Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Citadel Global Community Church has descended heavily on Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu’s government.
Speaking on Sunday at the church auditorium, the Senior Pastor noted that the hardships faced by Nigerians following subsidy removal were unimaginable and unnecessary.
He called on the president to actively tackle corruption and impunity bedevilling the country, instead of causing untold hardships to innocent Nigerians.
“Mr President, kill corruption, and not Nigerians. No economy can thrive on impunity,” Bakare said.
Bakare took a walk down memory lane, reminding his congregation about his warnings prior to the presidential election.
“I’m reminded of the warning that I sounded to Nigerians in January 2023 in my address titled, ‘Bridging the gap between politics and governance.’ I warned that the politics of entitlement, the ‘emilokan’ type of politics, would breed an imperium presidency, one that would slide towards dictatorship and would be intolerant of dissent.”
The pastor and politician further spoke on the decision taken by ECOWAS to deploy military forces to Niger Republic.
“Local support for Nigeria by Nigeriens is at an all-time low. It is, therefore, counter-productive to engage in a warfare. While we condemn coup d’etat in West Africa, we recognise that the situation calls for deep, introspection on the part of African leaders.
We call upon Nigeria at this time to provide good leadership. The real question is whether President Tinubu has the capacity to provide moral leadership even in the domestic context.”
Meanwhile, the National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Ajibola Basiru accused Bakare of incompetence to speak on the economic reforms of the President.
The former spokesman for the ninth Senate said this when he featured on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Sunday night. Basiru stressed that Bakare lacked competence to speak on issues he is not an expert on.
He said, “I must quickly comment on what Pastor Bakare said. Although I don’t see him as a politician and with respect to him, I don’t see him as being competent to say what he has said.”
Last year, Pastor Bakare contested in the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary, an exercise that saw the emergence of the current president of Nigeria, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
