Enugu-based Catholic Priest, Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, on Thursday cried out to security agencies to protect him following alleged threats to his life, failure of which he said President Goodluck Jonathan should be held responsible if anything untoward happens to him.
The controversial catholic priest had in a recent sermon in his church, Adoration Ministry, accused the Jonathan and his wife, Patience, of being behind an alleged plot to assassinate him.
According to Mbaka, the president decided to assassinate him following a scathing sermon he delivered on New Year day at the Adoration Ground, where he preached against Jonathan’s re-election. He titled the sermon “From Good Luck to Bad Luck”.
Media Officer of the Adoration ministry, Ike Maximus Ugwuoke, in a statement on Thursday said President Jonathan wanted the spiritual coordinator of the ministry dead.
In the statement, which was titled “Jonathan Wants Me Dead Before The 2015 Elections”, Mbaka said the police had refused to act on the allegation he made.
The statement expressed concern at the insistence of the Enugu State Police Command that there was no report of any threat to Mbaka’s life.
Parts of the statement read, “It is with a deep sense of concern that we are constrained to make this statement on the continued threat to the life of Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka over his 2015 New Year message titled “From Good Luck to Bad Luck.
“The Enugu State Police Command has refuted claims by Fr. Mbaka that his life is in danger.
“It dismissed Fr. Mbaka’s outcry over threat to his life as baseless.
“The Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Ebere Amarizu, DSP, was quoted as saying, ‘We do not have any report by Fr. Mbaka over threat to his life. We have not received any complaint from him’.
“On the backdrop of the above, one begins to wonder whether the alarm raised by Fr. Mbaka on an alleged plot to kill him was a mere rhetoric as the police had made it to appear merely because there has not been an official report to the police over it.
“Absence of a formal report on threat to one’s life doesn’t negate the reality of such threat more so when the victim had made a public outcry on this issue.
“To argue otherwise is akin to denying the fact of death in the face of a man’s corpse merely because there is no certificate certifying his death…
“Yesterday (Wednesday) strange hoodlums in a black Hilux besieged his parish compound but they left disappointed when they could not see him.
“Wherever and whoever this threat is coming from, we state that there are strong and compelling circumstances pointing towards the fact that Fr. Mbaka’s latest attacks were stemming from his said 2015 New Year message, which was not favourable to the President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration”.