Senior Pastor, The Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare, has stated that he still enjoys unhindered access to the president, Muhammadu Buhari, contrary to rumours making the rounds that the former Vice Presidential candidate, had fallen apart with his former principal.
Giving the clarifications in an interview with Arise TV on Monday, the clergy also stated that most of his comments on national issues were always communicated to the president, privately, before making them available in the public domain.
While commending the president for doing his best in providing solutions to the myriad of challenges, facing the country, Pastor Bakare, however, argued that it was left to be desired whether the president’s best was good enough for the country.
The clergy also used the opportunity to call for restructuring of the country, arguing that it was wrong, on the part of the government, to interpret such call as a call for the dissolution of the country.
Bakare also noted that the refusal of the present government to quickly deal with the issue of restructuring had begun to give those with separatists’ agenda, in the country, more country more ground to pursue their mission.
“I think it is wrong for the government not to heed the call for restructuring, from eminent Nigerians. It is also wrong to label all these calls for restructuring, as calling for the dissolution of the country. By doing that, the government is only giving more ground to those with the separatist’s agenda to pursue its mission.
“The EndSARS protests have shown that the government needs to do something, in order to avoid a re-occurrence of what I’ll call the Rage of the Poor as seen recently.
“For instance, any constitution that can not bend would have to be broken. I pray it doesn’t get to that stage. The time has come for restructuring. We must go back to what works for us.
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“Interestingly, all of these views of mine, especially those on national issues, had been presented to the president, before putting them in the public domain.
“I think I must thank the president for making sure I still enjoy an unhindered access to him since he got there in 2015,” he added.
While commending the youths for making their grievances known through the EndSARS protests, the clergy, however, counselled them on the need to be more strategic in future.
“First, it is wrong to begin to vilify the generations before them, because if people like Wole Soyinka, had not gone to prison, and our founding fathers had not put in those efforts, they would not be having a country in the first place.
“Besides, I think they should always have individuals that would lead such agitations in future so as to make the agitations more effective,” he added.
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