Tunde Bakare rejects ADC pressure to defect, saying he will not abandon APC and describing President Tinubu’s mandate as divinely ordained
Tunde Bakare, founder of the Citadel Global Community Church, says he has faced intense pressure from influential politicians to defect to the African Democratic Congress (ADC), but insists he has no intention of abandoning the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaking on Saturday at the inaugural edition of the Citadel School of Governance Dialogue Series in Lagos, Bakare disclosed that several prominent figures, including a former governor and a former minister from the south-west, had personally urged him to join the ADC.
“There has been a lot of pressure on me from who is who to join ADC. They come to my home. Even while I was abroad, the hierarchy of that party kept calling, saying they needed my voice,” Bakare said.
The cleric also revealed that a younger political associate, who had benefitted from key positions under the APC, encouraged him to lend his influence to the opposition party.
“I am not going to take part in ADC. The last time I knew about ADC was about a plane that crashed. I wish them well because we need a robust opposition,” he remarked.
Bakare stressed that he would not betray the party he helped build. “You don’t birth a child called APC and then try to kill it yourself. We are not going to have another Awolowo-Akintola crisis in the south-west,” he said.
Reaffirming his stance on the presidency, Bakare declared that President Bola Tinubu’s rise to power was divinely ordained. “If God wants to remove ‘emilokan,’ He knows how to do it. You can’t get the kind of thing Tinubu has brought without God’s support,” he added.
Bakare was one of the aspirants who contested the APC presidential ticket in 2023 alongside eventual winner Tinubu.
Also read: ‘2023 Elections’ Igbos don’t have numbers to produce Nigeria’s next president, Tunde Bakare says
He had also served as Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election under the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of the legacy parties that merged to form the APC in 2013.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
