The founder of Citadel Global Community Church (formerly known as Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has indicated his interest in contesting the 2023 presidential race in Nigeria.
He declared his interest at the ‘Unveiling Project 16 to Nigerians in diaspora’ event tagged “The portrait is a new Nigeria” held virtually on Saturday.
Bakare said he would run on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The popular cleric was running mate to the current Nigerian leader, Muhammadu Buhari, when the latter ran on the ticket of the defunct Congress for Progressives Congress (CPC) in the 2011 presidential election.
Bakare, an indigene of Abeokuta, Ogun State in South West region, said he is on a mission to make a new Nigeria.
He promised that Nigerians would have access to good quality healthcare, “where no youth is unemployed and our young men and women are job creators, where businesses thrive, …and any Nigerian can compete anywhere in the global market.”
He described the past federal governments as “cake eaters” adding that it is time to have the 16th administration of “cake bakers.”
He lamented that in the build up to the 2023 polls, “the Christians [are] against Muslims, the north against the south, the south-west against the south-east and the southeast against the north.”
“This situation calls for a certain kind of leader,” he said
Bakare said the unity of the country has continued to be threatened by ethnicity and religion.
“A mission of a new Nigeria and an honest aspiration to serve as the 16th president of my beloved nation, Nigeria,” Mr Bakare said.
“I understand that part of God’s purpose for Nigeria is the actualisation of the idea that Muslims and Christians, the north and the south can come together as one great nation.
“As a young boy, I had a vision of Nigeria. I grew up in my father’s house in Abeokuta, a storey building with 16 steps which today is the first family heritage museum in Abeokuta.”
With his entry into the presidential race, Bakare will slug it out with other contenders for the position at the APC primary which will hold before June.
Among the contenders are Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the APC National Leader and former Lagos governor, Bola Tinubu, Governors of Ebonyi and Kogi States, Dave Umahi and Yahaya Bello, former Imo State governor and serving senator, Rochas Okorocha and Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi.
There are reports that Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, may join the race.
The APC is yet to zone its presidential ticket. However, it is being speculated that it would zone it to the south comprising the south-south, south-west and south-east.
Recently, Bakare has stirred controversy when he said the Igbo of the south east geopolitical zone would not rule Nigeria because of a curse placed on them.
While delivering a sermon, the cleric told his congregation that, during the January 15, 1966 military action that toppled the First Republic, the soldiers that took Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa removed his turban, poured wine on his head and force-fed him with the alcohol. He said for abominating him, Balewa, just before he was shot, pronounced a cause on Ndigbo, to the effect that no one from the ethnic group will ever rule Nigeria.
