Pastor Tunde Bakare, the Serving overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, has asserted that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s claim of removing fuel subsidy, as mentioned in his inaugural speech, lacks accuracy.
Bakare highlighted that Nigeria faced unintended turmoil due to a severely deficient change management process, attributing it to impulsive leadership within the administration.
“Amid the turbulent start to the administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I have held my peace, hoping that wisdom would prevail even while the government was in its so-called honeymoon phase. When, in his inauguration address on May 29, 2023, President Tinubu announced that “fuel subsidy is gone” despite the cautious exclusion of that contentious subject from the inauguration speech by his advisers, it was clear that our nation had been unwittingly plunged into chaos by a very poor change management process.”
On Sunday, August 13, 2023, pastor and politician made these remarks during his State of the Nation address titled “Vice, Virtue and Time: The Three Things That Never Stand Still,” held at his Church, Citadel Global Community Church, Oregun, Lagos, Nigeria.
Pastor Bakare insisted that, regardless of the president’s true intentions, it is evident that he acted prematurely.
“Whatever the president’s true motivations were, it is clear that he put the cart before the horse. What is also clear is that the president was economical with the truth by giving Nigerians the impression that he was taking a courageous move to remove the fuel subsidy when the previous government had already taken that step.
”As Nigerians would later learn, subsidy payment had already been ended by the Buhari administration, and no subsidy was paid in 2023 even though there was provision for it on paper up to June 2023. What is again clear is that, in line with change management principles, the president should have handled more circumspectly the announcement of such an issue that borders on the livelihood of the Nigerian citizen.”
He recalled cautioning Nigerians about the perils of engaging in “Emilokan” politics to his congregation.
The cleric said: “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.”
He thereby, called on the President to save the citizens from suffering.
“Mr President, even though you have announced some palliatives, let me remind you that palliatives cannot address the root cause of the problem,” Bakare said in an ideologically charged “State of the Nation
“Therefore, we demand that you address the root cause of the problem. Take the yoke off the neck of the poor, go after the loot, recover the loot, and retool it to the benefit of Nigerians. In simple terms, Mr President, kill corruption, not Nigerians.”
Responding to this, the National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Basiru, raised doubts about Bakare’s authority to critique economic choices made by the President.
“I must quickly comment on what you played that Pastor Bakare said, although I don’t see him as a politician and, with respect to him, I don’t see him as even competent to say what he has said,” Basiru said.
“The fact that you are talking of palliatives does not mean that we’re not confronting the headlong of correcting the dysfunctions and imbalances in the economy. So, we’re both addressing the issue of palliative as an immediate step and addressing the fundamental problem.”
It should be noted that the Pastor had previously declared that he would not refer to then President-elect now President, Bola Tinubu, as his president.
He raised accusations of various irregularities in the 2023 elections, asserting that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) mishandled the entire electoral procedure.
Bakare had participated in the previous year’s All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary, which resulted in the selection of Tinubu as the party’s presidential candidate.
Speaking on the embattled suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, Bakare noted that even if he might have made incorrect decisions in managing the country’s monetary policy, he should not be singled out as a scapegoat by the Federal Government.
He stated that considering the provisions outlined in the CBN Act of 2007, there is a strong likelihood that the former CBN governor did not act independently without the authorization of the President.
While the clergyman emphasized that Emefiele should face legal proceedings if found guilty of any wrongdoing, he pointed out that the events leading up to the 2023 presidential election indicated a potential political vendetta against the suspended CBN governor by Tinubu.
Expressing his viewpoint regarding ECOWAS’s suggested military involvement in the Republic of Niger, he remarked: “Local support for Nigeria by Nigeriens is at an all-time low. It is, therefore, counterproductive to engage in warfare. While we condemn coup d’etats 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.”