other side of Isiagwu and we are all saying continue.

“Jonathan surrounded himself with very corrupt officers who advise him. Nigerians are sick and tired of wasting innocent lives without government doing enough to stop the destruction. Up till now, nobody knows the whereabouts of the innocent Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram and we say we have a government that cannot guarantee the welfare, safety and security of the citizens.”

However, the charismatic preacher was in full support of the president just two months earlier. At the thanksgiving and bazaar of the parish in November 2014, he had told Patience Jonathan, first lady and special guest: “You and your husband have done well even in the midst of distractions.

“They are distracting you so that you do not achieve much. You have done well with all these distractions, what if there were no distractions?

“We have been praying for your husband because we want him to go back. Even if you don’t come here, we keep praying for him because the first one we did, you were not here. We are not sycophantic…

“Jonathan must bring back the Chibok girls. Is Jonathan holding them? “Are they living in your house? Anybody positioning the concept of Jonathan must bring back the Chibok girls, such people are holding the girls; they should release them, not Jonathan. Jonathan is not a kidnapper.”

In March 2015, not long before the presidential election, Mbaka alleged that Jonathan and his wife were planning to kill him.

“Did they think that killing father Mbaka would make Jonathan and his wife win the election?” he asked in a video.

“Is Mbaka their problem? All this while father Mbaka has been supporting Jonathan and the wife, did Buhari and his party, make any statement or threaten him for over six years?

“I want to send this message to the atmosphere, let it now be known to the whole world that President Goodluck Jonathan and Patience, are planning to assassinate father Mbaka. “It’s a known secret, so however they are planning it, I don’t know, whoever they want to use, I don’t know; they would not come themselves; they would use this unemployed people, the same people I’m speaking for.”

He also claimed that the first lady offered to bribe him by sending money through Ike Ekweremadu, deputy senate president, but he rejected it, saying: “The so-called money they are boasting that they gave Father Mbaka, I have severally [sic] here on this altar put my hands to tell the whole world that it is true if it is true.

“Ekweremadu, the deputy senate president, came with one little, would I call it a bag or purse, I don’t know, containing some money. He said Mrs president gave to you, and the money was rejected and it is in Ekweremadu’s house. “I am not holding one kobo of Patience Jonathan’s money. If he tries any nonsense, the battle would be between Goodluck and God.”

Buhari eventually won the election; and when Mbaka celebrated the 20th anniversary of his priesthood, the presidency released a statement to praise him, describing him as a man who was ready to die for the truth.

“Mbaka is a great priest who is not afraid to speak truth, even at the cost of his own life or being hated by those in power,” the statement read.

“He rose to the occasion to add his voice in support of good governance and identify with ordinary Nigerians in the face of despair and uncertain future.

“Though honest opinions attract hostility from leaders detached from reality, history would be kind to Father Mbaka for courageously speaking truth to power, even at great risks.”

Buhari himself then hosted Mbaka in December 2015, and spoke of him in glowing terms.

“Thank you very much for what you have done and said. It brought you out to the whole country as a man of courage,” the president told the priest.

“It was honest and well-delivered. It has gone into the records as one of the best concerns expressed from the pulpit, not because it favoured me and my party, the All Progressives Congress, but because it was good for the country.”

Adored by his thousands of followers as ever, Mbaka left Enugu on Saturday accompanied by a huge crowd, to whom he moaned about the challenges he would face at his new station.

“I know we are going to suffer between now and a few months to come. I am going to suffer and suffer. I know that,” TheNation quoted him as saying.

“I’m going to suffer because I have no place to put my head. I am going to suffer because I have no place to keep the Adoration Ministry’s assets.

“I know I’m going to suffer. Fortunately, it is going to happen in the month of lent. So, I am going to use my exit here as a Lenten observance but Jesus said it all in John 16:20 to his apostles that you will be sorrowful and the world will be rejoicing but very soon I will turn your sorrow to joy.

“But, for now, I know you are going to suffer. The Adoration Ministry is passing through suffering right now even though I’ve accepted that is the will of God. Is the will of God through suffering? It is a mega suffering.

“The quantum of the assets of the Adoration Ministry is the only thing I am bothered about for now. Where am I going to keep them? I am going to stay in one small room that has only one small bed, one small table, little toilet and bathroom. So where am I going to keep all the adoration assets?

“My clothing and books I can keep in the car or somebody’s house but where will I keep these assets that I have given to the Catholic church of Enugu? But I say may God take the glory and whoever that has offended me, I have forgiven.

“I won’t fight anybody or even dream of battling anybody. If anybody allows the devil to use him, the same that advised you to make a mistake will laugh at you when you cry over the error. The baby is born, there is no going back.

“We are moving out. We have been doing it and we will do it again. Moses was going out with a rod in his hand, Mbaka is moving out with his Bible and this nobody can take away from me.”

“I am giving God the glory and I welcome the church’s choice and action with absolute acceptance and obedience. So there is no negation to what God has approved and what the church suggested. Nobody should see me as a recalcitrant priest. I am not.

“I have taken an oath of obedience and I stand on it. I pray God to bless all of you who in one way or the other have supported the work of God here and those who have sincerely allowed God to use him or her for the work we did here all these years.

“God will bless the people of God here and reward you according to your labour. The parish is not going to collapse; the church will continue to grow.

“God has planned a future and hope out of disaster and where I am going. He will go before me to level mountains.

“The Bible says that He will deliver me from all evil; He will keep my going out and coming in both now and forever… I am praying that God will keep his church and my fellow adorers so that our journey to Umuchigbo will be a journey of Israelites out of Egypt.

“Some of them were grumbling, leaving Egyptian soil because they were having the phobia for the unknown but I am telling you people as a courageous leader, do not be afraid. We are moving and in not distant time, you people are going to smile.”