Hardball
You would think it was a love affair made to last, until it came crashing like a house of cards. President Muhammadu Buhari fell at odds with controversial Catholic cleric and spiritual director of Adoration Ministry, Enugu Nigeria (AMEN), Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, who vociferously supported him for the 2015 election that brought him to power and his 2019 re-election. The parting of ways has been bruising and mutually damaging.
When the romance was sizzling hot, the President celebrated Mbaka as a rare embodiment of courage and credibility that God specially gifted Nigeria with, while the cleric declared Buhari God’s anointed one for this country. In the aftermath of the 2015 poll, a statement by presidential spokesman Femi Adesina cited the President praising Mbaka for having opposed ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, adding that he (Buhari) rated Mbaka’s sermon against Jonathan honest, good for Nigeria and “one of the best exhortations” he ever heard from the pulpit.
Mbaka lately delivered another sermon and the presidency isn’t gushing with applause. During worship at his ministry last week, he castigated President Buhari over worsening insecurity in the country, saying he “should have resigned honorably following his failure as a leader” or the National Assembly should impeach him if he fails to resign. It wasn’t much different from his call early 2015 on Jonathan to resign because of the poor state of the economy and insecurity.
The Buhari presidency didn’t take the Mbaka tirade supinely and dismissed it as sour grapes following its refusal to gratify his dubious request for payback. Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said the point of departure was when the cleric brought some contractors to Buhari to ask for contracts in compensation for his support, but was rebuffed by the President who never breaks “laid down rules in dealing with contracts or any other government business for that matter.” By some coincidence, a 2018 video showing the priest attacking President Buhari allegedly for being stingy and unwilling to make donations to his church has resurfaced on social media. Mbaka responded last Sunday, however, describing the charge of sour grapes as laughable and childish, and claiming that “no amount of money can merchandise the Holy Ghost anointing” in him. He admitted, though, that he led three experts who offered to help with Nigeria’s security issues to meet with the President during his first tenure but they were turned down.
Those exchanges between Mbaka and the presidency ring of ‘tell-all’ by estranged lovers. In this case, they both look like whores who stole the pleasure. The credibility of Mbaka’s prophetic anointing is dented because he has been highly indiscretional and unguarded in utterances and actions. But the presidency too looks cheap and out of touch with reality for joining issue and dismissing Mbaka’s alarm as sour grapes, despite genuinely existential threat of insecurity we presently face. To both: better romance with respective future partner!
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