Daily Independent – Convener, Save Nigeria
Group (SNG), Pastor Tunde Bakare is the
Senior Pastor of Latter Rain Assembly
(LRA). In this interview with journalists in
Lagos, he speaks on the state of the nation,
his fears over the general elections,
threatening to expose his colleagues who
he said were bribed to influence previous
elections, and other issues. Senior
Correspondent, TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI was
there.
With few weeks to the general elections, it
seems the government has not really put in
place necessary structures for free and fair
elections. With the way things are going,
are you satisfied with what you have seen
so far?
It is my very strong desire that God will
give our leaders, not only hearing ears, but
understanding heart to know that a good
helmsman, like a good pilot, does not
ignore the weather forecast, especially
when they say it is going to be
tempestuous and cause destruction. Going
ahead regardless, is like saying ‘I don’t
care’. I have clearly painted a picture of
where we are and it is only wisdom that we
must camp at Fair Havens according to
Acts 27. We need to camp there and not
sail to Crete because Euroclydon will come
and hit. Disaster is ahead of us either way.
Those in the North inflicting so much pain
on our nation via Boko Haram do not have
monopoly of violence any longer. And if you
hear threats coming from both sides, if a
Northerner appears and wins the election,
the South South, whether he has won the
election fair, square or not could allege
rigging. If Jonathan wins the election fair
and square, they will allege the power of
incumbency
that the election has been rigged. The
weather is not conducive for another
election in 2015 in February for that matter.
And I have quoted the right portion of the
constitution that empowers both the
president and the National Assembly for a
six-months extension, provided it is not
just to stay in power to elongate tenure, but
to be working critically to ensure that these
things are put in place before we go to
elections. That is my considered opinion
and I believe that I have the spirit of God.
You talked about having a transition
government. Do you think that is feasible
in modern day Nigeria?
I have spelt it loud and clear in the state of
the nation address that the transition
government is a national government, but
still headed by President Jonathan because
his time is still on. He cannot create a
vacuum and he cannot say ‘I step aside’. It
is not going to augur well for the nation. He
has started with the 2014 National
Conference. All these things that we are
talking about have already been worked
upon. It is a matter of fleshing it up and
within a period of two years or less, they
can be accomplished and the constitution
is conducive to that if there is war. Those
who say insurgency is not war is mere
semantics. If your own daughter or son has
been taken captive, none of those who are
saying ‘ if we win election, we will find
solution to it will stay in their beds’. They
would have been looking for that solution. I
do not see any patriotism in going to wreak
our nation and this country is bigger than
any person. None of them can hold us to
ransom and say ‘We must go through this
disaster at all cost’. If we have to do what
we have to do to get to where we need to
get to, we must do it now.
Looking at the general elections, some
analysts have postulated that if President
Jonathan wins, there is going to be a
deadly dimension of Boko Haram in the
North, if Buhari wins, the militants will
resume hostilities. Don’t you think we are
at a crossroads here?
We existed before this crisis and we will
exist after this crisis. Nigeria will survive. If
we put things in place that people see
justice, fair play and the purpose of
government becomes the welfare of the
people and they are seeing the things that
will augur well for our peaceful coexistence
in a federal structure, all those things will
take care of itself because if there is fiscal
federalism today, I am not depending on
your resources anymore. I am working on
my own, while you are working on yours. In
2014, National Conference, we asked that a
tangible national portion of our national
resources be dedicated to the development
of all the natural resources of the country.
There is no part of this nation that is not
endowed but we are dependent on one of
those natural resources, which is mainly, oil
and we have depleted everything. That is
crashing already anyway with the price that
is falling. So, it is about time to sit down
and say ‘lets go to the table of
brotherhood’. All these things that we got
without any division, no voting are already
raw materials to effect the necessary
change. I do not like change as a slogan. I
do not like change that has no substance. I
will like to see that constructive change. If I
say ‘I am a changed person, a born-again,
but you find me still doing the things that I
was doing before, then my dog has returned
to its vomit. In the past, with military
alacrity, I am not calling for military
intervention, but we need such urgency at
this time to critically deal with what we are
faced with. You can’t use the cure for
ringworm to cure leprosy. If every part of
the country see that we are going to be free
at last, we are going to develop at our own
pace, we are going to do whatever we are
going to do with our own resources and
contribute our quota to the centre, all those
things will die down. The firsts are recorded
by Chief Obafemi Awolowo – first television
station in Africa, first stadium in Africa, they
were done from Cocoa and with a lot of
prudence to manage resources. The ground
has not stopped producing, but we have
stopped developing each other parts of the
country and other resources and have
focused on oil. Now, the people who owns
the oil are saying ‘we are tired of being
slaves in our territory anymore, let us fight
to finish’. Why fight to finish if every other
region can go at its pace? True federalism
will fix that. The military did a major
damage to the Nigerian federalism and put
everything at the centre and we are yet to
recover from it. But, the National
Conference has fixed that. We need to go
back to that place and say this is one of
those that will end up in PIB cabinet. With
that, they see demonstration of goodwill,
with every part of the country involved, not
just one section of the country in the
reengineering of our nation.
You once said the church was seriously
bias during the conduct of the 2011
general elections and you promised to
name some pastors that received financial
inducements if you were put on the spot.
Can you please name those clerics now?
In 2011, when I was selected by General
Buhari as running mate, there was a gang-
up against that ticket by a substantial
section of the church, which preferred the
candidate that was perceived as Christian,
Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Not only was the
church not convinced about General
Buhari’s non-fundamentalist stance, it also
refused to give support to the running mate
who, in its perception, is controversial and
non-conformist. At that time, the mantra
among many men of God was that a pastor
had nothing to do with politics. Reports
also have it that Christian clergy received
financial inducement from their preferred
candidate who is again contesting against
the same General Buhari in 2015. When I
said I will name them except I am put on
the spot, I am not talking about the
journalists putting me on the spot, but
security forces. And so, if you do not belong
to the DSS, I plead the 5th amendment,
though I am not operating the American
constitution. At the appropriate time, I will
mention to you names of pastors who
received money given to Pentecostal
Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and Christian
Association of Nigeria (CAN) for them to
mobilise their people. So, it is mobilisation
fee. One of them, his church is not far from
here, somewhere on Acme Road. There are
many churches on Acme Road. So, you
won’t know the one I am talking about.
What would you say about the current state
of the Nigerian nation today?
Today, Nigeria is supposedly the largest
economy in Africa, surpassing South Africa
and Egypt with a GDP of $522 billion, a
value obtained since the rebasing of the
economy in April 2014. With this nominal
GDP, Nigeria is now the 26th largest
economy in the world. It would appear,
then, that her aspiration to become one of
the 20 largest economies in the world by
2020 is within reach. However, whenever
the GDP figures are brandished by the
government as signs of achievement, red
flags start emerging as the people look
around them and wonder if GDP stands for
garri don peme because even staple foods
are becoming unaffordable to the so-called
ordinary Nigerian. In any case, we need not
go into those socio-economic realities that
challenge the bogus claims of economic
growth. Let us simply dwell in the realm of
economic statistics with which experts
have often attempted to blind the eyes of
Nigerians. According to the National Bureau
of Statistics as well as Trading Economics,
a resource centre for economic indicators
for countries the world over, including
Nigeria, there was a decline in average GDP
growth rate between the third quarter of
2011 and the first quarter of 2014 with
growth declining to an average rate of 4.5
per cent within that period compared to
earlier rates as well as a 2014 rate of six
per cent. Were these not signs of a
staggering economy; signs that were
strongly denied by the government until
recently when the fact could no longer be
hidden following the fall in oil prices? One
also wonders if this decline was not the
pointer to the fact that the economy could
no longer sustain the massive corruption in
the fuel subsidy regime which then informed
the attempted subsidy removal and the
increase in fuel price in January 2012, a
policy which the people protested, defying
intimidation until the protests were crushed
by a combined force of political intrigues,
economic sell-outs and military deployment
with no action taken against the major
culprits in the subsidy fraud.
Also, one wonders if, despite all the
acclaimed benefits of the rebasing exercise,
it was not mere recourse to plastic surgery
as an attempted solution to an internal
disease in a last-minute effort to window-
dress the economy and attract investments
rather than address the problems
fundamentally, considering the fact that it
was done in the first quarter of 2014.
The gap between the bogus GDP claims
and the economic realities of Nigerians is
seen in the fact that Nigeria, according to
the World Bank, has one of the lowest GDP
per capita based on purchasing power
parity (PPP) in the world at the 123rd
position out of 185 countries, thus revealing
that the value of our currency as an
import-dependent economy, makes our GDP
claims of little worth. Worse still, the level
of inequality in the distribution of wealth
that shows that a select few have cornered
the wealth of the nation is seen in a Gini
coefficient of 43.8 which is one of the
highest inequality indicators in the world
according to World Bank statistics. To
explain to Nigerians what this means, the
Leadership newspaper of March 1, 2014
revealed that in a population of about 170
million people, only about 12 Nigerians
control one-eighth of the entire Nigerian
economy.
What are some of the fundamental flaws
that needs to be addressed for Nigeria to
conduct a successful general elections?
The journey of the ship of the Nigerian
state has been difficult and we have largely
been drifting under the influence of the
winds. It is clear that a great storm lies
ahead as we are approaching elections
without addressing the fundamental flaws
in the polity. These flaws include: the
awkward geopolitical structure that has the
form, but lacks the substance, of
federalism; the consequent lopsided
economic structure in which a single
product from one region of the country
contributes the bulk of the revenue of the
entire nation despite the abundant
resources spread across the nation; a
constitution that lays claim to the phrase
“We the people”, but to which the people
made no input; contentious population
figures that have been the harbinger of
election disputes since the pre-
independence era; and an electoral body
that wears the label ‘independent’, but is
practically under the control of the
Presidency.
What steps swill you suggest the
government take to avoid the gathering
storm, which you have predicted?
To avoid the gathering storms, the following
steps should be taken. Activate the
constitutional provisions for the suspension
of elections. Section 135(3) of the 1999
Constitution provides as follows: If the
Federation is at war in which the territory
of Nigeria is physically involved and the
President considers that it is not
practicable to hold elections, the National
Assembly may by resolution extend the
period of four years mentioned in sub-
section (2) of this section from time to
time; but no such extension shall exceed a
period of six months at any one time.
The argument against this would be the
notion that the country is not at war. If
indeed the country is not at war, how can
one explain the invasion and annexation of
Nigerian territory by insurgents launching
attacks from our borders and neighbouring
countries? Let us not forget that on May
14, 2013, while declaring a state of
emergency in three states, President
Goodluck Jonathan said of the activities of
terrorists: “These actions amount to a
declaration of war and a deliberate attempt
to undermine the authority of the Nigerian
state and threaten its territorial integrity.
As a responsible government, we will not
tolerate this”.
Records indicate that since that declaration,
the situation has only worsened. Therefore,
if the country was at war then, according to
the president, it is even more so now. I do
recognise the fact that opinions are divided
on whether or not the Boko Haram plague
can be described as war or just an act of
insurgency. Truth be told, this is mere
semantics. As Aesop said, “the injury we do
and the one we suffer are not weighed in
the same scales”. Depending on which side
of the divide one belongs, the difference
between war and insurgency can be likened
to the difference between terrorists and
freedom fighters. One man’s meat is
another man’s poison, just as one man’s
music is another man’s noise. Those that
are condemned as ‘terrorists’ by one group
are hailed as ‘freedom fighters’ by another.
Therefore, I submit that if the President
considers that a part of the federation will
be disenfranschised by reason of the Boko
Haram plague, a postponement of the
election may not be out of place.
In my view, the litmus test to arrive at the
type of war contemplated by the
constitution is the practicality of getting
people in the affected states to line up to
vote for candidates of their choice in
situations where they cannot predict when
the next attack will be launched by
insurgents. I hold the view that the drafters
of the law feared for mass
disenfranchisement of Nigerians who will
refuse to risk their lives, hence the
requirement that the nation wins the war
before conducting an election. Be that as it
may, there is yet another argument. It goes
thus: “Since the government has
demonstrated a very high degree of
incompetence as far as combating
terrorism, is it not better to have a
replacement, particularly in terms of a new
government led by the person of the APC
candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari,
which can only happen through elections?”
This reasoning seems valid, for though the
president has made several attempts at
tackling the issue, his avowed political will
has not yielded fruit and the situation has
only worsened. It is perhaps too
complicated for him to deal with. But, what
is the guarantee that there will be free, fair
and credible elections and the opposition
will not be rigged out of victory once
again? What is the guarantee that the
power of incumbency will not successfully
manipulate the presidential elections? Even
if General Buhari wins, what would happen
if, in response to a Buhari victory, another
wave of insurgency explodes in the South-
South in such proportion that will
completely ground the Nigerian economy?
Is that what we want as a nation?
However, I must state that the proposal for
suspension of elections is not with a view
to giving the president an avenue for undue
tenure elongation, but for the purpose of
building a coalition that will bring lasting
solutions to our problem. There is also
need to create a Transitional Government.
In suspending the elections, to gain the
support of all stakeholders, the president
must not act with the intention to seek re-
election. Rather, he should, within the
period, commit himself to building a non-
partisan coalition comprised of major
stakeholders and competent statesmen
from each geopolitical zone. This coalition,
headed by the president, will constitute a
combined force that will tackle terrorism
and address what I have earlier referred to
as the fundamentals, within a time frame of
two years or less. www.newspunch.org/pastor-bakare-explodes-again-exposes-pastors-who-took-money-to-influence-elections/

This sunday morning?

This thing too long I beg.

I no fit read am.

enoqueen:
This sunday morning?
This thing too long I beg.
I no fit read am.

Lazy enoqueen

Chai. This thing long o....ordinary eye no fit read am...I rather wait for the summary

too much talk, I no fit get headache abeg. Imagine say person wife/girl d talk like this.

All I care is Change
B. Bring
U. Us
H. Happiness
A. And
R. Remove
I. Injustice

stevolinkon40:
Chai. This thing long o....ordinary eye no fit read am...I rather wait for the summary

You better learn how to read it that way and stop waiting for summary.