Igbo Progressives Youths (IPY) has condemned Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youths Council (ONYC) for attacking Rev Father Ejike Mbaka over his stand against corruption and other social ills.
IPY held a meeting in Abuja where it concluded that it would have been better for the ONYC to attack the message rather than the messenger.
It condemned the criticism as self-serving, saying it runs against the stand of the parent body, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, that has refused to endorse President Goodluck Jonathan despite immense pressure.
“We are at a loss where the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youths got the mandate to endorse Jonathan, when the parent body has not done so. It is the height of indiscipline and disobedience to constituted authority.
“It is painful that Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council instead of attacking Mbaka’s message is attacking the messenger,” IPY Coordinator, Adolphus Udeh, and Secretary, Odoeme Chidiebere, argued in a statement.
“Otherwise how come that the succinct message and graphic concern by the liberation theologian over the pathetic plight of Nigerian youths and the gross unemployment bedeviling us, escaped the mirror of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council?”
IPY added that Mbaka clarified that he is a fan of Jonathan but is disappointed with the president for surrounding himself with corrupt people and lacks the political will to fight corruption or stop Boko Haram insurgents.
“We are tempted to view the President of Ohaneze Ndigbo Youth Council, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, as an auto-pilot, for if he had consulted or held a meeting, we could have informed him of the danger of Ndigbo missing the victory party of Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress.
“This is the raison d’etre for not endorsing Jonathan by our apex body.”
Calls for sanction
Mbaka, Catholic priest and founder of Adoration Ministry in Enugu, had urged his members in a New Year message to vote against Jonathan in the election next month because his administration has not delivered.
Both the Catholic Bishop of Abuja Metropolitan See, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, and the President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, have urged Mbaka’s supervising bishop to discipline him.
“Mbaka is a priest of his own type. If he was in my archdiocese, I would have sanctioned him long ago for the kind of things and utterances he makes. But he is not under my diocese, he has a bishop to handle that if there is any need….
“I hope people are not thinking that we are sending Mbaka to talk rubbish, how can they think like that? If you want to hear anything, even not official but at least authoritative, then, you listen to the bishops,” Onaiyekan said.
Kaigama added: “Even the Canon Law forbids a priest to engage in partisan politics…. Mbaka belongs to a diocese, so if the bishop finds out that he has fallen out of line, the bishop can call him to order….
“Mbaka is just expressing his opinion, if we want to make a political statement, we know how to do it. That we keep quiet and we are marginalised does not mean we don’t have strength. With more than 30 million Catholics, we have the strength.”
Mbaka defiant
But a defiant Mbaka riposted: “Tell them I am not afraid of them. I have said what I was asked to say. The only word I have for them is Isaiah 54:15,17: ‘Surely they shall gather, but because the gathering is not of God they shall scatter. No weapon fashioned against me shall prosper.’
“They said (Muhammadu) Buhari gave me money, but I have never met Buhari. I don’t know him in person. I only delivered the message I was given and I stand by that message because the future of this country is bleak with Jonathan in the saddle.
“When she (Patience Jonathan) 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.”
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