The Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church,
Pastor Tunde Bakare, has said he will never call the President-elect, Bola
Tinubu, his president.
The cleric and politician, during a webinar on Saturday,
alleged a series of malpractices during the 2023 elections, saying the
Independent National Electoral Commission made a mess of the electioneering
process.
He said this while responding during a Question & Answer
session after delivering his speech on the Zoom programme titled ‘Building the
New Nigeria: The Role of the Diaspora’ organised by the PTB4Nigeria In Diaspora
Group.
The meeting, which began 7pm and was monitored by our
correspondent, had over 200 participants.
While speaking earlier during the programme, he said the
2023 elections were below acceptable standards.
When asked if he would be happy to work for the new
government as a Minister of Diaspora Engagements, he laughed and said he would
say what he said to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), last
week.
He said he told Buhari that sometimes he called him
President of Nigeria and other times, he called him “My President.”
Bakare said, “Last Wednesday, I was at the Glass House where
he (Buhari) has been restricted now because the main house is being renovated.
I said I have done that for you. I want you to know that, because of the
circumstances of your flying into power on the wings of integrity and
incorruptibility, but you’re now passing onto someone who does not have that
value.
He said that at “any public lecture anywhere, before this
mess is cleared off, I will address Asiwaju (Tinubu) as a President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria but I will never call him my president.”
He said he didn’t participate in the elections, and
therefore, no one could say he lost.
Bakare, who participated in the All Progressives Congress
presidential primary in June 2022, where nomination forms were sold for N100
million, polled no single vote.
Briefly touching this, he said, “I participated in the
primary, and there were hundreds (of persons) who participated only by stepping
down, so there is no shame in what we have done. We spoke truth to power.
“I wasn’t there when they voted, I wasn’t there when they scored
(me) zero, but we won that badge of zero and badge of honour,” he said, adding
that this was because some defeats were more triumphant than victories.
Answering the question, he said if he was called to be a
minister under the incoming government, there would be conditions to it, “but I
am not desperate to be a minister, not at all. I was offered before but I
turned it down. My life is not just to take photographs with the president and
shake hands.
“But we will do if it will benefit even one citizen.”
Tinubu will on Monday, May 29, be sworn in as the President
of the country.
On Thursday, Tinubu was handed the transition report by
Buhari, where he also promised not to disappoint Nigerians.
He pledged to address the security and power crises, among
other challenges confronting the country.
