Pastor Tunde Bakare, the presiding overseer of the Global Community Citadel Church, has raised an alarm that the country under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is descending into tyranny and brazen abuse of power.
He also stated that under the watch of the President, the legislature a bastion of democracy is collapsing.
In his state of the nation broadcast marking the Easter celebration at the Church auditorium, Bakare, a former Vice-Presidential candidate under the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), carpeted the President over what he called the seeming state capture.
He described the situation in Rivers State where the President declared a state of emergency as a theater of the absurd further endorsed by the National Assembly which he described as the most “spineless” in Nigeria’s recent history.
The clergyman also took on the National Assembly over the suspension of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, challenging the suspension of the Senator for demanding accountability and transparency from the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio.
Pastor Bakare expressed dismay over the verbal attacks in the senate involving Ebonyi Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi and former Education Minister, Dr. Obi Ezekwesili during the hearing on the suspension of Senator Natasha, saying the senate has become an institution for political rascality.
With the statement of Senator Nwebonyi that Ezekwesili can’t be in the Senate, Bakare said it means the institution is not the place for the brightest and the fittest and that the nation’s political institutions are “not designed for people of character and competence.”
According to him, it is through the influence of the President that the National Assembly has become a “haven for legislative rascality,” rubber stamping every thing the President sent to them.
Bakare said to the President, “Thanks to your political machination, this National Assembly has become the most ineffective.”
“This NASS by its unconstitutional endorsement of the President’s abuse of office is the most spineless in recent history,” he said, praising the previous National Assemblies.
He stated that the seeming acts of state capture by the President is an “anti-climax that can only be counterproductive at the end.”
Bakare stated that his decision to speak up was because he didn’t want the President to fail, adding that the current administration, though in his first term, has drifted.
According to him, it is time for the government to embrace humility and govern with Justice and fairness before it is too late.
Bakare noted that the renewed hope of the President collapsed from day one with the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the Naira which plunged tens of millions of Nigerians into extreme poverty.
