Supporters of founder of the Adoration Ministry Enugu Nigeria (AMEN), Rev Fr Ejike Mbaka, Sunday threatened a “religious revolution” over the transfer of the fiery Catholic priest by the Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Most Rev. Calistus Onaga.
The adorers who accused Onaga of working for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Ohanaeze Ndigbo said they had kept their peace so far in deference to their spiritual director.
Mbaka was transferred from Christ the King Parish, GRA, on January 30, where he had been the parish priest for 20 years to Our Lady of Rosary, Emene Enugu.
A statement signed by Kingsley Eze (Igbo Youth Kaduna), Sunday Ukam (Enugu Adorer), Adedije Wale (Osun Adorer), and 20 others quoted by Vanguard said Mbaka’s transfer fell short of the routine transfer of priests in the diocese.
The aggrieved signatories alleged that whereas former bishops in the diocese gave Mbaka all the support he needed, Onaga was against his ministry.
The statement reads: “What Bishop Michael Eneja saw and allowed, Bishop Gbuji protected and watered but Bishop Onaga uprooted in a most barbaric and despondent manner. How? Sometime ago, he gave impromptu directive that the Ministry should stop the Wednesday all-night Adoration prayer, which Fr Mbaka complied with. The directive would have blown out the fire of the ministry and brought it to a painful end if not for the intervention of the Holy Spirit.
“Is Bishop Onaga angry that Fr Mbaka is prophesying? Was it not from the seat of the Bishop he occupies that Fr Mbaka was ordained a priest, a king and prophet? How then can the Church become worried when he begins to prophesy? Does the Church contradict itself?
“We are not happy with the manner the wind of the transfer blew and many of us feel bad about it. Fr Mbaka is holding the brake for some of us and we implore him to keep matching the brake and hold the steering firmly because all eyes are on him. He should not be discouraged. We are behind him. Even if they post him to the moon, there we shall be with him. Where are those behind this transfer? Let them come out from their hidings so that they will compete with Fr Mbaka for us to see, in area of preaching the gospel, in prayers, in fasting or in charity.
“Some of us who are not from Enugu Diocese didn’t believe it that Fr Mbaka was transferred in this manner. The transfer is not our problem but the manner it was done. It struck us like thunder and we have been inundated with calls from our people residing outside the country, UK, Spain, USA etc. We are dumbfounded and we can’t help asking- Is this the fight of faith that the diocese is enjoined to fight? Is this how the diocese wants to win souls? While the true lovers of the Catholic Church are thinking of how to protect Fr Mbaka as gift to the Catholic Church, his own diocese just exposed him and left him without shelter.
“Most Nigerians know that the uncommon silence of Bishop Onaga over Fr Mbaka’s prophesy of the defeat of the Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP-led government by President Muhammadu Buhari was not really for nothing. He was just waiting for the time to carry out the script of the stalwarts of the overthrown party.
“Barely few weeks before the posting, the voice of a faction of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, a socio-cultural group that fell out with the party was heard barking at Fr Mbaka to ‘shut up’ over his prophesies. And now comes the posting done in such a manner as to really shut Fr Mbaka up. Source Close to Bishop Onaga disclosed to us that the Bishop said he transferred Fr Mbaka out of pressure from Ohanaeze and PDP. The posting is not Holy Ghost oriented but PDPnized and Ohanezenized, and any cleric be him Pastor, Bishop or Cardinal that supported this is enemy of the Holy Spirit.
“How can the Bishop just wake up and tell Fr Mbaka to pack into a parish that cannot comfortably contain two priests as a third priest? Is he meant to punish him? Is that the way the Catholic Church in the diocese is meant to reward and encourage him for the glory and honour he had brought to the Catholic Church in this part of the divide and for his unalloyed humility and total obedience to the Church? Is that the way the Church is meant to reward him for taking care of the flock of the Catholic Church both within and outside the dioceses?
“We warn the Secretary, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Rev. Fr. Raph Madu to stay out of Mbaka’s ministry otherwise we shall expose his questionable life as a priest to public glare.
“He should learn the wisdom in the adage that he who lives in a glass house should not throw stones and keep silence. He lacks the moral rectitude as a priest to talk to Fr Mbaka and we are ready to confront him with those facts if he doesn’t mind his language.
“We are ready and determined to carry out a religious revolution in Nigeria if the stage-managed defamation and character assassination sponsored by enemies of the Holy Spirit in the garb of clerics against Fr Mbaka persists. We have been silent because Fr Mbaka has been calming us down to protect the image of the Church in Enugu Diocese , but this time, we cannot continue to hold our peace for we believe that respect is reciprocal.”
