Soludo, Ebube Muonso, Begin New Year with War of Words

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l-R: Gov Schukwuma Soludo and Rev Fr Emmanuel Obimma (Ebube Muonso)

 

In Anambra State, the spate of kidnappings has sparked a war of words between the Governor and a Catholic priest, Rev Fr Emmanuel Obimma. This report by Ikeugonna Eleke high lights the chain of events.

Not even in the peak of the 2024 yuletide did kidnappers operating in Anambra State take a break. In fact, the spate of kidnapping increased from November 2024, all through to December and has not abated in January 2025. This prompted an attack on the Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, by Rev Fr Emmanuel Obimma, the spiritual Director of Holy Ghost Adoration Ministry, Uke, Anambra State, who is popularly known as Fada Ebube Muonso.

It would not be the first time Ebube Muonso was taking a swipe at Soludo. Early into Soludo’s Administration, Obimma had prophesied that he saw blood at the Government House in Awka, and that in the revelation, Soludo was running helter skelter, seeking help, while gunmen chased behind him. In his response to this, Soludo advised the priest to keep his prophecy to himself, insisting that all his life, he had never believed in prophecies, but had strived to remain upright.

The latest war of words between both men was sparked by the kidnap of a U.S. based Catholic priest, Rev Fr Nonso, who just returned for the Christmas Festivities. He was picked around Umudioka in Dunukofia Local Government Area in a fuel station close to a busy market in the full glare of everyone. The priest who is studying in the U.S., was also kidnapped alongside a businessman dealing in rice production, whose name was given as Aso Rock.

The duo were later released after more than a week in captivity, but not after the efforts of Ebube Muonso, who, according to him, pulled all the strings he could, using his connections. Though the priest was alleged to have spent N20 million and the businessman, N10.3 million to buy their freedom, Ebube Muonso said he went extra length to use security from another state to track the kidnappers, insisting that security in Anambra was non-existent. He presented the two victims on the altar of his ministry to his congregation after their release.

He said: ‘For a week, Father Nonso was in the hands of kidnappers. Government could not do anything. It got to a point where I had to use my arsenal to rescue him. I approached a state (Enugu) outside Anambra and begged them to use their tracker to find my brother priest. They tracked him and sent the full location to me.

I sent it to security people and they asked me what I wanted them to do with the information. I told them to go after the kidnappers and rescue our priest, but they told me they usually don’t go into forest.’

He continued: ‘I opted to lead the operation. I called the Chief Security of Adoration and told him to assemble his men, let those who have cutlass bring their cutlasses and those who have guns should bring them. I will lead the operation. When they (police) saw that I was serious, that was when police told me I should not worry, that they could rescue him, but that they lacked logistics. I had to send N1 million to them.

This is a state where we have a governor who receives security vote, but it is individuals that are now funding security. I called former Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, and asked him where the trackers he bought during his tenure were, and he said they were all there. What it means is that we do not have security in this state. May God continue to protect his people.’

The priest said what was shocking was that for the one week the kidnapped priest was in custody, his phone line remained open and the kidnappers never bothered to put it off or even dispose it, despite knowing that they could be tracked through it.

‘They knew that there is no security in this state. That is why I said there is no security in Anambra State. Imagine using a tracker from another state to trace kidnappers, yet security refused to act until I opted to use my own security to rescue the victim, and later they accepted and I still paid them N1 million for mobilisation. Only God will lead us.’

The above irked the Governor and his team, to the extent that both parties have been firing at each other from all cylinders. While the Governor has deployed some of his media aides against the priest, dishing out all manner of attacks on him, the priest, who is largely regarded as fiery and outspoken, has stood against them all.

In some of the criticisms against the priest, the aides of the Governor described Ebube Muonso as a fake priest, a money conscious Christian leader and many more. While there have also been cases where the priest verbally chastised the Governor and his aides for attacking him, there have been voices of dispassionate individuals who urged the Governor to deal with security as confessed by the priest, instead of using him as a scape goat.

In one of the attacks on the priest, the Commissioner for Information, Dr Law Mefor, branded Ebube Muonso a fake priest. He said: ‘The new wave of insecurity in Anambra in particular and the South East, has its roots in preaching wealth-without-work, championed by the likes of Fr. Emmanuel Obimma, aka Ebube Muonso.

They are merchants of fake miracles and fake prophecies who, for decades, have taught our youths to believe they can become wealthy and great without work, perseverance, and morality, all vital virtues for which Ndigbo were reputed in the past.

‘Ebube Muonso started out over a decade ago and relies on esotericism and controversies to draw people to his church, one of which was the first-ever recorded stampede in Anambra State which claimed many lives in his church in 2010.

‘Ebube Muonso’s Adoration Ground at Uke, Anambra State, is typical in brainwashing, fake miracles, fake prophecies, etc. These are integral parts of their worship. Yet, Ebube Muonso would have the temerity to insult Governor Soludo, who has instituted free education for all; free antenatal and delivery services for women; 1 Youth, 2 Skills; free digital skill training, small and medium business support schemes with soft loans up to N10m without collateral, etc., to help the poor. One wonders who is a better Christian.

‘Governor Chukwuma Soludo has condemned fake prophets and fake native doctors and is out for them. But to me, there is a need to extend the searchlight to fake prophets and churches, where fake miracles and fake prophecies are bandied about to confuse and fleece the poor and unsuspecting members of the public.

He needs to be told in unambiguous terms that many of the youths he has misled with fake prophecies are stranded, and some have taken to crime and criminality, which has culminated in and accounts in part for the insecurity he complains about today.

He needs to repent, ask God’s forgiveness, and join the governor in finding a lasting solution to the insecurity in the state. Anambra is rising because solution is here! There is nothing the diatribe of a million Ebube Muonsos can do to stop the moving train.’

Meanwhile, Mr Nwachukwu Ngige, a traditional Chief from Alor, Idemili South Local Government Area, has called for restraint on the part of Soludo’s aides, urging the Governor to deal with the problem and not the complainants. He said: ‘Soludo should restrain his assistants from impetuous attacks on Fr. Obinma.  Disprove the clergy with impregnable facts and not invectives, verbal desecration of the Holy Orders.

It is a no-no! I’m really surprised that the State Commissioner for Information, well tutored in media arts, is leading a hue of non-journalist aides in this vortex of ugly brawl. We all know what Anambra is today. Let’s accept the fact and take concrete steps to overthrow this reality, an alien to our prosperous land.

Two persons were kidnapped in my native Alor on 28th December, 2024; one almost behind my house. Scapegoating or criminalising free speech, clad core in unembellished facts, is no way forward.

Obimma, a one man riot squad, is also unrelenting. Speaking from the pulpit, he has cursed Soludo’s aides, insisting that he could never be cowed by their attacks. The priest took on Mefor, insisting that he had already pronounced a curse on him.

He also gave Soludo’s aides an ultimatum to withdraw their tirade on him or face similar fate. So far, the war of words has continued, but what most Anambra people look forward to is how the problem of insecurity can be solved once and for all.

Fides gathered that within January, Soludo had procured over 160 vehicles for security plans to launch a joint security operation codenamed ”Udo Ga -Achi”, to tackle insecurity in the state later this month. Will it yield the expected and desired result? Time will tell.

But no doubt, its success will ease tensions and ensure that the kind of spat currently going on between Soludo and Fr Ebube Munso will be averted.

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