PDP, Ohanaeze Mounted Pressure On Catholic Bishop Of Enugu Diocese To Transfer Mbaka, Parishioners Allege

A fresh round of controversy has greeted the recent transfer of Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka from Christ the King Parish, GRA, where he had been the parish priest for 20 years to Our Lady of Rosary, Emene Enugu, as members of his Adoration Ministry, Enugu Nigeria, AMEN, Sunday, alleged a conspiracy between the Catholic Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Most Rev. Calistus Onaga and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
The fiery Catholic priest is the Spiritual Director of the Adoration Ministry, which attracts tens of thousands of worshippers from various churches.
His transfer last month put the normally-conservative Catholic Church in the spotlight, more so, as Fr. Mbaka claimed that the move was punitive because of his political pronouncements.
In a statement signed by Kingsley Eze, Igbo Youth Kaduna, Sunday Ukam, Enugu Adorer, Adedije Wale, Osun State, Adorer, and twenty others, they maintained that the transfer of Mbaka out of the Christ the King Parish GRA, Enugu, fell short of the routine transfer of priests in the diocese.
They alleged that whereas former Bishops in the diocese gave Mbaka all the support needed for the ministry to flourish, Bishop Onaga had allegedly been acting a script aimed at bringing the priest down.
“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”, they stated.
“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 Ndi Igbo, 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 Ohaneze and PDP. The posting is not Holy Ghost oriented but PDPnized and Ohanaezenized, 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?” the statement read.
They equally warned 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”, they warned.
The members of AMEN added they are ready and determined to lead a religious revolution in Nigeria if what they termed “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”.