Catholic Church bows to pressure and agree to let Father Mbaka return to Enugu next year

CATHOLIC Church of Nigeria officials have bowed to pressure and revealed that Adoration Ministry of Enugu spiritual director Reverend Father Ejike will be allowed to return to his post soon following the widespread opposition to his redeployment.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Father Mbaka has been transferred out from the Adoration Ministry in Enugu and sent to a monastery with immediate effect in what his supporters say is an attempt to silence him. In June last year, Reverend Father Mbaka disappeared for 24 hours because he was detained by the Enugu Catholic bishop Most Reverend  Callistus Onaga for criticising President Muhammadu Buhari.

Since then, the fiery clergyman has constantly been in the news and earlier this year, his ministry was shut down for three months after he criticised the Labour Party presidential candidate and former Anambra State governor Peter Obi and was only re-opened on Sunday. However, Father Mbaka was not allowed to return to Enugu as another clergyman of the Catholic Diocese of Enugu, Reverend Father Anthony Amadi was posted to take charge of the Adoration Ministry.

Local Catholics have, however, opposed the move, calling it wanton victimisation, forcing the catholic Church to back down. Padre Mike Nsikak Umoh, the national director of social communications at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, said Father Mbaka will return to Enugu after he has completed a period of solitude.

He added: “It was recommended that Father Mbaka takes time away in solitude, in order to listen to what the spirit of God has to tell him. He was allowed to propose a priest to administer, in the interim, to the faithful at the Adoration Ministry.”

Padre Umoh said that what every true Christian and especially every true Catholic should do at this moment is to commit Father Mbaka, to God in prayer. He added thus this so that he may, through this moment, encounter God specially, come out stronger and better in recognising His will for him and gain more graces to channel those rare gifts for His glory and for the sanctification of the people of God and society at large.

On Sunday, Farther Mbaka had told the congregation that he knew the solutions to Nigeria’s problem with regards to the 2023 general election but that he was restrained by God not to reveal it. Father Mbaka, who is expected to be away until early next year, went further to say that some unnamed persons were wasting their time.