He had pined for a visit to Aso Villa for the past two years or more, and whined when it seemed far-fetched that he would ever again get to be with President Muhammadu Buhari, cavorting in the midst of power and in the sea of plenty. Last year, Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka of the Adoration Ministries, Enugu, had groaned that the president he supported during the 2015 presidential election had failed to gesture in his direction, not to talk of mending his ways and catering to the needs of the poor and hungry. If the president would not mend, said the furious priest, change would change both the president and his All Progressives Congress (APC). And following Fr. Mbaka’s rather curt response to the alleged niggardliness of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential running mate, Peter Obi, a former governor, APC strategists saw an opening to placate the whining priest, and invite him to once again luxuriate in Aso Villa’s ambience.
Finally, last Monday, the Mahogany doors of Aso Villa were flung open to receive Fr Mbaka. He also got the photo opportunity with the president which he deeply coveted. His Adoration faithful will be satisfied, as if they need any further convincing, that their pugnacious and adorable priest rubs shoulders with the high and mighty in Nigeria. He had told them repeatedly that he frequently hears from God and perhaps sits in the Throne Room with God, hearing unspeakable things and being shown incredible visions. To dine before kings, after hearing from God, was therefore the icing on the cake and a favour to mortals.
However, in recent times, after the much ballyhooed pronouncements with which he presumptuously blew away the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan, he has become hugely controversial both in terms of his prophecies and his provocative comportment. He briefly dilly-dallied over whom to support between the two leading presidential candidates, hurled invectives at top politicians that drew his ire, and then finally appeared to have perched on the Buhari candidacy. With last Monday’s visit to Aso Villa, Fr Mbaka’s agenda seems to have been fully consummated. He did not disclose what he and the president discussed, nor did he need to, but it was never in doubt how his vacillations and ambitions conjoin on the altar of Nigerian politics. The president may have received him early in the week, but it is doubtful whether they did not understand him as much as the rest of Nigerians, minus his Adoration faithful, do.
Hereunder are a few quotations from Undertow in the past few months as the columnist traversed the priest’s colourful impressions and statements, just to remind the reader, if not the Adoration faithful, that Fr Mbaka’s actions and statements and agenda should be embraced cautiously. His highs should be regulated with a step-down verbal transformer, and his lows should be received guardedly. For, after all, neither his fellow priests nor his supervisors who struggle to rein him in over the years, have had any success in moderating his self-righteousness and self-importance.
Fr. Mbaka as imperious and doctrinaire as ever, December 8, 2018
“The Catholic Diocese of Enugu is in a quandary about what to do with their obstreperous priest and spiritual director of the Adoration Ministry Enugu Nigeria (AMEN), Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka. In January 2016, after the controversial priest had revelled in tons of political prophecies that drew the ire of the Goodluck Jonathan government, he was posted out of the Christ the King Parish, GRA, Enugu, where he started his ministry, to the lesser known Our Lady Parish, Umuchigbo, Nje-Nike.
“No one can say exactly how the Diocesan leadership would treat the new controversy stirred by the ebullient and irrepressible priest. What could they do to keep him silent? He had once been posted from GTC, Enugu, to CKP, where in six months, according to some sources, he supervised the building of the church cathedral and parish house. He must have an unparalleled, albeit controversial, system of fundraising that delivered quick results. But his controversial statements led to what some interpreted as a punishing exile to a less attractive parish in Emene. Yet, neither the censure by the Diocesan leadership nor his transfer from parish to parish has dampened both his outlandish prophecies and his exceedingly candid but embarrassing portrayal of men in power. Nor has his baiting of politicians seeking electoral victory abated one bit.
“He browbeat the Jonathan government, endorsed the Muhammadu Buhari candidacy, spoke searingly about many men in office, especially in the Southeast, and played ducks and drakes with the affections and gullibility of thousands who thronged and still throng his Adoration prayer grounds. If the Diocesan leadership thought that his transfer in 2016 would quieten his theology and dissipate his strength and followers, they were grossly mistaken. The eager dupes who flock to him cannot be dissuaded by anything, not even his flagrant and questionable methods of fund-raising, nor his abrasive, inordinate and sacrilegious putdowns.
“Fr Mbaka’s latest sacrilege is his diminution of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential running mate, Peter Obi, a former Anambra State governor whom he described as stingy for refusing to disclose in what ways he would assist the Adoration Ministry. Fr Mbaka had invited Mr Obi to the annual harvest and bazaar celebration, and seized the opportunity to squeeze donations out of him. But the thrifty Mr Obi could not be cajoled into parting with anything, let alone announcing any gift on behalf of himself or former vice president Atiku Abubakar, to whom he is running mate in next year’s presidential election. Consequently, Fr Mbaka denounced him and predicted that his stinginess would cost him and his principal the election.
“… So, once again, the Diocese will find themselves, despite their deep resentment of Fr Mbaka’s methods, proceeding with utmost caution. It is indubitable that the priest is wrong, unwise, recalcitrant and doctrinally inexact. They will therefore attempt to treat him severely, hoping that like what the punitive posting of 2016 attempted to do, the uppity and irreverent Fr Mbaka could be wearied into some form of unaccustomed silence or lethargy, or perhaps total compliance. Such outcomes, however, will jar against the priest’s DNA.”
Father Mbaka’s controversial pronunciamentos, January 7, 2018
“Fr. Mbaka’s Adoration faithful do not doubt that their priest hears from God. The Catholic hierarchy may be less taken in by his periodic fulminations and bombasts, but they have no doubt how influential the priest has become, nor how sometimes unerringly his prophecies cum judgemental political assumptions have turned out right. In his latest pronunciamento, Fr. Mbaka dismisses President Buhari’s anti-corruption war as barbaric and archaic, his style as indolent and ineffective, his presidency as entrapped by a cabal, and that, by his selective punishment of his opponents, he had become a purveyor of moral corruption. Then curiously, by a deft use of poetical statements, he admonishes the president to ‘change or be changed’. While leaving a little room for the president to change and presumably salvage his presidency, he also bizarrely discloses that God asked him to advise the president not to seek re-election.
“It may never be known where, in all his diatribe against presidents, God stops and Fr. Mbaka begins, whether prophecies are at play in his verbal and prophetic explosions, or he is merely voicing his own private instincts. He has used some words that cannot be described as godlike, and he has passed on messages that make him appear to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. But whether it is his messages or instincts, he had in the past proved a somewhat accurate and deft reflector of the feelings and aspirations of the public. President Buhari is of course not popular in the Southeast and South-South, and his following in the Southwest is greatly tested, if not altogether unnerved. If Fr. Mbaka is simply mirroring these realities, he seems to be doing a good job of it. He, however, takes care not to ever burn his bridges when he conveys God’s messages, regardless of the extremeness of his prophecies. Indeed, his New Year’s Eve message is unlikely to have been influenced by the president’s New Year shocker which virtually shut the door against political change, whether it is called devolution or restructuring.
“Fr. Mbaka will still speak before the general election, either to reiterate God’s message, as he describes it, or to countermand or modify it once he sees which way the cat is jumping. The country has definitely not heard the last from him. But notwithstanding the discomfiture his superiors in the Catholic Church experience over his hard prophecies, or the trusting naivety of his Adoration faithful, the priest will remain active in politics, as the Latin American Cardinal Obando surmised about liberation theology in 1996. The nimble Adoration Ministry priest will always leave himself enough room to be wrong and ample room to bask in vindication. In a county that has tragically become a gymnasium where promises and manifestoes do triple summersaults, Fr. Mbaka’s pronunciamentos will walk a tightrope gingerly, expertly, and remorselessly, sometimes guilefully right, and at other times impassively far-fetched.”
