Mbaka: A Man Of God Or Just An Impostor? (2)

Opinion

By Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi

Now back to Mbaka: It is interesting to note that before this blistering New Year eve attack on Goodluck, with a demand that he resigns or be voted out over Nigeria’s alarming insecurity and corruption, Ejike Mbaka had a month earlier praised the same Goodluck for “doing well”, defending him for not rescuing the abducted Chibok girls. At a November 2014 session of his Enugu parish, Mbaka told the visiting wife of the president, Patience Jonathan, that her husband had “done well”, and deserved a second term. He said Mr. Jonathan could have done more if not for “distractions”, apparently referring to the security challenges the administration has grappled with for years. Mbaka also faulted those blaming the president for not rescuing more than 200 schoolgirls abducted from Chibok by Boko Haram militants on 14 April last year. Campaigners had no reason asking the president to return the girls home since Mr Jonathan was not keeping them, he said. “Jonathan is not a kidnapper,” Mr. Mbaka declared at a session also attended by Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, and thousands of worshippers. And to Patience Jonathan he said: “You and your husband have done well in spite of the distractions. They are distracting you so that you will not achieve much.”

So why the current change of tune? Mbaka himself unconsciously revealed this in his recent comments.  Mr Mbaka said before he gave the December 31, 2014 message, he had called Mrs. Patience Jonathan severally but couldn’t get to her. Hear him: “When she came here, I told her to give me her number so that I could give her messages, but thrice she refused. It was later she told one of the pastors with her to give me his number. So, before that message, I had called the number for two weeks but it was always the Personal Assistant to the pastor that picked the calls.” So he decided to attack because he was not given a special attention by the President and his wife!

Secondly, it must be noted that contrary to the impression often given by men like Cardinal Okogie or our current man, Mr Mbaka, the Catholic Church does not in any way encourage modern type of democracy. In fact, as I stated in my newspaper article—“At Last, Buhari Attacked by Jonathan’s Men!”—, it is not just the Catholic Church alone but all the ancient religions, including Islam. This is because modern democracy, unlike the type practised by the ancient Greeks, was founded by ardent enemies of religion, many of whom were atheists. The origin of modern democracy is simply the French Revolution, particularly the French Freemasonic Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, which affirmed the so-called principles of civil liberty and of equality before the law. That is why it is simply alien to Christianity and Islam and to all the ancient religions. As Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau puts it, “The concept of the government of the people, by the people and for the people must be replaced with government of Allah, by Allah, and for Allah.” Similarly, in that piece, I quoted Pope Leo XIII who, countering the advocates of modern democracy, wrote the following in his June 29, 1881 encyclical letter entitled “Diuturnum Illud” (On Government Authority):

“Indeed, very many men of recent times, walking in the footsteps of those who in former ages assumed to themselves the name of philosophers, say that all power comes from the people; so that those who exercise it in the State do so not as their own, but as delegated to them by the people, and that, by this rule, it can be revoked by the will of the very people by whom it was delegated. But from these, Catholics dissent, who affirm that the right to rule is from God, as from a natural and necessary principle.”

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Put simply, this was—and still is for traditional Catholics—the position of the Catholic Church with regards to government authority until the Second Vatican Council, (held in the 1960s)— until “democrats” like Paul VI, John Paul II and Francis I came on board. What is democracy? Strictly speaking, democracy means “government by the people”. It is in this political sense that it is generally used. However, it possesses a secondary meaning, i.e. “movement of benevolence for the benefit of the people.” This has no political implication but only denotes a social awareness of the needs of the people. It could also be found in, say, an absolute Monarchy (Cf. Pius XII, 1944 Christmas message). But it would be more aptly named “demophily” (love for the people). It is in this latter sense that Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XII used the word “democracy” in their Encyclicals. In view of this, these Encyclicals cannot be cited to justify political democracy. To do so would be to disregard the Popes’ express teaching: “Many excellent men find the term Christian Democracy objectionable. They hold it to be very ambiguous and for this reason open to two objections. It seems by implication to covertly favour popular government, and to disparage other methods of political administration… Under the shadow of its name, there might easily lurk a design to attack all legitimate power either civil or sacred… It would be a crime to distort this name of Christian Democracy to politics, for although Democracy implies popular government, in its present application it is so to be employed that, removing from it all political significance, it is to mean nothing else than a benevolent and Christian movement in behalf of the people… This is what Catholics are to think on this matter.” (Pope Leo XIII, Graves de Communi). I have merely cited this example for us to know where Mr Mbaka, a “democrat”, belongs.

Thirdly, in the so-called new message quoted earlier, we see the same “man of God” saying that “Boko Haram is a grand great child of the same unemployment, mass looting, and poor governance.” In effect, Mbaka is also saying that ISIS, which shares the same ideology with Boko Haram and even the same Islamic flag, “is a grand great child of the same unemployment, mass looting, and poor governance.” But we have no doubt that Mbaka is just an impostor masquerading as a Catholic priest, because we know that Boko Haram is solely fighting for the evil agenda of Islamizing the entire Nigeria, just as it is written in the Quran: “O you who believe! Fight those of disbelievers who are close to you, and let them find hardness in you; and know that Allah is with those who are Al-Muttaqun (the pious).” (Sura 9 verse 123). Again: “And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah). And fight in the way of Allah and know that Allah is All-Hearer, All-knower.” (Sura (2:193; 2: 244). Again, we read: “So, when you meet (in fight—Jihad in Allah’s Cause) those who disbelieve, smite (their) necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them…” (Sura 47 verse 4).

Finally, people like Ejike Mbaka will always utter rubbish in order to dupe gullible people and get away with their crimes only because there are no true prophets in Nigeria, because there are no true Elijahs who can slaughter them just the way Prophet Elijah slaughtered the false prophets of Baal, and because those in government are equally spiritually blind. This spiritual blindness is simply responsible for the reality that “churches” (like Mbaka’s Adoration Ministry which is not Catholic) and mosques are expanding exponentially in Nigeria, yet the country is paradoxically at rock bottom in morality. It rankles that Nigeria is ranked as the most religious country in the world and contradictorily ranks amongst the top dogs too in the corruption index.

•Concluded

•Ifeanyi writes from Victoria Island, Lagos

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