FATHER MBAKA AND PETER OBI'S THANKSGIVING SAGA: THE REAL EBEANO..

ICHEOKU says initially wanted to completely stay out of the fray and avoid stepping into the ruckus between Father Mbaka and Peter Obi and not take sides with any of the social media warriors camps, who have since pitched their tents alongside the two gladiators respectively. But subsequently ICHEOKU changed his mind and decided to offer this piece, now that one of the parties to the dispute has made a mea culpa. ICHEOKU expects the other party to unconditionally accept the unconditional apology as made, and in good faith. Hopefully, both men will resolve the matter and rest it as a hatchet buried.

Father Mbaka was wrong for not being a good host, who as expected, should ordinarily be very accommodating of his guest. Peter Obi could have given Father Mbaka an excuse on why he cannot honor his invitation to the Thanksgiving Bazaar event, but chose to honor the invite anyway. It was good of Peter Obi that he attended and Father Mbaka should have appreciated this magnanimity as Peter Obi does not owe him anything, including being at his Thanksgiving and Bazaar event. However, Peter Obi was also wrong for the way he approached the issue, knowing fully well that the reason for his invitation is to help raise funds for whatever project Father Mbaka was executing. 

Therefore, Peter Obi would have made a forthright donation, even if a token donation; to help kick start the event and put the fund raising ball rolling and set the Thanksgiving launching process in motion. At least he would have presented a cheque for N500,000 with a promise to do more once Father Mbaka has finished giving him a walk around and tour of the project grounds, to enable him, Peter Obi, appreciate the project more and better. This is how it is done and Peter Obi will not claim ignorance of the expectations of him in a Harvest and Bazaar. The place of a chief launcher or special guest of honor, who was invited solely to help boost any occasion, be it wedding, community projects appeal fund, book launching and any other type of Fundraising event, is not subject to any second guessing because it is set in stone. So, both men have their own share of blames, admitted their ego betrayed them and they failed to realize this and otherwise manage the ugly episode better.

But be that as it may, the blame game should now end and let every party move on to other things which are more important to them and society, rather than dwelling on some petty disputation which is neither here nor there. ICHEOKU says now to the meat of this oped which is specifically directed at the lack of strategic thinking by the Igbo Nation of Nigeria; and how Ndigbo are not helping their case or rather lot, within the Nigeria experience. This is the reason they have become an oppressed minority in Nigeria and now so ignored and relegated to the background that even an Ijaw minority of all minorities was made president of Nigeria before an Igbo man or woman, for that matter. 

ICHEOKU hopefully Ndigbo can finally wake up from their slumbering indifference in matters affecting their collective interest in Nigeria and approach the issue of their position in Nigeria with collectivity and as an army of one; with only one objective in mind, to reclaim their rightful place in Nigeria and pursue it as passionately and as focused as they can be. Enough of this dog eat dog mentality of the Igbo person. Let Ndigbo please stop eating each other and stop being the executioners of their own. Father Mbaka did not do anything which other pastors from other tribes and regions in Nigeria have not done; and therefore he should not be singled out for the hangman's noose.

ICHEOKU says can somebody please tell ICHEOKU the difference between what Father Mbaka said or did from what Enoch Adeboye, TB Joshua, Apostle Suleiman and other scripture entrepreneurs in Nigeria and throughout the world has been doing for so many years and continuing till today. So, why single Father Mbaka out or is it the same "kill the Igbo man" maniacal idiocy, which has been going on in Nigeria and for such a long time. So what if he tried to pressure Peter Obi to fork out some money? So what if he tried to overwhelm Peter Obi's notorious stinginess and extort money from his gum-hand by threatening election defeat for Team Atiku/Obi? So what if Father Mbaka deployed the weapons of give me your money from his arsenal of mind hypnosis? What did Father Mbaka do which others have not done and continues to do. 

Enoch Adeboye is on record demanding N1 billion each from 10 Redeemer members, condemning those who do not donate substantial amounts of money to his church and even went as far as threateningly passing a sentence of hell-fire on anyone who do not pay FAT TITHES and donate generously to his ministry. Redeemers Christian Church of God General Overeer Enoch Adeboye was on captured on video saying that he will not let anybody who does not pay tithes to his church enter heaven and even threatened his pastors about not collecting enough tithes for his ministry. ICHEOKU had written a piece then, condemning what Enoch Adeboye said as unbecoming of a true man of God and emphasized that Enoch Adeboye is not the heaven's gate keeper, hence has no authority to speak as he had spoken. 

The same Enoch Adeboye is on record for his church collecting N250 million from a woman director of prison food supplies services, who will not feed prisoners, but pockets the N14,000 per prisoner per day cost of feeding them, and then donated N250 million in tithes to Enoch Adeboye's church branch in Abuja; and Enoch Adbeboye had no scruples collecting and pocketing same. It is instructive that Enoch Adeboye did not even ask her where she got the money from nor gave a care in the world that an ordinary civil servant on a salary could make such humongous donation to his church. Speaking of abating and aiding corruption in Nigeria and you wonder what has become of all these Scripture retailers in Nigeria masquerading as pastors and men of God. 

That all these 419 fake prophets and false men of God are shakedown artists is a fact; but what is not understandable nor acceptable or agreeable is that one of them should be singled out for haranguing. ICHEOKU therefore strongly objects to the notion that Enoch Adeboye is somewhat superior to Father Mbaka and so immune from criticisms but Father Mbaka can be reaped apart. Why should Enoch Adeboye and others from certain part of the country, Yoruba/Kogi axis, who are similarly defrauding people of their hard earned money, be above reproach, but Father Mbaka is not? Why is it a taboo to criticize Enoch Adeboye, TB Joshua, David Oyedepo, Apostle Suleiman, but Father Mbaka is a fair game to be hounded and bayoneted, just because he is an Igboman. 

ICHEOKU says totally and completely rejects the idiocy that encourages this disparate treatment of both pastorprenuers and which fuels such a selective righteous indignation;  and hereby condemns everyone, particularly any Igbo person, especially the social media hatchet men or women, who were involved in the recent war of attrition and ferocious attacks on the person of Father Mbaka. Why eat your own if ICHEOKU may ask and if Father Mbaka must be attacked, why must it be Ndigbo who are leading the charge and egging on the lynch mob. Why would Ndigbo allow and encourage an otherwise avoidable snafu between two Igbo men be dragged out in the Nigeria's public domain and watch their own being eating up alive and gleefully participating in it. Why the idiotic ignorance that the rest of Nigerians are seeing Ndigbo as the laughing stock of Nigeria and are laughing their heads off watching Ndigbo lead two of their own out to the lynching ground to be crushed to death. 

What manner of people are these Ndigbo on social media or have any of them ever seen any Yoruba person criticizing Enoch Adeboye or David Oyedepo or even TB Joshua as well as the other Kogi born fraudster Apostle Suleiman. But it is Ndigbo, the people who know too much and they like to make a feast of each other to the glee of the rest of the country. ICHEOKU categorically and unequivocally condemns the show of shame put up against Father Mbaka for his encounter with another Nwa afor Igbo, Peter Obi at the Adoration Ministry in Enugu as despicable and uncalled for; as it should have been better managed and not blown out of proportion; which turned Ndigbo into the spectacle of Nigerians as their strong headiness but lacking in strategical thinking once again reared its ugly head.  

The tragedy of the Igbo Nation, especially many of them on social media, is that they will never attack other pastors and men of God from other regions and races. You will never see them attacking or condemning or criticizing Enoch Adeboye or David Oyedepo or Apostle Suleiman, because according to their skewed slavish narrative, those fellas are "God's anointed". They will not hesitate and will readily drop for you their usual pathetic drivel, "touch not my anointed". But none of them will ever tell you who anointed these other scripture entrepreneurs and which of them witnessed the occasion of the pouring of olive oil on their heads by Samuel. But the same numbskulls who are seeking acceptance and approval of these other nationalities in Nigeria will readily throw their own Father Mbaka under the bus and tell you that Father Mbaka is a fake and that his own prophesies do not come from heaven. What a warped, idiotic and imbecilic reasoning from their anuses and anyone is still looking for the reason nobody in Nigeria takes the Igbo person seriously.

What a people, who will gleefully cannibalize their own, while they tremble at the feet of other people's own. It is the same condemned to eternal servitude mentality which sees Igbo governors and other Ndigbo elites genuflecting before other peoples rulers, such as the Fulani King Sultan of Sokoto or the Yoruba King Ooni of Ife, but disregard and mistreat and disrespect their own Igbo Kings, including the Obi of Onitsha. These misguided Ndigbo forget that those other peoples heavy weights were made by their people to be what they became, including their reverence status; and also that the big masquerade does not make itself and that people make it possible. I

ICHEOKU says is not by this, defending Father Mbaka or giving approval to the general malaise in the country that is minting money through the Bible, but that Ndigbo should readjust themselves and re-strategize their approach to addressing issues involving themselves and one of their own, if they want to indeed get anywhere in Nigeria. It is also noteworthy that many of those big donors who donate all the heavy amounts to Enoch Adeboye, David Oyedepo, TB Joshua and Apostle Suleiman are all Ndigbo; including those in legitimate business as well as those hustlers who are engaged in all manners of shady and dubious businesses including 419, Yahoo Yahoo, kidnapping, armed robbery, as well as drug pushing. But they readily go to offload their resources for Yoruba and Kogi pastors but will act stingy when it comes to giving to their own Father Mbaka and as if that is not enough, they are up in arms to bring him down and crush his Ministry. God will not allow them to succeed in Jesus name.

ICHEOKU is not interested in whether or not any of these scriptural entrepreneurs are shafting politicians and other rich Nigerians, but that the treatment of them should be equal and across the board, as none of them is greater or more important than the other; afterall Father Mbaka saw the "vision" of a Buhari's presidency while David Oyedepo saw Jonathan not leaving Aso Rock, but doing a second term. Ndigbo should understand what they are doing to each other and pull back a little. Nnamdi Ozobia was fired from NigerDock because of a snitching Igbo man, who went to Obasanjo to rat on Ozobia over what Ozobia confided to some Igbo people in a supposedly Igbo club's meeting in Lagos. So, when ICHEOKU screams about what is going on in Nigeria, it is for a reason and it is based on factual insider's first hand information; and not that ICHEOKU wants to please anyone, because ICHEOKU neither cares about anybody's emotional feelings nor gives a rat's ass damn about making them discomfited; just that the truth be told and anyone who does not like it can go chew a basket of peppers. 

ICHEOKU urges Ndigbo to adjust their thinking, especially on issues affecting everybody in Nigeria. The incessant outbursts and self absorbing, protector of everybody in Nigeria, attitude, the reason they always carry everything about Nigeria on their head, is no longer cool. They must start being strategic in their thinking and action, knowing fully well that only through a concert, can they get anywhere politically in Nigeria. Ndigbo are stretching themselves too thin in Nigeria by carrying everybody's problem on their head. Boko Haram will strike a remote town in Bornu State and Ndigbo will carry it on their heads and shout like they are the only ones in Nigeria who heard about it; and most times louder than even the Kanuri people of Bornu State, the people at the epicenter of the Boko Haram activities. 

Fulani herdsmen will strike in Plateau or Benue or Taraba State and Ndigbo will carry it on their head as if they are the big brother of those munchi people, who must be protected from their fellow Northerners and as if those munchi people cannot fight and defend themselves from their senior brothers from the caliphate. Buhari will want to move against and impeach Saraki and you will see Ndigbo crying foul and screaming themselves hoarse as if Saraki has denounced the citizenship of Kwara State and is now an Igbo man. Ditto, Dino Melaye an this ordeals with the government, as well as others who periodically run afoul of the law and political cordiality with the presidency. 

But when one of their own is in trouble, they will shout crucify him, crucify him and sometimes be the ones casting the first stone. Enough of this incessant making of otherwise avoidable enemies, and hopefully, their easily excited personality will allow them to become more disciplined and circumspect about chasing every shadow that moves in Nigeria. It is also a fact that Ndigbo has never been rewarded with love for being the "big brother" of these other Nigerians and you ask yourself, what then is their motivation. 

On a final note, ICHEOKU would strongly recommend that Father Mbaka seriously consider leaving the Catholic Church, for his own fully independent Father Mbaka's Adoration Ministry Inc. That way he can be in full and complete control of his ministerial calling and run it as he pleases, instead of being under the constant watch and control of the Catholic Church; and be subject to the idiosyncrasies of both the Vatican and whoever the local Catholic authority is in Enugu State and Nigeria. That way, he will free himself from all the shackles of jealousy and envy and the incessant, never ending. attempt to muzzle him and stop his ministry. Father Mbaka must avoid being subjected to the wind of doctrinal opinion or paid hacks trying to influence his fate and that of his Ministry through petitions and unmerited outrage against him. 

Father Mbaka can still carry on as a priest and practice all Catholic doctrinal rituals as an independent pastor, but not as a Catholic priest under the whims and capricious control of any other authority above him. Enoch Adeboye does not answer to anyone; TB Joshua does not answer to anyone, Apostle Suleiman does not report to anyone; so why should Father Mbaka? The Anglican Church pulled out of the Catholic Church, ditto nearly every other church, therefore Father Mbaka will not be doing anything out of the ordinary or revolutionary if he also follows suit with his own Father Mbaka Adoration Ministry Church of Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ Incorporated. Why not?