Pastor Tunde BakareBy NDUBUISI ORJI Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Pastor Tunde Bakare is the Senior Pastor, Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos. Recently, he was named as the running mate to the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC) presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari.
In this interview with select journalists in Lagos, Bakare speaks on his foray into partisan politics, the April general election, amongst other issues. NDUBUISI ORJI brings the excerpts.
Why did you accept to become General Buhari’s running mate?
Ordinarily, I have no business in partisan politics. Politics is too important to be left in the hands of politicians alone. I thought my job is just to raise the standard of God’s consciousness in our nation and to ensure that righteousness exalts this nation by way of preaching and instilling the fear of God in our people. I have been harassed myself by military dictators and their civilians counterparts in mufti, but I never thought that a day would come that I would do this.
The last time I marched on the streets was in 1978 and that were the days of Ali-must-go, and all that happened was that they increased our fees from N30 to N90 and that was killing in those days. When I left school, I thought the marching had ended, until the crisis that almost put Nigeria into the precipice and we rose by the grace of God, gathered all civil society organisations together on January 7 and fixed a date for January 12.
Using our networks within the country to pull our people down to the streets, to protest what was happening.
A culture of impunity against a sitting Vice President, not a candidate at this time and by the grace of God, the people joined us in the protest. We had our way. The President was endorsed and that was it. We thought Save Nigeria Group (SNG) should not end there, that we should go to the next phase; the next phase is unblocking the minds of our people to know that sovereignty truly lies in their hands and to ensure that many of them this time around, would register to vote. We began to open SNG chapters across the nation, until one fateful afternoon, the 3rd of May (2010). I will never forget it. Someone asked me a question that: “Pastor Bakare, are you raising responsible people to vote for irresponsible people.” That hit me like a thunderbolt and that was the turning point for me.
There is no quality leadership to provide not just direction, but to supervise our development. That day after that question came to me, we decided to engage the political class and not just cry out, let’s come out with what we will show Nigerians that is the irreducible minimum that we should be looking for in a candidate that you will cast your vote for. So, we came up with a contract for Nigeria, which was launched in Nigeria on the May 5, 2010, we held a meeting in the afternoon, the rest they say, is history.We began to engage the political class; I personally engaged Abubakar Atiku and we drew our seven points irreducible minimum that we want to see in parties and politicians and key players in every political party. High level transparency, internal democracy which is germane to our development. We engaged the political class and finally we took a stand. We went to the President with a document, which we gave to elders in some parts of the country and religious leaders like Pastor Adeboye on why we will not support Jonathan.
We listed three or four things.The culture of impunity we rose to fight had returned full circle back into our country, and we gave him examples like what was happening in Ogun State which SNG had to intervene and we followed alongside Prof Wole Soyinka at a town hall meeting to decry what was happening in Ogun State. The same thing happened in Bauchi. The governor moved from All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); his deputy did not move along with him, the governor used the House of Assembly to impeach him. The man went to court and won, but another person was sworn in as deputy governor.
Now these two people, the governors of Bauchi and Ogun states are now the co-ordinators for President Jonathan’s campaign, which means he has made up his mind, whether there is violation of people’s right or will, it does not matter. The cry of my heart has been that except we return to true federalism, Nigeria cannot make progress because we were better than this when we had little resources. These were the things we were saying and began to position our people. July 31, 2010, we summoned the first meeting, 10 people were invited but only eight showed up. At the meeting, was Nuhu Ribadu himself, Malam Nasiru el-Rufai, Donald Duke, Oby Ezekwesili, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Fola Adeola, Jimi Agbaje, Governor Fashola was also invited.
So, we called these arrowheads together, because we wanted to go all outside of normal party structure, raised a new caliber of people that will move enmasse to a political party or start one. That day we decided to use a new party because I loved the name, the Liberal Democrats. The name was good and I said to them that day the only way I would participate in this process is to give two conditions: I will spend and be spent for it, but I will not touch elective office and I will not join a political party. Those were the two conditions I gave them.
I’m fulfilled the way I’m functioning and everybody knows by the grace of God whether you like what I’m saying or not, when I rise to speak, I say it the way it is and leave it there and we agreed. But unfortunately, the man who registered Liberal Democrats, which we were going to use, decided to become the campaign director in the diaspora for IBB. The rest is history. And so, we decided to use Labour Party (LP) and we engaged LP because it is generic; but one of us pulled the trigger, Ribadu decided to pick the ticket of ACN, that was a good development, and I said if that’s the way you want to go, we will still go together and we were all going together on the platform. We now thought who we should present as candidate. I’m giving you this background because stories have a way of being muddled up and I like saying it the way it is because there is nothing you can do to truth. Even if people don’t believe you, your conscience is clean. It was Duke that we were going to feature as vice president and Mallam el-Rufai as the presidential candidate. But Duke came back and said right now, I’m not able to accept such responsibility, it was even him that suggested Labour Party to us.
So, we retained Mallam el-Rufai, who the first day I met him, was the one saying to me, let’s use Nuhu Ribadu and I said we can’t present Ribadu for obvious reasons that were known to us at that point. You will be doing so many things and having to correct and explain so many things. So, we decided to pair el-Rufai and Oby Ezekwesili; he (el-Rufai) was away and I called him to return and that we are going to galvanise everyone to fight this monster called PDP, because there are some things that I know, if time permits, I will expose them.With another four years of PDP, you can kiss Nigeria, goodbye. Mallam el-Rufai returned to the country and gave us some stiff conditions that for as long as Ribadu is out, he would not come out. It will look like competition and it will just divide the North further. I saw the point and we said let’s forget this, we are not guilty of not trying. Before we got to that stage, we also engaged General Muhammadu Buhari. We went to him in Kaduna like we sat with Jonathan and Atiku as well as Ribadu.
I will never forget my encounter with Nuhu Ribadu at a town hall meeting in Washington which was put together by Professor Aluko. This time we were pure SNG, we weren’t partisan and Nuhu rose up that day and said “ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you why I want to rule Nigeria.” It was my time to speak and I said “Nuhu, I would have almost cursed the day I met you, but because you are my younger brother, I will not do that, you want to rule Nigeria, who would be your subjects” I told him that all these anti-corruption czar, we have stories we can tell, but we keep quiet for now, until the appropriate time. I came back to Nigeria to engage Buhari because we didn’t give him any chance at all. If you read in the press all that I said about him (Buhari), I said they were all part of the whole, who can’t produce anything for us, there is no point lying. I won’t say something and deny it. Until I engaged the man and I discovered that he has changed from what he used to be. And of all the people I sat with, he is the most credible that gave all the right answers and that was willing to engage us and to seek help. A good leader is not an all rounder, he is the one who knows his weakness and can starve that weakness and will engage in people who are much more competent than himself and release them to accomplish a task. If you don’t mind who takes the credit, you will get much more done.
When Mallam el-Rufai said he would not contest because he would be seen as competing with Ribadu, we felt that the other candidate that is left is Buhari, but we wished them all the best and washed off our hands. I was tidying my wardrobe when the phone call came and it was General Buhari on the other side and he said ‘Pastor Bakare, after deep thoughts, I will consider it a great honour if you can run with me as my Vice Presidential candidate for the 2011 elections. The answer was not far-fetched, it was in my lips waiting to explode: thanks, but no thanks and I gave him the reasons that I didn’t come because I wanted to play politics. I want to be part of those who reshape Nigeria and create a party that can be respected. I called Pastor Adeboye and he surprised me because I thought he would say no way, but I played into his hands. When we went to meet with President Jonathan, the documents we gave to him, we also submitted them to Pastor Adeboye and he asked who is the best person that can salvage Nigeria. I told him, from all I have seen, the person that can rescue us right now, is Muhammadu Buhari, but he has no money, he is popular in the North, he does not have a clue of how to come into the South because of so many things they’ve hung on his head over the years.
I was still not persuaded. I went again to see Pastor Adeboye, submitted what we were doing; he said ‘if you are ever considering Muhammadu Buhari, then you need to look for a strong christian to be his running mate and the emphasis was strong. And I stood up and said we will look for the strong christian, but I want you to know that it cannot be me, I’m satisfied with what I’m doing. I did not know when I was doing all these, I was warming myself in the heart of Buhari. But it was ACN who first came to me through their publicity secretary and said can you persuade General Buhari to run on our platform; that was part of the engagement, to let the best of the North and the best of the South pair. I preached it that let ACN and CPC form an alliance and let’s call it ACPC and PDP will be history, but there are other issues that did not make that work. Move forward, I called him (Adeboye) again the second day and said sir, will you support me, he (Adeboye) said ‘with everything I have got in my own way, just go for it, I will be praying.’
What actually are you bringing to the table, that other people can join you in making your aspiration fruitful?
One of the things that we made a condition precedent before accepting this, and all my friends were there in Kaduna before I signed any paper, General, you can fight corruption. You have the courage and the will, because you have been adjudged a clean man, a man of probity, but beyond fighting corruption, I don’t know you to be an economist and me that you are asking to come, I am not an economist. Would it be acceptable to you that we build a change team, a people who are not just technocrats, who have been there before, who understands the issues, so that we build a formidable team from within our nation and outside of our country in the diaspora, to bring in this people, for this first and foremost rescue operation, because we need to recover Nigeria, we need to rescue Nigeria.
If you ask me to give those names, permit me to still keep them where we keep them behind the scene. Because at the crucial time their faces will be out and you will know who they are.
But if you are asking me if I am adding any value, if that is the question, politics is a game of number. Someone said, he has no political structure and I said, you didn’t build your own in one day either. There was the first day that the man who has political structure also stepped in without structure. Where was your political structure when Nigeria was sliding into precipice. And when I rose and people said you can’t pull it through, I remember the ACF person, Shettima Yerima, he said don’t go to Abuja to protest, stay in Lagos where you have people; but you do not know what we have done over the years building networks across this country.
There is no part of this country, no zone that we are not represented. If politics is the game of number, Dr Akingba pointed us in the right direction when he said, are you raising credible people to vote for unreasonable men. Look at the last voter’s registration, Lagos State has the highest number, 6 something million people is it because Lagosians are aware? We knew what we did. SNG started what we call VEAC-Voters Education Awareness Campaign. We sent 10 men to every ward to knock at people’s doors to bring them out. Those we have on our data will shock you.
Also in our deliberation, we decided that there was no point wasting our energy and resources. Fashola is good in Lagos. You can’t beat Fashola in the next election except if the Almighty decides otherwise. So, instead of you looking for one candidate that is not going anywhere and you waste your resources around him, let’s build party structure. Let’s build a Unilateral Strategic Alliance, USA, go to such governors and , say ‘here are our people, they will vote for you, we want you also to help our own cause so that when it comes to presidency, we will have such collaboration’. And we know we don’t want them involved in any anti party activity. We don’t want that.
But nobody has monopoly over South-West right now. It is so open. And we are going to do what people don’t do. We are not going to win this battle just on the pages of newspapers, just as much as we need the press. We need the press so that what we are doing is communicated accurately out there. We need the Press to also showcase some of the things behind what we are doing and what we stand for.
What our government can do for the people of Nigeria. And there is no place in Nigeria that the Press is so powerful like in the South West. But we are not going to be paper tigers like you call them. It is not just going to be television appearances. We are going to the people where they are. And that is why after the flag-off, you are not likely going to see us doing rallies and doing fashion parade.
I told them at the NN24 debate, you see how many times (President) Jonathan has changed clothes, it is because he is conducting a farewell party across Nigeria. That’s all. Let him enjoy it. We don’t have time for that. We are rolling our sleeves to go to where the people are, in the hinterland, in rural areas, everywhere to give them hope.
Many years I transverse this county going from campus to campus, there is no university in Nigeria, except the ones just being established that have no foundation, no classrooms, I went to all those universities to begin to raise new generations. We call them, a new breed without greed. If you are asking about people and numbers, you will be shocked at the right time.
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