Leader of Catholic Adoration ministry in Enugu, Rev Fr. Ejike Mbaka has narrated what transpired when he was allegedly detained for 24 hours by the Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Most Rev CVC Onaga.
Mbaka stated that the Bishop did not kidnap him asspeculated, but that the meeting he thought was a private one turned out to be a predetermined meeting with many consultants in attendance.
He also disclosed that he went for the meeting with the Bishop so that his adherents would not become violent as it turned out, adding that the agenda of the meeting was to shut the adoration ministry and silence him over his altercations with the Mohammadu Buhari-led federal government that was once his fancied administration.
Meanwhile, Bishop Onaga has asked all parishes, Chaplaincies and religious houses in the diocese to pray for atonement and reparation of violet protesters, who destroyed the Bishop’s court and parts of the Holy Ghost diocese cathedral in Ogui Enugu, on Wednesday.
The protesters were suspected followers of Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka who unleashed violence on the catholic structures while searching for their leader, Fr. Mbaka, who was allegedly detained by the Diocese at the instance of Bishop Onaga’s summon on Tuesday.
Fr. Mbaka was however released when the protesters turned violent and he rejoined his stream of followers.
In a directive to members of the Diocese, on Thursday, Bishop Onaga said that “the followers of Rev Fr. Ejike Mbaka violently broke into the diocesan cathedral and desecrated the holy altar of sacrifice. Over and above this, they vandalized the diocese Bishop’s residence, the cathedral parish house and the secretariat building complex.
“Therefore, I hereby declare and call for one week union of prayer in reparation and atonement for this heinous act against our central place of worship and the sanctity of the church.”
Bishop Onaga directed for the prayer to begin from Friday, 7th May 2021 and obliged every parish, Chaplaincy and religious community in the diocese to participate in the holy activity.
He noted that in addition to the traditional May devotion prayers, such as daily benediction, prayers such as five decades of Holy Rosary, Act of Reparation to the most Blessed Sacrament, Psalm 51and 23 are to be offered for the purpose.
“I enjoin you to remain sober and keep the diocese in prayer.
With divine assistance and grace, we shall overcome this challenging moment. May our Lady Queen of Mary intercede for us, Amen.”
Speaking after he rejoined his followers, Mbaka said: “I appreciate your patience, endurance, incomparable love, unquestionable solidarity and unique identification and commitment to God in this ministry. God will keep you; God will bless you and shall be well with you.
This is a journey you people started in the morning. You people have been waiting for me, look at me here. We give glory to God for everything.
“I wasn’t with my phone because I decided to go in and pray to avoid disobedience of any kind.
The miracle is that it was the time I was with my phone that calls were coming from here and there that you people are heading from Adoration to Holy Ghost Cathedral and Bishop’s house and I immediately asked the group that I spoke with to please go back and they insisted that they must see me on video otherwise they will not go back. So they put in a video call and saw me blessing them.
“I never knew that there were over 40 other groups. I thought that with the blessing of the first group, that it was over. I asked them to please go back and be praying for me. It was in the afternoon that I started receiving calls; I told them that I could not go anywhere unless I heard from my Bishop because the DSS people were not involved in what happened.
“Nobody should attack the wrong person and Bishop did not kidnap me either but the Bishop gave an order that I should not be coming here from yesterday, I should leave my house, the Adoration house, that there should be no program for 30 days that I should leave in silence for 30 days.
“I am telling you the truth of what happened. So why I’m saying this is that Bishop eventually came and asked me to go and tell you people to go back and that you people have started destroying his house and things were getting out of hand.
Then I asked him what did I tell you about the people yesterday? Because the truth of the matter is that no one should accuse the wrong person. I was invited for a meeting which I attended. I thought I was invited to be in a meeting with my Bishop, I never knew it was going to be a meeting with a team of consultants.
“So, I went for the meeting so that you people should not destroy anything. This is Catholic Church, I am in charge of the church and we all belong to the church. So I would like everybody to adopt peace, love and with the Bishop telling me now to go and bring you people back to Adoration, but I asked him, my Lord Bishop, what will I tell them? So, he said I should take you people back to Adoration first.
“This is why people should understand how God works. I never disobeyed the church. People are busy misquoting me, doing everything to close this ministry but by the grace of God they cannot do anything.
Why I’m saying this is because if you don’t know the truth, you will not know how to defend yourself. I don’t know what happened in the background and what led to this but what I understand was after meeting with a team of consultants, I won’t begin to tell you who said this and that but the Bishop asked me to stay out of Adoration ground for 30 days and be silent for 30 days.
“The only thing I am not happy with is that if the Bishop wanted it to be secret he should have called me one-on-one. Did you know that before I reached Bishop’s house, the conclusion of the meeting had already been reviewed and I came in there with hope that the meeting was to be held.
Those who were there had already bragged that this is the time they will show Mbaka that the Adoration has been closed down, that Mbaka will not come here again. It was so painful and today was the day I was shot and I did not understand it because I thought it was a meeting of a father and son.
“My question was, why am I being punished, because I said that insecurity is in the country, is it not true? And that the government should provide Jobs for the youths because it is the unemployment that led to bandits, terrorism, and a lot of people don’t see food to eat in the country.
What did I say that is not happening in the country?
“What did I say that brought the issue of stopping the ministry? What surprised me is for people to tell me who to bless and who not to bless. I am a priest ordained to bless. I can’t understand why people should be angry at me for blessing Nnamdi Kanu. Go and attack God who is giving him life, attack God who is blessing him. Go and kill and punish God for giving him life. The person accusing Nnamdi Kanu, are you better than him? Is it your blessings? If I bless him and you want to curse him, you can go ahead.
“I can remember that on Sunday, I suggested that the federal government should summon the meeting of Bishops who have the capacity to bring the situation in the country to calm. What Am I being punished for?
“I am saying this so that when the world hears this they will not say that I am attacking anybody. Now I asked a question, you know hundreds and thousands of people attend ”E no dey again” who will take care of them in the issue of not attending Adoration for 30 days. The issue is go, no more Mass until 30 days. The issue is that if you want to punish Fr. Mbaka, you should not give him the mask that is not his own.
“I am using this opportunity to ask everybody to undertake what the Bible says, don’t touch my anointed and do my prophet no harm. For those talking about contracts, I have enough contracts from the Holy Ghost. I have contracts of healing, I have contracts of deliverance. I have the contract of inculcating holiness. I have the contracts of worshiping and praising God and the major contract is the contract of soul winning through charity.
“I also have the contract of worshiping the Blessed Sacrament and the contract of giving hope to the people. I have the contract to perform miracles because God performs miracles here. I have the contract of making myself available to be used by God and to be an instrument of God in any possible way.
“They will just sit down in their houses to say what they like without coming here to see what we are doing. It is an error. I will never support anyone who attacks the church and that’s why I heard the voice of Bishop Onaga and ran out from where I was to calm you people. So I asked him a question, what about going to my house, can I go, because I don’t want to disobey the church. But if you are punishing someone you should know the ripple effect of the punishment.
“How can you say that Fr Mbaka is nobody? Someone who spends his life working for the church? Someone who spends all he has on charity, someone who stands as a magnet of souls. Everything I have is for charity and for the church’s progress.
“Then if I open my mouth and say that the youths are suffering then I will be punished. If I open my mouth to say that the government of the day is not doing well they will punish me.
“All those who are criticizing me will get to see the effect of what I’m saying.
If you say that good is evil and evil is good then you will reap the effect. That is why we are here tonight. We have never been here on Wednesday night. Please, if you want to bless anyone bless him or her. You don’t have to tell me who to bless. Why are you dictating for me who to bless? Are you the owner of the blessing? Do you own the blessing in my mouth? Do you know how many oil wells of blessings that I have? Will I finish releasing them before I leave this world? So if you love someone go ahead and bless the person.
I am not you, you can never be me. I am a servant of the church; you are also a servant of the church.”
It would be recalled that the Presidency reacted to Mbaka’s call for Buhari’s impeachment by saying that the Catholic priest was apparently angry for not bagging the jobs he asked for the people he took to President Buhari when he visited the President on his request. Spokesman to the President, Garba Shehu revealed that Mbaka asked that his friends be given contracts and that failure to secure the contracts must have informed his new position on the President.
It was headline news in Nigeria which certainly embarrassed the Catholic Church. The church has not officially said they took exception to Mbaka’s actions because of what he said about unemployment and insecurity as other Catholics clergymen like Bishop Ignatius Kaigama and Bishop Kukah, among others, have said similar things in stronger words.
