Mr Sullivian Iheanacho Chime is a veteran of many "religious wars."
For so many reasons, the Governor of Enugu State, will gladly do without another festering religious controversy with its attendant klieg lights considering the pivotal role he played as the Chief of Staff to the then Governor of the State, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani.
This is moreso considering the negative exposure his friend, Ikedi Ohakim, the immediate past Governor of Imo State, had over a Reverend Father who he (Ohakim) was accused of assaulting corporeally. In that episode, the entire Roman Catholic clergy in that state literally went up in "arms" against the embattled Ohakim who apologised and made peace before the heat was put off.
If you think that Governor Chime has developed "battle fatigue" and has repented, then you have another think coming as James Hadley Chase will say!
This time, Chime is involved in a face-off with the authorities of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles, MFM, Ministries over the illegal demolition of the church's Regional Headquarters complex adjoining the Zik Avenue bridge in Uwani, Enugu. The precipitate act has drawn the ire of well-meaning Nigerians across socio-political, ethnic and religious divides due to the glaring impunity and lawless abandon with which the agents of the Chime administration conducted themselves.
It is no gainsaying the fact that the MFM, as a well-known responsible and law-abiding religious organisation in Enugu State, nay Nigeria as a whole, has always conducted its activities and actions within the ambits of all relevant statute books, with no known case or incident of either tangential or head-on collision with any government or its agents or agencies (Enugu State inclusive). Rather, the religious organisation has been a good corporate citizen actively involved in providing strong spiritual bulwark against evil spirits and principalities for all, including governments at all levels.
Apart from the rumour that went viral on the Enugu grapevine circuits that some allies of the then ailing Governor Chime were prevailing on the authorities of the MFM to "waterdown" the tone and intensity of its "by fire by fire" prayer mode, as they suspected it was aggravating the Governor's celebrated ill-health. It is apparent that the Governor has been having health challenges, which to all intents and purposes cannot be laid at the doorsteps of any religious organisation. On that, all the churches in Enugu State prayed for the quick recovery of the Governor with the MFM taking prime position in devoting prayer sessions to the reinstatement of Governor Chime's good health in good time. It is an irony of fate that an organisation that spear-headed the quick recovery of Governor Chime has become the butt of his discriminative action(s)!
If it is true that the Governor and his henchmen are visiting the full weight of government's might and monopoly of coercion and impunity on a religious organisation that has supported his administration with prayers to succeed in providing good governance to the people of the state, then it is also true that Governor Chime has not purged himself or shorn of the toga of one who relishes religious persecution.
It is pertinent to recall that Chime, a former local government council chairman, latched on to Governor Chimaroke Nnaman's nacent political machine, Ebeano, a neo-militant political structure programmed to perpetuate Nnamani's strangle-hold on Enugu politics as a countermeasure to that of his enstranged mentor, Senator Jim Nwobodo. When Chime was appointed as the Chief of Staff to Governor Nnamani, he became, effectively, the fulcrum of all the negative and positive aspects of that administration and the Ebeano family as its ideological arm.
One of the most-publicised and long-drawn activities of the Nnamani/Ebeano/Chime triumvirate was the persecution of supposed political oponents and strident critics of the administration.
Honourable Ugwu, a member of the then House of Representatives was virtually sent into compulsory exile for propagating opinions diametrically-opposed to Governor Nnamani's. That chapter of political repression and rule of impunity remains one of the darkest periods of Enugu State's political history.
Concurrently, the famous (or infamous?) case of Governor Nnamani versus Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, the founder of Adoration Ministries (a spiritual prayer body within the larger Roman Catholic Church) is a case study in calculated official persecution of a religious organisation by an intolerant government.
It is on record that Reverend Father Mbaka, an unreprentant critic of the then administration's profligacy and non-delivery of dividends of democracy to people of Enugu State, cried out that he was being trailed by shadowy people (presumably state security agents or hatchet men) with intent to eliminate him.
With this backdrop of some previous human rights violations to stifle opposing views, it is instructive to say that Chime would not have treated the MFM Ministries any better.
The only difference, this time around, is that the MFM has not taken it upon itself to pretend to be the conscience of the people or provide an alternative governance portal. It has only concerned itself with the propagation of the Word of God and the application of strident prayers and intercessory sessions to deliver people from bondage, afflictions, generational curses, etc.
In view of the foregoing, it is suggested that Governor Chime should tarry a little and revisit the nagging issue of the rule of impunity that attended the distorted processes that led to the illegal demolition of the Regional Headquaters of the MFM Ministries in Enugu. The organisation should be compensated financially for the pre-meditated and wilful destruction of its property and provided with an alternative site to house its Regional Headquarters and teeming devotees who were rendered homeless.
In these trying times, the authorities of the MFM Ministries and their members nation-wide should take solace in the Book of Isaiah Chapter 41, Verses 11, 12 and 13.
Mr IFEANYI COSMAS CHUKWUEMEKA, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Enugu, Enugu State.
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