Those in possession of absolute power cannot only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.” –Eric Hoffer

By Omoniyi Salaudeen

The Spiritual Director of the Adoration Ministry, Enugu, Nigeria Rev. Fr. Camillus Ejike Mbaka, is on the spot again for what he knows how to do best: prediction.

His latest prophecy on the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Imo State governorship election is generating controversy. Unlike his previous political prophecies, which drew admiration from both within and outside his congregation, the fiery priest has been under attack for predicting victory for Senator Hope Uzodinma against the ousted former Governor Emeka Ihedioha.

The apex court had, Tuesday, nullified the election of Ihedioha as the governor of Imo State and declared Uzodinma as the winner of the 2019 election. And the Catholic priest appears to be gloating over it, boasting that he still has 39 other prophecies, which would ultimately come to pass.

Speaking through his spokesman, Maximus Ugwuoke, he said: “Uzodinma becoming the governor of Imo was just a part of the about 40 prophetic prayers Fr. Mbaka made on December 31. But that became the only issue people satanically picked against him.

“There are double-fold angles to this miracle. One is the miraculous resuscitation of Hope Uzodinma from the far away position he was placed in the election result announced by INEC in Imo State. The second is the unanimous confirmation of the seven Justices of the Supreme Court (without a dissent view) that Uzodinma was the rightful winner of the election.”

The controversial predication is still raising dusts in Imo State, even as Ugwuoke insisted that the victory of Uzodinma was evidence that Mbaka was truly an anointed man of God, adding that “those attacking him were ignorant of the directive of the Holy Spirit.”

He maintained that Mbaka’s prophetic gift should be a source of pride for the Catholic Church and indeed all true Christians as a living evidence of divine presence within the Church.

Since he was ordained a Catholic Priest in 1995, Mbaka has assumed reputation for giving controversial prophecies. His spiritual exploit brought him to national reckoning in 2015 when he predicted victory for General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), against the then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

“All the other birds I released flew away, but the healthiest of them, which is Jonathan’s bird, could not fly. I tried to make it fly, but it could not fly,” he had told the huge excited congregation that cheered him on. And the prophecy came to pass. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, the candidate of the opposition party defeated the sitting president in a landslide victory.

However, his prophecy on President Buhari and ex-President Jonathan did not go without a price. In a bid to curtail his seeming excesses and penchant for creating political anxiety under the guise of preaching, the Catholic Church ordered that he be transferred from Christ the King Parish, Enugu where he had served for over a decade to Our Lady Parish, Emene, a development he described as a “calculated move” to make him suffer.

“I know we are going to suffer within now and few months to come. I am going to suffer and suffer, I know that. I’m going to suffer because I have no place to put my head. I am going to suffer because I have no place to keep the Adoration Ministry’s assets. I know I’m going to suffer,” he lamented then. But the Secretary-General of the Catholic in Nigeria, Reverend Father Ralph Madu, dismissed the insinuation, saying transfer of priests within the Catholic Church is a “normal church procedure.”

However, in 2005, Mbaka missed the mark in his prophecy when he prophesied that the then governor of Enugu State, Senator Chimaroke Nnamani would not be re-elected, but he did.

But he also got it right again during a bazaar organized by his centre, when he tried by all means to make former governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi to make his donation at the bazaar known to the Adoration members, and Obi stood his ground, making Mbaka to prophesy that the former governor who was running mate of Atiku Abubakar in the 2019 president election would not make any headway.

It was at the bazaar arena too that Senator Uzodinma made a N20 million donation and announced that President Buhari would construct a clinic for the Adoration ground. His encounter with Obi raised a lot of dust then.

If the statement credited to the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Adewale Martins, is anything to go by, Mbaka may have to pay more for circumventing the standard rules of procedure governing the conduct of Catholic priests in his latest prophecy on Imo governance. According to Martins, what could be done in the end is to stop him from public ministry.

There is no gainsaying that miracle and prophecy are inherent part of Christian doctrine. But what Mbaka appears to be getting wrong is his inability to divorce politics from religion. By so doing, critics say, he is merely playing to the gallery at the expense of Catholic norms and practices. For the latest prediction on Imo, they accused the priest of acting an already written script.

Father Mbaka was born to the family of the late Chief Humphrey Ogbuefi and Felicia Mbaka in Amata Ituku in Awgu LGA of Enugu State. Ironically, Ogbuefi Mbaka’s family is renowned for their special talent in palm wine tapping in the community (Ituku). But by divine providence, he was ordained a priest of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek, on July 29, 1995 and has since then carved a reputation for himself as a fearless priest.