The spiritual wellness of Nigeria depends on our national
culture. The late Pope St John Paul 11 once told a gathering
of youths that “culture is a manifestation of the human spirit.
It is a confirmation of their humanity. Man creates culture and
through culture forms himself. Culture is the common good of
the nation…” Hence, good Nigerians must rise to work for a
better society based on promotion and protection of all our
fundamental rights via all-inclusive political participation.
Our politicians have kept God and his virtues in the national
polity and that is why some great men of God are clamoring
for democracy dividends and respect to divinocratic principles
of governance. So what is important today is to claim with
great courage the rights due to us as a nation, the right to
God, to love, to freedom of conscience, to our culture and to
our national heritage-our heroes past. We have really derailed
from our good past due to bad leadership, unbridled corruption
and near-total anarchy all over the nation. Hence, to ban
Christian truths, which for centuries have formed an intimate
part of our national life, from the presence of children is to
begin the destruction of their national identity. We must speak
out whenever our politicians derail from their sworn oath to
uphold the sanctity of our culture. Our priests are challenged
to question certain political madness of our power-drunken
politicians who have caused us a lot of harm, yet do not want
us to speak out. Cardinal Wyszynski of Poland once told the
ruling oppressors, “woe unto you rulers who are trying to win
over their people by fear and persecution. Whenever the rulers
lord it over their subjects or whenever the masses are
frightened into submission-they diminish their own authority.
They cheapen the cultural life of the nation and erode the
value of all working life”.
It is therefore under the above stimulations that this writer
wishes to clear some facts concerning the vocation of the
priesthood, the prophetic outpourings of Fr Ejike Mbaka and
the Nigerian political situation before this year’s polls.
The Nigerian political situation has reached such a dangerous
level that every right thinking person should sleep no more but
begin to ask some salient political and spiritual questions as
to where our country is heading. Our situation has reached a
boiling point that our priests should stop sitting on the
political fence thinking and praying only for miracles while our
politicians in power continue to meddle without vision and
purpose. It is therefore under this canopy that this work is
written in support of the prophetic message of Rev Fr Ejike
Mbaka of the Enugu Adoration Ministry regarding the call for
social change in the country. If any Nigerian opens up his or
her mouth to say that we really don’t need change, that
person should be sent to the mental hospital for proper
examination. Adding my voice in solidarity with Fr Mbaka on
the call for change, let us look at God’s attitude and the
Church’s mind on priests’ political participation. There is no
doubt that the crucified God is really a God without a country,
and without class. But he is the God of the poor, of the
oppressed, of the humiliated.
The Vatican 11 Council of 1962-65 has nice and progressive
words for the prophetic evangelization of the priest,
maintaining that the worries and hope of the Church are the
worries and hope of the poor and the oppressed in society.
Indeed, the Church’s relationship with the world was the
subject especially of the Pastoral Constitution ( Gaudium et
Spes). The watershed pastoral engagement of the Catholic
bishops brought out hidden truths about the integral nature of
evangelization proving that salvation is not an abstract
category outside, as it were, of history and time, but that it
comes from God and ought to permeate the whole of man and
the whole history of men and lead them freely into the
Kingdom of God, so that at last, “God may be all in all”. The
Catholic Priesthood, which has its root in the priesthood of
Jesus Christ, has many important roles to play in society
ranging primarily from an evangelistic prophetism to a socio-
political mandate for the liberation of the poor from the
clutches of oppression and impoverishment. Representing the
Church, the Catholic priest who enjoys the fullness of Christ’s
priestly regalia must not abandon the masses in their hour of
greatest need, but must show great interest in helping them
reach a level of human, Christian dignity compatible with real
citizenship. Hence, the priest should not pretend to be neutral
in the cloud of the great social struggle that has reduced two-
thirds of the world’s population to subhuman conditions. If a
priest is not on the side of the poor as his Master, then he is
on the side of the unrepentant oppressor and tyrant.
Archbishop Camara sees a Church that had become so
complacent that it left so much to be desired in terms of
assuming the position of a nonviolent rebel in the face of
oppression and injustice, and recalls the prophetic role of the
Virgin Mary and her revolutionary hymn. He said: “I am quite
sure that certain passages in the Gospel could be censored.
For instance, the Magnificat is a revolutionary hymn; it is
disturbing, it is serious, it is agitation! It speaks out against
the established order, against the rich and powerful!”
It is therefore under this canopy that this writer wants to let
the world know that Rev Fr Ejike Mbaka, a Catholic priest of
Enugu as every other human being is a political animal as the
great philosopher, Aristotle once said. Following some crabby
and politically-minded venoms meted on the man of God for
speaking his mind on the political misfiring in the country, this
writer wants to teach with a strong conviction that Catholic
priests are naturally called not only to preach the gospel, but
have a divine mandate as prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah
and others to build and destroy, to plant and to uproot evil in
society caused by political elite and their collaborators. Every
priest should be put in the shoes of great prophets who
carried out their prophetic evangelization beyond the pulpits or
confines of their personages as Christ did. Prophets such as
the late Pope John Paul 11, Rev Fr Popieluszko Jerzy of
Poland, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Rev Martin Luther King Jnr of the US, spent their
time and energy fighting to enthrone justice, equality, equity,
peace, harmony and an egalitarian society not as partisan
politicians, but men of God with political consciousness.
Therefore, for Fr Mbaka to have called for socio-political
change in the country was not out of theological or moral
sync. As a great prophet of our time who also knows the
demands of our Lord Jesus who not only preached the Word
of God, but worked assiduously for the integral development of
the people, Fr Mbaka has not failed to repeat the political
response of the Master to the politics of death perpetrated by
Herod when he referred to him as wicked fox.
The priest as a good shepherd who loves and cares for his
flock must not simply sit on the political fence and watch his
flocks’ chilling and emotional cries of despair, oppression,
repression and poverty and for help in the midst of other
savage social injustice end in vain. This is not the first time
that Fr Mbaka has asked political rulers to lead well by
providing security, food, shelter, jobs to their subjects. Who
should blame Fr Mbaka for asking for the wellness of school
children under the siege of monsters called Boko Haram? Who
should blame a man of God who calls on a ruling national
government to fix federal roads especially in the South East
where innocent blood is shed on a daily basis due to
avoidable accidents? If not by the grace and mercy of God,
this writer would have been in the morgue due to a ghastly
accident at the Onyeama Mine of the Enugu-Onitsha express
road where people die every day due to fixable bad roads.
How many Igbo people have died on the Enugu-Onitsha
express road including priests and for too long nothing has
happened? In fact things are not the way they ought to be
politically in this nation, and woe betides that priest who does
not rise in condemnation of the federal government’s lack of
leadership purpose and visionary integration of democratic
dividends. Besides, it is wrong for people to criticize active
priests who play their prophetic role in society. It is never
morally or spiritually wrong for priests to engage in national
questions, which affect those they lead. Can there be a nation
without priests and their flock? It is perfectly right for Fr
Mbaka to call for change in Nigeria, a country that has been
blessed by God, yet is on her knees for too long begging for
progress. A country in the mould of El Salvador where once
lived a politically conscious Catholic archbishop, Oscar
Romero, who died in the defense of the poor masses. He tried
to live his life as a Christian and as a chief shepherded of
Christ’s flock in his country, El Salvador.
In his book “Church and State”, another politically minded
Catholic priest Fr John Odey captures the priest’s activism in
a country which was darkened by the silent sorrow of the
oppressed and persecuted peasantry; in a country which was
soaked by the tears of widows and mothers whose husbands
and sons disappeared for political reasons; in a country where
hunger for food, land and shelter was the pervasive daily
experience of the majority of the citizenry; in a country where
labourers had neither rights nor the right to bargain for their
rights; …in a country where the oligarchy wanted no social
change and violently repressed any peaceful attempt for a
change. In that country, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero
chose to make himself a sacrificial lamb by taking the identity
of the poor, the tormented, the despised and the forgotten in
order to raise them from the dungeon of oppression and
despair and give them hope.
Recently, The Sun Newspaper of January 22, 2015 reported
how the Catholic Church of Congo backed anti-Kabila
protests. It reported that the Catholic Church in the
Democratic Republic of Congo threw its weight behind
protests against President Joseph Kabila extending his rule.
The Church called on people to peacefully oppose his move to
delay presidential elections until a census is held. Cardinal
Sinn galvanized the people of Philippines to overthrow the evil
regime of President Ferdinand Marcos. Will Nigeria, therefore
be different in the face of the same political despair, economic
quagmire and social and religious unrest? Shall a man of God
keep quiet while some militants from the South South openly
threaten war if their son President Jonathan loses this year’s
presidential elections, and nobody called anybody to order?
But today, hundreds of Igbo youths are languishing inside
prisons for agitating for freedom. For expressing his personal
opinion, Fr Mbaka’s life has been put on the line, while trying
to protect his suppressed flock by some political hawks in
Coal City. The enemy has used both the media and political
stooges to defame the good name and salvific work of Fr
Mbaka and other priests, but their good works have continued
to save and promote them. Fr Mbaka is a courageous young
priest who has refused to be cowed by intimidation and
callous victimization of the enemy of “this wicked generation,
by political jobbers and cultic operators”. In spite of the
persecution of the Church and his Adoration Ministry as well
as the killing of his flock during the Adoration saga, he has
continued to wax stronger and more powerful with the
promptings of the Holy Spirit and support of even politicians
who flock there to receive anointing for progress and success.
His socio-political and economic agenda has influenced other
priests who have learnt to live with the conviction that a
religion which fails to address the social, economic, moral and
political conditions which give all privileges to the few but
reduced the generality of the people to subhuman conditions
could only appeal to the rich and the powerful and not to the
poor and the less privileged who are the special friends of
Jesus.
What about the emotional venoms of a columnist, Amanze
Obi, who displayed his personal anger on Fr Mbaka for
touching the tail of his former governor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim,
who was ousted from office through the instrumentality of the
Catholic Church in Imo State for daring a Catholic priest? I
was saddened by Amanze’s article titled “Why are critics
raging?” which I found very repugnant and irreligious of a
disclaimer who claims to be a Catholic. Obi said that he is
embarrassed by Fr Mbaka’s truth and clarion call, lamenting
that; “In the Catholic Church, we do not know our priests to
be frivolous and worldly. The laity know and see them, as
their spiritual guide.” In the same vein, Ngwu Emeka writing
inspirationally in The Sun of Tuesday, January 20, 2015
logically diffused the illogicalities and emotionally personalized
anger of a disappointed government apologist thus: “I know it
with good authority that Amanze Obi served as commissioner
under one of the worst regimes in Imo State recently. To be
precise, he served the regime of Ikedi Ohakim, which was
roundly rejected by the good people of Imo State in the last
general elections. One was, therefore, not surprised the way
and manner Amanze Obi reacted to Mbaka’s prophetic
message…The question, therefore is how has Mbaka become
frivolous and worldly because he delivered a prophetic
message packed and delivered with truth and reality for which
most Nigerians are aware and appreciate?”
I have been following Amanze’s political commentaries and no
doubt he is more PDP than a Catholic that he claims to be,
and that is why he threw all reason and spiritual excellence to
the blues trying to protect his parochial insipidity to the
detriment of the glories of heaven. This writer is greatly
worried by dirty comments of some political sycophants who
in the cause of defending political madness of their masters as
well as securing the source of their livelihood have sold their
precious souls to the demon. Besides, Fr Mbaka is not a-
man-alone-social crusader among the clerics in the urgent
call for a change in our polity. Another fiery Catholic priest,
the Spiritual Director of Canaanland Adoration Ministry a.k.a
E-Dey Work Catholic Centre, Nnobi of Anambra State, Rev Fr
Magnus Ebere SDV recently added his voice on the hard biting
national debate. Writing on the priest in The Sun of January
25, 2015 David Onwuchekwa quotes the reasons for the
priest’s call for President Jonathan not to run for another
tenure. He said that President Jonathan had failed and would
have no moral justification to ask Nigerians to renew his
mandate when the Chibok girls are still in the forest crying out
their eyes for freedom from Boko Haram insurgents for the
past nine months. Commenting on the non-partisanship of
Catholic priests, Fr Magnus insists on the socio-political
duties of the priest, claiming that “but as a priest, we are the
voice of the voiceless, the voice of the widows, the voice of
the poor and the voice of the downtrodden. And we must say
the truth no matter whose ox is gored.” The priest is angry
with Jonathan that thousands of Igbo are killed in the north
without the president protecting them. He is also embittered
as most of us that President Jonathan had done nothing for
the neglected Igbo nation, pointing out too many bad roads
and the politics of second River Niger, etc.
Finally, many observers of this man of God rightly inform us of
the worthy life of Fr Mbaka, a prophet who does what he says
unlike many pharisaic pastors who preach one thing and do
the opposite in order to curry monetary gratifications. Fr
Mbaka is not like those commercialized prophets and pastors
whose pontifical gyrations end only at the different
government quarters with bursting financial pockets. It is a
public knowledge that Fr Mbaka’s generous spirit has no
equal among his colleagues and even among moneybags. He
is known for his unquantifiable philanthropic, charitable heart
of gold and amiable grace of compassion to millions of poor
and needy masses in the like of Jesus and Mother Theresa of
Calcutta. In fact, Fr Mbaka’s lifestyle has become a gospel to
many people who have come across him. He gives without
looking back. God uses him miraculously to touch many
dejected souls across the globe. His preaching resembles
those of the Master who travels everywhere looking out for
both the poor in spirit and poor in body too. Fr Mbaka single-
handedly sponsors indigent students’ education, pays hospital
bills for thousands of poor families, and provides essentials of
life to millions of less privileged, which our different
governments could not do in spite of billions and trillions of
funds in their coffers. It is, therefore, an utmost and sheer
jealousy and callous mindedness of the Anglican bishop of
Enugu, Chukwuma to have accused the morally robust Fr
Mbaka of being financially induced by the opposition to tell
the world the truth about the present visionless government at
the national centre. It was Bishop Chukwuma of the Anglican
bishop who sold his soul to the devil during the adoration
saga when he defended the supposed murderers of the
worshippers. We know him as “bishop-governor” for his selfish
and greedy political gerrymandering in and outside the
ecclesiastical enclave.
Frankly speaking, Fr Mbaka’s integral pastoral engagement is
a clarion call on all priests especially the much respected
Catholic priests to be politically and economically conscious
of their vocation, which should be spread beyond the enclave
of the sanctuary to the temporal via the provision of physical,
emotional and socio-economic wellness of their flock as
explicitly underscored by the Second Vatican Council. For
instance, in Section 7 of the Synod of Bishops number 7, the
wise clerics had this wisdom to express vividly for our priests
to truly understand their mission on earth: “The proper
missions entrusted by Christ to the priest, as to the Church,
is not of the political, economic or social order, but of the
religious order (cf. GS 42); yet, in the pursuit of his ministry,
the priest can contribute greatly to the establishment of a
more just secular order, especially in places where the human
problems of injustice and oppression are more serious.” Is
Nigeria not a place where countless injustice, marginalization,
victimization, corruption, electoral thievery, assassinations and
all forms of atrocities do not breathe frustrations,
hopelessness, doom and deaths? Are priests not justified
when they speak out against such social and moral anomies
perpetrated by our conscienceless and greedy politicians?
Should priests keep mum while politicians steal our heritage
and public funds to the detriment of those who pay their
tithes and give offerings in the Church?
Hence, Fr Mbaka and a few other prophetic priests ought to
be given a pat on the back for rising up to the biddings of
Christ and the Vatican 11 Council with regard to the
protection and promotion of the Faithful’s fundamental human
rights which our Lord defended even with his own dignity and
life. The Vatican Fathers’ words are justifying elements for
priests to go into the world of the poor and dejected in
society. They also said that the word of the Gospel, which he
proclaims in the name of Christ and the Church, and the
effective grace of sacramental life, which he administers
should free man from his personal and social egoism and
foster among men conditions of justice, which would be a sign
of the love of Christ present among us” (cf. GS 58). Who will
therefore blame priests who rebuke like Jesus did those
politicians who are putting the fire of executive rascality that
melts to the blues legislative vitality and judicial independence
and steadfastness? Who will tell our politicians that automatic
tickets, consensus candidacy, imposition of candidates and
love for power elongation are from the devil? Who will tell the
Inspector General of Police that it is wrong to ambush our
national legislators in their hallowed chambers and illegally
remove police details of a sitting Speaker? Is Nigeria not a
banana state where life has become so short, brutish and
frustrating? What is happening to our youths who are now
dying in their numbers in search for the golden egg in foreign
lands? Who is frustrating them? Who will tell them that
Nigerian children need free and qualitative education? Who
will tell them to give us steady power supply, security and
employment? Who will save us from the rampaging Boko
Haram, heartless kidnappers, callous armed robbers and other
criminalities? Who will tame our enemies on our roads-the
police, the custom and the likes? Who will teach our
politicians the need to get more Mandelas in our political
field? Who will encourage and spur on our electorate to
protect their votes as well as ensure that the ruling party and
its allies in INEC, Police, Army and other para-military
agencies do not rig the 2015 elections? Finally, who will save
us from the impending danger of 2015? Do you not sense any
serious danger in the post 2015 elections especially if they are
rigged or if Jonathan wins again? If we have hundreds of
priests in the form of Fr Mbaka in all the states of the country,
will it not be possible to bring the much needed justice and
peace in the country? So we are dire in need of more Fr
Mbakas and serious prayers in the country if we really want to
remain one and united country where justice and peace, truth,
fairness, tolerance, equity and equality shall reign supreme.
We have so many silent priests who are not happy with the
way things are moving on in this country, but cannot come
out beyond their confines of their pulpits and ecclesiastical
fiefdom. Therefore, no sane person has the moral right to
blame a prophet who warns us of impending danger. This is a
priest who has the stamp of divinity to inform Nigerians the
will of God as it concerns our politics. For instance, in the on-
going debate on Mbaka’s oracle, one of our greatest
journalists of all time had this to say: “The recanting is too
drastic to have been done by his own will. I believe a higher
power worked on him. It can only be God”. This is a great
journalist who does not give a damn in saying the truth and
does not believe in pecuniary reasons for his journalistic work,
whereas a great many dance the tune of selfish and greedy
steps of death. So, the time for social and political revolution
is now. Let us ensure that the elections are not only free, fair
and credible, but seen to be so, because we are sitting on a
dangerous keg of fire, which the Boko Haram has started. This
is the time for us Christians and people of good conscience to
repeat what Martin Luther King did. As he went out to the
streets singing, “We shall overcome” or as Puerto Rican
Christians represented the via crucis on Good Friday, the
spirituality or the Christology of liberation emerges. This is
because; the positive relation between God’s Kingdom and
man’s historical undertaking justifies us in understanding the
former as a call to engage ourselves actively in the latter. The
gospel invites and drives us to make concrete historical
options and assures them eschatological permanence in so far
as they represent the quality of human existence, which
corresponds to the Kingdom. We can, therefore, within human
history, engage with others in action, which is significant in
terms of God’s redemptive purpose, of his announced and
promised future Kingdom. May God bless a marriage put
together by dishonest and human trafficking goaldiggers. We
commend to your care oh Mother of our Saviour all the
wrongs inflicted upon us by the ruling PDP after the return of
our so-called home grown democracy and particularly during
the last three years of exceptionally cruel insurgency,
kidnapping, hostage taking and youth abandonment. These
wrongs demand reparation especially the moral wrongs, which
have been frequently mentioned during our daily Holy Masses
and prayers for the Fatherland in distress and not second term
bids.
Finally, according to Rev Fr Populieszko who was murdered
by the Polish Police, he advised Polish people in the midst of
political oppression and official manipulations not to “let the
indisputable truth that a nation dies when it lacks valour,
when it deceives itself, when it says that all is fine whilst
tasting the opposite, when it shuts its eyes and is satisfied
with half truths, be a warning to us.” So, Fr Ejike Mbaka, the
indefatigable warrior of truth and justice wants only the best
for the country. He is an impeccable man of integrity who
cannot be tempted with filthy lucre of mammon like some
mouthy and fake men of God. As a hero of the countless
masses, he cannot be bought over directly or indirectly with
things of like, rather he is the immeasurable giver of good
things to humanity with a heart of gold and diamondic charity.
One thing clear about him is that he is not afraid to look at
those in power and tell them the truth– bitter as it may
sound. Therefore, we must not throw away his prophetic call
for change if we really love this country and want its progress
based on peace and harmony.
*Rev Fr Offor Evaristus is of St Dominic’s, Obinagu Udi,
Enugu
offor4mary@yahoo.com
