Pastor Tunde Bakare, the Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, has said that he will never refer to Bola Tinubu as his president.
The politician and cleric said that a number of electoral frauds occurred during the 2023 elections and that the Independent National Electoral Commission messed up the campaigning process during a webinar on Saturday.
After giving his lecture on the Zoom program titled “Building the New Nigeria: The Role of the Diaspora,” which was put on by the PTB4Nigeria In Diaspora Group, he made this statement in response to a question.
Over 200 people attended the meeting, which got underway at 7 o’clock and was covered by our correspondent.
Earlier in the broadcast, he claimed that the elections in 2023 fell short of expectations.
He laughed and responded that he would say what he said to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd. ), last week, when asked if he would be pleased to work for the incoming government as a Minister of Diaspora Engagements.
He claimed that he informed Buhari that he sometimes referred to him as the President of Nigeria and other times as “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 that since he didn’t vote, he couldn’t be said to have lost the election.
In the June 2022 All Progressives Congress presidential primaries, where nomination forms were sold for N100 million, Bakare participated but received zero votes.
He briefly touched on this, saying, “There is no guilt in what we have done. I participated in the primary, and there were hundreds (of others) who participated simply by stepping down. Within seven minutes, we confronted the powers that be.
“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.
In response, he stated that there would be requirements if the new government summoned him to be a minister, but added, “I am not desperately seeking to be a minister, not at all. I’ve already been given a chance, but I declined. My life is more than just posing for pictures and shaking hands with the president.
“But we will do if it will benefit even one citizen.”
On Monday, May 29, Tinubu will take the oath of office as president.
Buhari gave Tinubu the transition report on Thursday and vowed to disappoint Nigerians in the report.
He promised to handle the nation’s problems, including the electricity and security difficulties.
