Jonathan, Mbaka and the e-Hounds

I have two issues with Rev. Fr. Camillus Ejikeme Mbaka’s approach to social and political matters, and I will state them right away.

One is his tendency to declare with finality what will happen to the world or to people of the world that have gone astray. We Christians live in New Testament times which teach about the elastic patience of God and the opportunity it provides for sinners to do a turnaround and make heaven – even at the very last minute. Prophetic anointing is also a task that assists the Almighty to accomplish this goal for the human person. In addition, the New Testament prefigures the Old in many ways; there are far too many instances of where the Almighty changed His mind about punishing individuals, groups and nations that tested his will with serial acts of wickedness against humanity.

The other is that the reverend gentleman appears too quick to take decisive, sometimes emotional stands against politicians, doing it in such a way that he placed himself as a one-man opposition party to elected public officials. Being emotional means that he sometimes ended up putting his spiritual anointing to God’s test. The outcome may not always be edifying.

In spite of these two misgivings that I habour on his approach to socio-political matters, I still have reasons to thank God for the man. Climbing from the deep valley of poverty to the zenith of priesthood, he has managed to amass spiritual and material influence in the faith, which he deploys as support for the youths, the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the disadvantaged in general. His approach to evangelism is therefore a fine example of what the bible describes as “faith with good works.”

I will give two examples of what Fr. Mbaka does, in the areas of education and youth empowerment. Rather than build private secondary schools or universities (as is the fashion nowadays) and use them to further milk the faithful, Fr. Mbaka provides thousands of poor students with scholarships instead. Rather than continue to bemoan the inability of government to provide employment to teeming school graduates, he went on to establish industries not only to provide employment but also, and more importantly, to reinvest the profit where it mattered the most – giving seed capital in the form of grants to youths and widows with bright ideas to launch into business.

Beyond the miracles that are said to happen in his weekly adoration events (I never attended any and so cannot personally vouch for them), these are the real reasons why the man is held in awe and has amassed a large fellowship of Christian converts that I daresay any politician hunting for votes should be interested in.

Politics is a different kettle of fish, however, and I am the least surprised that Rev. Fr. Mbaka is in hot water as a result of his readiness to jump into political skirmishes as the spirit moves him. As weapons and arsenal are being amassed to fight to win the February 2015 elections, Rev. Fr Mbaka will, for the first time, meet face-to-face with national propaganda far beyond the level of anything he experienced during his local run-in with ex-Gov. Chimaroke Nnamani - if the Candidate does not reign in the e-hounds.

The good reverend’s misstep has so far created two kinds of what I classify as vengeance seekers and e-hounds. The first appear to be those who apparently have been waiting in the wings for an opportunity to viciously lash out, in retaliation for earlier positions Mbaka took on political, ecclesiastical or social issues. The second are the army of political e-recruits working for the two dominant political parties (APC/PDP) whose sole task appears to be to viciously attack influential persons who take public positions that they perceive as not in the electoral best interest of their paymasters.

One of the ways that the second group operates is to twist words and provide false interpretations that question the integrity and good faith of those who dare to take the road to dissent. I was going to suggest that this was a preserve of the APC until Fr. Mbaka appeared on the scene with his Jonathan bashing. For instance, Mbaka had explained that he had to go public with the not-so-salutary message about our Commander-in-chief because the President’s wife did not give him the opportunity to deliver the message to her privately. He did not say that he decided to rubbish them for not taking his calls. But this has not deterred some social media commentators from concluding that he gave his public message to vent his anger and frustration at the first lady and her husband for daring to shun him. In giving this interpretation, they conveniently forgot that it was the first lady who needed (and probably still needs) the priest and had to travel all the way to Enugu to meet with him for support and blessings.

It is instructive that all of the concerned principal actors – the President, the first lady, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu (who led the first lady on her spiritual mission to Enugu), the PDP and the Jonathan Campaign Organization – have kept a studied silence on the matter. Yet, it does appear that there are vicarious interests egging on the e-hounds to continue to create a deep rupture between the President and a rump of the Christian faithful who believes in Fr. Mbaka. Question is: do these strategists think that President Jonathan, in the long run, will win the votes of those who have otherwise been sympathetic, by surreptitiously using e-monsters to seek to destroy the integrity of a hardworking and well-meaning priest?

Here is a free advice: the best way to destroy Fr. Mbaka – if that is indeed the strategy – is to seek out and find every one of the thousands that he has helped or is helping through school, the hundreds that he assisted to get jobs in his company, get jobs in other companies, or those he granted seed capital to start a business, the hundreds of thousands of youths in the various communities where he performed spiritual cleansing, and every one of those who have benefited from his material benevolence – and persuade them to allow government displace Mbaka in order to provide for them those material and spiritual services, now or after the elections. 

It is also possible that there are those who may want to believe that social media nattering can accomplish this feat in the 36 days left before 14 February 2015. Why not?

A certificate "expo" for the APC

Where is General Muhammadu Buhari’s school leaving certificates?

Vanguard led the search on Friday 2 January 2014 with the claim by the Army that the military is not with Buhari’s original certificates, contrary to what he may have alleged in an affidavit submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Two days later, The Punch attempted to repair the damage with its own report that said that indeed, the certificates are with the army. So which of the newspapers is right? Are the certificates with or not with the Army?

The story is that Gen. Buhari presented an affidavit to INEC wherein he submitted that his “academic qualifications, documents as filled in my presidential form, President APC/001/2015, are currently with the Secretary, Military Board…”

The Punch, in the finest tradition of journalism, quoted a source (Brig. Gen. Olajide Laleye, the army spokesman) that appears to have thrown a lifeline to Buhari. What Laleye said can be summarized in two statements: (a) the army does not deny officers access to their certificates – if they follow due procedure to ask for them; and the procedure to follow is well known to officers, serving or retired; (b) “every serving and retired Army officer has at least a copy of his (or her) certificates and credentials kept in the Nigerian army while the officer has copies of those same certificates and credentials.” Vanguard, quoting an unnamed military source, said that (c) the Army does not keep original copies of officers’ certificates (because it is the personal property of the owners) but keeps photocopies of credentials submitted by recruits in their personal file; (d) original certificates are requested for and sighted only at the point of entry into the service, to verify the claims contained in the copies that the candidates had hitherto submitted.

The following facts and deductions can be made from the submissions so far:

• General Buhari has not presented academic documents to INEC – original or copy – but swears that he has the requisite qualifications to run for President.
• Since Buhari joined the army from the officer rank, it is correct to assume that he has certificates which are (or should be) on file with the Army.
• Buhari does not claim in his affidavit that what the Army has are either original or copies of his credentials.
• The Army has not disclosed whether it has or does not have Buhari’s certificates – original or copy. What the army says is that the office of the Military Secretary keeps copies of officers’ certificates and that officers – serving or retired – know how to get them. The import of what the Army says is that Gen. Buhari has not, now or in the past, come forward to ask for copies of his certificates. Again, Buhari’s personal file contains copies, not original certificates.

It can be argued that General Buhari does not possess a secondary school certificate, or that he has lost his certificates, or he does not want the certificate to be exposed to the general public. The late explanation by Lai Mohammed lends credence to the second option; it is also the first time that a credible explanation is being offered, long after the certificate commotion started.

VERDICT: A STORM IN A TEACUP
It is a puzzle that for 12 years, General Buhari has never attempted to access copies of these documents from the Army if he knew for a fact that they exist in military files. Before now, APC has regrettably stuck to logic and technicalities to explain away this baffling disposition.

The logic was that if Buhari contested Presidential Elections thrice, there was no way he would not have presented certificates if the presentation of a certificate to INEC is required to qualify for candidacy.

One technical explanation offered was that since the Constitution stipulates education “up to school certificate level” and it is a fact that Buhari went to school, he is qualified to run whether he presents a school examination certificate or not.

APC is so focused on attack that it has left its rear flanks wide open, and is suffering a media backlash as a consequence. This is why, despite the massive media arsenal at its disposal, it is being worsted in the press by the PDP. The party also does not appear to have strategic communications persons working full time – those who would think critically after meeting with unplanned situations. For instance, rather than engage in legality and sophistry, let me offer a certificate “expo” for the APC on what the party could have said to the press instead:

“We see the current controversy generated by our opponents on the affidavit submitted by our candidate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as a mere storm in a teacup and a strategy to divert attention from the failings of the President.”
“For the avoidance of doubt, the 1999 Constitution stipulates that anyone who wants to contest the office of the President must be ‘educated up to school certificate level.’ The Constitution does not stipulate whether this school certificate is at the primary, secondary, or indeed the tertiary level.
“The general impression is that this provision applies to any of two secondary school certificates – the West African School Certificate (WASC) or the General Certificate of Education (GCE). Our legal experts are however of the view that the evidence required is not WASC or GCE but a School Testimonial that clearly shows that a candidate began and finished secondary school education and also wrote an external examination. Our candidate has indeed presented this evidence.
“Both the West Africa School Certificate Examinations (WASCE) and the General Certificate of Education Examination (GCE) frequently feature students who are self-taught. If “education” is understood as the process of imparting and acquiring knowledge through a school or similar institution, then self-taught candidates who frequently write these examinations may not qualify to contest, going by the provisions of our Constitution.
“Our party will work assiduously to get this section of the constitution straightened out as soon as we are voted into office in February 2015.”