Bakare: I’ll Restore Stability to Nigeria If Elected President

Goddy Egene
 

Senior Pastor, Citadel Global Community Church (formerly known as Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare yesterday promised to restore peace and order to Nigeria if elected president in 2023.

 Bakare, who contested the 2011 presidential election as the running mate of President Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of the defunct C, disclosed that he “is the best suitable candidate to address Nigeria’s myriad of problems.”

 He made these promises while declaring interest to contest the 2023 presidential election yesterday at the virtual meeting with a theme: ‘The Portrait of a New Nigeria, organised by PTB4Nigeria in Diaspora Group.

 Bakare declared presidential aspiration shortly after the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi made his own declaration at a special thanksgiving service in Port Harcourt.

At the virtual meeting yesterday, Bakare declared to contest the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC), saying he “has been part of the party since its establishment.”

He said that the Pastor Tunde Bakare (PTB) brand “is a rallying point to restore order in the country, stressing that he has a vision of a new Nigeria and he would be playing a leading role as “we approach the Nigeria of our dreams.”

“As we have been meeting together with friends and our leaders in our nation in the past few years, it is looking much more like we will definitely be in the forefront in the battle for the salvation of our nation in 2023.

 “If you are asking me which party, it was my privilege to move a motion for the emergence of APC on February 6, 2013. I have never been in any other party apart from that.

 By God’s grace, according to the radical pastor, that will be the party that I would seek the opportunity to serve and lead my nation.”

 Bakare acknowledged that his manifesto “is under going fine tuning before unveiling to the public,” explaining how to tackle the various challenges the country is facing currently.

 “I cannot go into the details of my manifesto. But by God’s grace, we have produced one. We are fine tuning it before it will be released to the public,” the radical pastor explained.

Speaking on insecurity, Bakare said armed attacks and kidnapping “will wane if people are engaged in productive activities. Let me say it to you that idle man’s brain is devil’s workshop.” 

According to him, “Vast majority of our people that are jobless are easily recruited by those plaguing our nation with kidnapping and all kinds of terrorism. If we are able to get them engaged, employed and settled in their own environment to become productive, you will soon see that those attacks would wane.

“If we build a strong and formidable military that is strong and well trained, that will be able to tackle external aggression as well as join our police to tackle internal rebellion.

“We will be able to stem the tide of this plague of terrorism, kidnapping and all kinds of producing profit of crime whose means of livelihood has been cut off and who are ready to die.

“But we need to do reorientation and provide special benefits that will calm them down and get them engaged,” Bakare explained.

Speaking oil and energy sector, Bakare said it “is better for the government to put that in the hands of private sector players,” declaring that probity and accountability would check the corruption in the public sector.