On the worsening security challenges in the country and what solutions can the Catholic Church proffer?

I didn’t expect you to ask a poor pastor and bishop like me to proffer solutions about the security situation of this country when we have the police, navy, civil defence, Air Force and an army of other security agencies. Anyway, if you ask my opinion, I told my priest in the village to get the young people around him to stay with him, day and night, even in the bedroom they should stay with him. I asked him to go to the community leader, connect with them so that when something happens, they are there for him. Because when something happens as I have experienced when my priest was kidnapped, it was difficult to get help from anywhere, so you are more or less on your own.

So, I say do what you can, do not be unrealistic, believing that there is another security to come and take care of you. It is not there. It is not working, let us look at what is possible, that is why I asked the priest to get youths around him.  I just hope that the solutions will be found very soon. Like I said earlier, it is not my duty to tell you how to be safe. After all, people are recruited into the security agencies, trained and paid salaries and you have all the big security chiefs. If they cannot tell us how we can be safe, then we are in trouble. Mine is to pray and so that we can get the right approach to solving the security challenges. But this is an era of doing it yourself.  Do not wait. Waiting may be too dangerous. Do what you can to protect and defend yourself?

What has the church done for the challenged persons, at least, to enable them to get recognition and assistance?
We are looking into it. After all, behind me, somebody is already interpreting to us. The church is doing something about that, I will ask the communication commission to look into this. This is a serious question when we go to churches and see people with disabilities, are they catered for? Are they able to move into the church and come out? Do they hear what is being said? Otherwise, the word of God that is being preached doesn’t penetrate. I think is something that we have to look into.

Rev.Fr. Ejike Mbaka was in the news not long ago. What’s this whole issue about the priest, is the Catholic Church not worried?

Well, Mbaka is a priest of the Catholic Church. He is not the Catholic Church. People should understand the structure of the Catholic Church. I want people to understand this, when a bishop speaks, they say the Catholic Church has spoken. When a priest speaks, they say it is the church. I want people to understand this. And it is very easy to be misled.
The Catholic Church does not speak like that, it does not speak through Fr. Mbaka or the bishop. When the church wants to speak, we issue a statement. We know it is coming from the Catholic bishops.  So please, avoid hasty generalization. A bishop speaks,  his mind and you say it is the catholic church.

Fr. Mbaka is a Catholic priest under a bishop. He was ordained a priest and took an oath during ordination, that  “I promise to be obedient and to respect you, my local, ordinary and the successors.  This is the oath he took in front of everybody and before God, which means the oath is valid until he dies.

Fr. Mbaka is a priest like I said, but you should realise that the Catholic priest is governed by Canon law.  Canon 285 prohibits any clergy from engaging in anything that is foreign, strange to the clerical status. As clergy, we are not allowed to go into politics. It doesn’t mean we cannot be political to the extent we cannot condemn criminality and corruption.  At my address, you can do that. It is a prophetic mission. Participating in politics is not part of our calling. We can speak on anything bad, youth unemployment, criminality in society. It is not our part to be engaged in politics, though there is the saying that every human being is a political animal.

Still on the security situation in the country by Sam Kargbo

On the likelihood of a military coup

We are not into discussing such unnecessary ideas about a takeover, military or otherwise. I thought we have forgotten that vocabulary and people have outlived it. Or they are talking about the military takeover. Maybe, it is a symptom that something is not right. But I thought it is a vocabulary that will never be mentioned again in the history of Nigeria. But if it is being discussed whether real or imaginary, there is no reason why, whether things are going on, rightly or wrongly, that anybody will come up with an idea of a military takeover. I am not involved in that and don’t want to be involved in it.

All I want to be involved in is the process of making sure our people live happily in unity and peace. That our people get the basic necessities of life to be able to lead well. When they live well, the issues of violence and criminal activities will be drastically reduced. Please give us democracy and not military rule. Let’s talk about issues of functional democracy, utilitarian democracy, a democracy that produces a result, not people locked up in rooms and debating about their allowances, payments and privileges.

We need people that are genuinely concerned about the people. It is not just going to the grassroots during the election and later you leave them where they are. Do something for them. The legislator is not just to be in the legislative house. You must find time to go back and reconnect with your people. You must care for your people and bring their groaning, sufferings and their aspirations to the legislative house. It is not just enough to share good things and goodies. Let us talk about genuinely transformational democracy and not military rule.

There was this growing agitation for the Minister of Communication to resign over past remarks linking as a sympathiser of terrorism. What are your views on this?

But the minister told us that the state knows when he was an exuberant young man and didn’t fully grasp the implications. That is what he has told us and Nigerians are still agitating that having heard that opinion, it is very unlikely that he is going to change. Even if he is going to change, it will not be a radical change that is what Nigerians are saying.

Well, he is a minister in the federal government. I can’t decide what should happen, but I think, the minister has a lot of explanations to give Nigerians. There was a time we were told that some leaders want to convert this country to another religion. The leaders came out and said is not true. Now we hear a minister talking in such a manner that is offensive to Nigerians and he is saying is not true.

Okay, we give the minister the benefit of doubt. But I say it is quite a serious thing that leaders should weigh their utterances. I think we are used to talking recklessly in this country because those who claim they have religious authority believe they have been directly powered and they can say anything and get away with it. What you say, you should bear the consequences,  no matter what the present situation of the minister is today. What he said before today, and these days are quite unacceptable. You don’t encourage anybody to take human life, for whatever reason. You should engage in dialogue and avoid hostility and confrontation.

So our minister said he is sorry, well, as God-fearing people, we accept his apology. But this is something that shouldn’t just pass. There are many others, perhaps, like him who in the past, or even now are encouraging such positions. I think he should deploy all his energy in fighting whatever appears to be an encouragement to support violence. I think this is the remaining task of his life, fighting anything and all these ignorant utterances that people make that set the country on fire. I think people like him should be taught, educated and enlighten so that they don’t get into any religious conflict.