In his homily on Sunday, the spiritual director of Adoration Ministry, Enugu, Nigeria (AMEN), said the recent #EndSARS protest was not just against police brutality but also bad governance.
“The living government needs to apologise, and they should also apologise for the errors of past governments,” he said in a message entitled, ‘Impure heart’.
The Catholic priest was Buhari’s cheerleader when he contested for president in 2015.
In an address entitled, ‘From good luck (in mockery of former president Goodluck Jonathan) to bad luck’, he said Buhari was the “saviour” Nigeria needed and asked Nigerians to vote for him.
Shortly after the president was elected, he hosted Mbaka in Abuja, describing him as a “man of courage”.
In his latest sermon, however, Mbaka said the president has surrounded himself with “criminals” and “hooligans”.
“Buhari, who could have been a solution to this, succeeded in encircling himself with criminals and hooligans, people who do not just tell him lies, but rather, they magnify lies and feed him!” he said.
“This is not about #EndSARS or IPOB. Nobody is fighting any government, we are fighting bad governance. “This country can never be the same again!
“Did you expect these young men to keep watching the country being swindled and looted dry by the so-called leaders?
“Some of the young men, who are now fast getting old, had started working for the criminals in authority, hooligans in power, since they were very young.
“I know that by the time some of the leaders listen to this message, they will begin to attack Fr. Mbaka. But that is their headache, not mine. One day, enough will be enough. Look at crime upon crime.
“The people that you have not given jobs, you have not given food, you have not given security, housing, power; and they have no food to eat nor water to drink; no quality hospital and no good roads, among others, and they had endured all the while.
“Just one day that they came out to say they are not happy, you began to kill them. And after killing them, you carry their corpses and dump inside rivers and valleys? Nigeria can never be the same again!”
The priest added that the “hooligans in power” think that “the world is their home,” accusing them of looting Nigeria’s common wealth.
“They have acquired houses and other possessions in Abuja and other areas within and outside the country, with our wealth, but they cannot be wise to build good industries to provide jobs for our growing youths. That is my worry,” he said.
“Our leaders seem to be reaping the seeds that they had planted. When somebody that you had not given job comes out to say that he is hungry and angry, it was you that attracted such protest, in the first place.”
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
