Rev Fr Mbaka and the bird that wouldn’t fly By Dr Ugoji Egbujo

It’s election time in  Nigeria and politicians of all shades are invading the Houses of God.

They are not in these places to listen to God or to repent of their numerous sins. They come to pull wool over the eyes of the people. Some of them have always been visible, simulating godliness while calculating the   political profitability of that identification.

Some others ,who cannot afford the cost in comfort and moral freedom the charade entails, can dash in for a few night vigils at popular grounds and get some mileage at politically expedient   show of sanctimoniousness. The big weights will always ask for and get public prayers with hands laid on them.

Heads bent, they come   suppliant   and seemingly contrite,   literally crumpling themselves   and crumbling to the ground in front of thousands. Ancient Pharisees would have been envious of these modern day Pharisees.   Obviously wowed   and impressionable congregation will chime in thunderous ‘amen’   to favours being asked of God for their political oppressors. Didn’t the bible say they should pray for their leaders?

Regardless of ones religious persuasion, these acts are   generally aimed at brain washing. The idea that only ‘almajiris’ are brain washed and converted by instrument of false religion to malleable political tools is not wholly correct. It is true that the almajiris, by reason of regimentation, may be more flammable tools but the political consequences of religious charlatanism on the polity is as destructive amongst Christians as it is amongst Muslims.

At the national level it’s a straight forward contest between Christian and Islamic sentiments   but when you arrive   Christian dominated south east Nigeria you come into a Catholic versus Anglican political battlefield.

And those adept in raising anti Islamic propaganda are even more adept in turning their guns on Catholics or Anglicans as the case may be   to serve their interests. Bigotry is in a sense relentlessly   boundless. Or so it seems.   In their private lives, and when   it serves their interests, they fall in love with Muslims and Anglicans , and Catholics and atheists, hire them, trade with them, live with them.

Some pastors like some Imams now tell their flocks which party is evil and which candidate is preferred. Political shepherding. The Traditional rulers are similarly afflicted. Oba of Benin   once said the gods have declared for Jonathan and Oba of Lagos , more conscious of jurisdictional limitations , says its APCs Ambode or no one as Lagos governor. When they speak they allude to an infallible binding     spiritual instruction from some deity. These often contradictons only help to   humanize these deities and demystify their spokespersons

Enter Reverend Father Mbaka. Popular, politically active, bold and loquacious. He has fought many political battles in the past , crusading against corruption and taking on perceived corrupt politicians frontally and publicly. Against then Gov. Chimaroke Nnamani it was a no- holds -barred battle.

He   did win the battle of preventing the re election   of one or two of his targets   even after enlisting   and unleashing what should have been sacrosanct, decisive   prophetic utterances on them. He never leaks his wounds and is never fazed by any such set backs. We know how elections are won in Nigeria, anyway. Mbaka has remained for many the most popular priest in Enugu with substantial influence on the general   Igbo   catholic   congregation. You can’t ignore the number.

So no one was surprised when   some weeks ago the first lady, Dame Jonathan led by the deputy senate president went to Mbaka’s adoration ground to literally ‘collect blessings’.

For those conversant with south east political dynamics the first lady’s visit was an unmistakably brazen attempt at exploiting religious sentiments of the ordinary catholic faithful for the electoral benefit of Goodluck Jonathan and his PDP. Dame’s visit to Mbaka was a seeming testimony of Mbaka’s continuing political relevance . Mbaka received his visitors well and even had some good words for the President.

He     didn’t just praise the president , he defended him on numerous charges of incompetence routinely leveled against him by the opposition with the flair and zeal of a committed apologist.   Words were not enough. Mbaka delved into spiritual warfare. He anointed   a   kneeling Dame   Jonathan   and declared she would be first lady in 2015 . And that has fairly obvious implications . He anointed     some birds and   charged them   to fly and fight for Jonathan.

Dame was happy,   the senate deputy president was all smiles.   It was all going swimmingly . Their   desired message had been preached .The people, in their many thousands, had chorused amen. Members of TAN present winked at cameras in satisfaction. Mbaka then was a great man of God, cherished and accepted. His bishops were quiet   and perhaps happy because   his endorsement of Jonathan was politically correct.   But wait a minute.

Mbaka was   not done. The setting   this time was   same adoration ground   but it was different because it was jammed   and the occasion was special, very special. Many   thousands   usually   converge there for their new year blessings   from far and wide , ending the year there and starting the new year there. And Mbaka had a special new year message. He started by declaring that the message he had was from the ‘Oracle of the Holy Spirit’ .   He warned all including pastors and bishops to seek the advice of the holy spirit before criticizing the message .   He knew   controversy was going to be stirred .

Mbaka’s   message was that God has directed him to inform the congregation not to support   Jonathan. That Goodluck Jonathan had become ,in his words ,‘badluck’ . While he didn’t need to support this new position with any reasons since it was divinely instructed, he chose to rationalize it and in giving reasons invited inevitable scrutiny.

His new reasons are widely known. The tragedy   for Mbaka is not in merely shifting positions but   in his giving of two sets of diametrically opposed reasons in a space of two months. Mbaka , to some,   defied decency. Many were startled by the Mbaka thunderbolt.

For some , its was simply ludicrous. Any mind that does not have the capacity for the kind of dissociation associated   schizophrenia   should not be burdened with the ignominy that   should be a natural consequence of such a   flip flop. In the minds of his ardent followers Mbaka is an oracle and so reasons are secondary. Of primary importance for them   is the fact of his revelation.   Faith they say cannot be founded on rationality.

Mbaka said God has not only   decided Jonathan’s time was   up but that he must   also make it public. If Mbaka had taken himself off the picture completely by not giving any reasons, by shying away from helping God to justify the new prophesy then no one would have labeled him incoherent.

So it wouldn’t have   mattered that Mbaka   had   derided the Bring Back Our Girls campaign and wondered   aloud how it fell on Jonathan to bring back the Chibok girls since they were not in his custody, insinuating that the duty to release the girls lay with boko haram and their sympathisers.

On new year day he had done a full 360 degrees   and lampooned Jonathan for failing to provide security. Kidnapping, Mbaka   now says, is the child of   pervasive   youth unemployment     and joblessness which is the grand parent of Boko Haram and all are fruits of Jonathans poor leadership . While Mbaka’s new year message was riddled with   inherent inconsistencies the main thrust of that message is fairly well understood. It may not matter that Mbaka insists that Good luck Jonathan is a good man surrounded by hooligans while maintaining that Jonathan is now bad luck personified, Mbaka is not a logician.

However, it seats a bit uneasily that in another breath he labels him a manipulator who bears Ebele and Azikiwe during elections and discards those names and promises made to Igbos after. Perhaps the priest was being polite.   What else can I say? If any of his faithful finds ambiguity in the priest’s messages then he could , as a soldier of Christ, obey the last order.

When   Mbaka announced that the   healthiest of the birds he released to fly and fight for Jonathan refused to fly despite all he did to make it fly , sighs of pity for Jonathan , the one that perhaps has now been forsaken by the Almighty, filled the congregation.

Who would have ever thought that the man who, in consonance with his name, had been propelled by sheer providence to the highest office in the land and whose opponents have often been warned by  sycophantic presidential aides not to tempt fate by contesting or working   against him would one day   suffer such a reversal in superstitious assessment   and metaphysical prognostication   with   Mbaka   pronouncing that       Jonathan   is now an embodiment of badluck , a harbinger of evil.

“Jonathan is now bad luck” he bellowed,  “he was bad luck to   Yaradua, and Yaradua died,   bad luck to our oil and our oil poured away   and bad luck to our   naira and our naira is gone”. And the crowd murmured loudly   in approval of the uncanny association. Irrationality begets irrationality.

In going to him for spiritual blessings and in saying she experienced a spiritual rebirth while kneeling before him, Dame Jonathan has validated Mbaka’s   legendary spiritual authority.   They must accept his latest revelation as Godly. The employment of the clergy to do political jobs is a double edged sword. Rather than seek peoples mandate based on personal   records and accomplishments and   manifestoes, our politicians, for   reasons obviously   geared towards exploitation of the people,   prefer ‘spiritual’ endorsements. So they can perform poorly but come back to procure and flaunt     God’s   supposed endorsement .

And that rules out any further scrutiny and taints   the protesting and disbelieving, the critical and vigilant         as enemies of God. How many times have I heard that Jonathan is God’s candidate and any one challenging him is challenging God. Its funny that many   politicians and members of the clergy castigating Mbaka are doing so because they don’t like the content of his latest prophesy. If he had prophesied that Buhari will islamise the country, the college of Bishops would have been quiet.

In a weak political system where votes are bought easily and elections are rigged routinely , pastors and Imams can   and should play crucial stabilizing and enlightening   roles to enthrone decent politicians and politics. But because the contamination of the   secular polity has spread to   the religious   houses, primordial clannishness, religious biases, rent seeking mentality, prebendary actions and outright perfidy have   beset the clergy. Imams are as guilty too.

In a plural multi ethnic society of people who try to make up what they lack in morality and spirituality with self serving   public display of religiousity, social stability and democratic freedom cannot be fostered by acts that accentuate religious   divisions and inflame religious passions. Pastors and Imams   and traditional rulers do no one any good when they publicly instruct   the people directly or indirectly to vote one way or the other. Politicians who exploit religious sentiments   to win votes do not have the interest of God or of the suffering masses at heart.

On a lighter note , wisdom, especially the earthly variety, would advise that any bishop contemplating a sanction for Mbaka waits till Feb 14. That will leave some room for a tactical withdrawal.

Dr Ugoji Egbujo wrote  from Lagos