The signal tear is his poster photo. It glistens a narrow line down the right side of Father Ejike Mbaka’s face. It makes him a sort of modern day Jeremiah. The word Jeremiad arose from that Old Testament prophet’s molten tears over the iniquities of his time.
But whoever watched the video or read the full text of the Catholic cleric’s crossover night sermon of December 31, 2014 will know that his was not only a jeremiad. It was also a fiery rebuke. Father Mbaka had been around, but he only now gained national traction because of his pious perorations against the failings of the Jonathan administration.
In the Southeast, he had always been a phenomenon. The Igbo always knew him, whether it was when he twisted the ribs of the swaggering “Ebeano,” Governor Chimaroke Nnamani, or when he ripped open the hypocrisies and vanities of Governor Sullivan Chime, or even when he was much younger and fulminated against the barbarities of the Abacha junta. His shrill voice, like John the Baptist’s, ruptured the wilderness of sin in the east. Now, in this harmattan season, he has poked the Jonathan government out of joint.
So intimidated is the PDP hierarchy that a sulky silence is the only reaction to the less-than-an-hour bombshell from the pulpit. Olisa Metuh, who often bursts out of control, became a wimp and responded with a whimper of conciliation, almost begging the man. And President Goodluck Jonathan, who has now lost decency in his campaign speeches, could not bait the righteous tiger when he visited the neighbourhood of his lair at the Adoration Centre in Enugu at the weekend.
The only hefty voice who objected to Father Mbaka was Cardinal Archbishop John Onaiyekan, and he appealed to the inviolate supremacy of the Catholic hierarchy. But the gentleman cleric deliberately forgot that Catholic priests of Mbaka’s stripes do not bow to the Onaiyekan school of docility. He comes from the tradition of liberation theology that began in the 1950’s in Latin America. That brand of theology sees the gospel through the plight of the poor, and harangues a society that preaches the love of Christ when wealth and inequality lash the back of the weak and lowly.
With such stalwart priests as Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil and John Sobrino of Spain, the Catholic Church was jolted out of its elitist and tyrannous torpor. They probably had read of the exploits of Martin Luther who thrived on the ideas of Erasmus and Peter Abelard in the Scholastic era that led to the rise of the protestant movement. But these Catholic priests of liberation did not want to break out of the Church. They galvanised it as a platform not only to humble it but turn it into the way for the poor. Since then, some Catholic priests have pitched their tents with the downtrodden, and compelled the pope to recognise the poor. The present Pope Francis is the first modern Pope to exercise this radicalism with his emphasis on the poor and attack on tyranny in the world. While an Enaiyekan may frown, Pope Francis will cheer on his priest.
The effect of liberation theology coined by Gutierrez has ricocheted throughout the church around the world, especially where poverty and oppression are palpable. The priests see the word of God as a sword and latch on to scriptures like Paul’s that noted that Jesus was poor so that we might be rich. It resonated in the communist era, especially in Poland when a Catholic priest, Jerzy Popieluszko, found common cause with the Solidarity Movement that buried communism. Or in South Africa where anti-apartheid forces formed groups to rail at racism. In Nigeria, we have seen a few. Olubunmi Okogie, now greying at the temple, once ruffled the army brass. Outside the Catholic Church, we have seen a few do it. We cannot forget what Reverend Mbang did in the Babangida era when top officers sat in cold comfort in the church as the cleric tore them apart on network television. The irony of Catholic defiance is rooted in the history of the church’s cohabitation with tyrants, whether in the Ancien Regime in France before the revolution and even in the Napoleonic era or during Nazism or under Mussolini or the Sawdust Caesar’s regime. Perhaps that is why they throw up upstarts and rebels in the name of the Lord. They are contrasts to the Pentecostal order who tend to either distance themselves from or preach partnership with authority as we witness in today’s Nigeria. They don’t cry out against the sins of social injustice.
References to such scriptures as Roman 13 that call for obedience to temporal powers are self-serving. God cannot ask his people to obey rulers that lack the fear of God. Paul who wrote that fought against the order of his day and was beheaded, a radical of his day. Did Moses not rise against Pharaoh, or Daniel against the king? What of the trinity of Shredrack, Meshack and Abednego? Did Herod not pursue Jesus into a manger? Would the Lord have been born if Herod had his wish? Did Jesus not die a rebel? Did Prophet Nathan not rebuke King David? That is the logic of Mbaka, and the liberation theology. They know that the kingdom of God suffers violence.
So those who say that Mbaka once endorsed Jonathan should have listened to the sermon and the parable of the birds. He said, in his recantation, that Jonathan the bird did not fly in his vision, and he had to turn. The anointed Peter in the Bible, and whom Paul called Cephas, once had to reverse his position when he was rebuked by Paul. Those who know little about the lives and working of priests criticise him. They should know that the path of the just is a shining light that shines more and more to the perfect day.
Rather than flay Mbaka, why not probe the content of his sermon. He said Jonathan has failed. He said the Southeast has not enjoyed his service in spite of the Igbo support. Is it not true that President Jonathan has recruited the Igbo elite, plied them with positions and contracts, and neglected the common Igbo man? He has conned the Igbo with promises of bridges and roads and economic progress that never happened. Jonathan is a psychological booster to the Southeast, an Ojukwu reborn in a phantom Biafra victory. Hence he calls himself Azikiwe during elections and becomes Goodluck thereafter. His victory benefits only the top Igbo acting like the warrant chiefs of the colonial era. This is political 419.
President Jonathan is enemy number one of the Niger Delta. He rose on their back to power, and he has done nothing significant. For all their mediocrity, the military under Hausa-Fulani soldiers built refineries, petrochemical plants, major schools, etc. What can Jonathan say he did other than pursue Ijaw agenda? Even at that he has only energised a few of them. The Ijaw are some of the most pauperised in Nigeria. They sit on black gold and look like rust. The number two enemy is Chief Edwin Clark, an elder who is not elderly, and plays the role of interloper in the politics of the region. His age-mates now take the back seat because they have done their best and are tired. He is either saying un-elderly things or doing them.
We should heed Mbaka’s parable of the four birds. It mirrors the classic novel, The Painted Bird, by Jerzy Kosinski, about a bird that was isolated by other birds because of its colour. It was an attack on prejudice, especially during the Nazi era. If the healthy bird in Mbaka’s parable could not fly, the Jonathan administration should heed it, and so should his apologists. If not, Jonathan is the Judas who betrayed the Nigerian people. And, as the good book says, “his place let another take.”
