The Serving Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has criticized President Muhammadu Buhari’s handling of the recent killings by alleged herdsmen in Benue, saying his ‘deliberate, sinful silence’ encouraged the continuation of the carnage.
Bakare said President Buhari’s slow response to the killings was tantamount to “laying a foundation for cyclonic eruption of violence” in the country” for which he said the entire government deserves to be “shown the way out.”
Bakare, who was Buhari’s running mate during the 2011 presidential election, on Sunday said the President was guilty of double standard, pointing out that while he was quick to deploy military might against the agitating Indigenous People of Biafra, it looked the other way as herdsmen continued to take lives.
The televangelist said the structure of the country is not working and the time has come to “renegotiate the union”
Bakare told journalists in his church, in the Lagos on Sunday, shortly after he spoke on the state of the nation, in a broadcast he tagged, ‘It is time to renegotiate our union.’
“I felt the government maintained what I call a deliberate, sinful silence and it is unfortunate that that can happen in this country.
“Look at what happened to IPOB; they massively mobilised the military because of a man who is not killing anybody, but just saying there would be no election.
“In the present case, people, literally, were murdered and nothing was done. That is not justice and you are laying foundation for cyclonic eruption of violence because once retaliation or reprisal begins, we can’t handle it. An eye for an eye will render all of us blind. What happened to those 70 people (Benue killings) is a sad tale. In fact, in a decent society, such a government will be shown the way out,” he said
He also said Buhari’s anti-corruption fight was a failure, having been unable to achieve major convictions.
He said, “The ineffectiveness of the anti-corruption war is seen in the loss of crucial corruption cases. For instance, in April 2017, the Federal Government lost four high-profile corruption cases in 96 hours.”
On his Presidential ambition, he said God had given him the mandate to take over power and lead the country into its “prophetic destiny.”
He said although he may not run for election, he would definitely take over power by God’s arrangement at a time to be chosen by God.
“Gerald Ford was minding his own business then when the Fifth Amendment came; without any election, he was running as the Vice-President, and then the President resigned – Watergate Scandal – and he (Ford) became the President.
“George Washington was a consensus President; his election was: ‘We want you to come and serve us,’ and he said ‘I will not take a dime except for stationery and the things that I will use for the office.’ That is one aspect of it.
“When Chief Obafemi Awolowo became, more or less, the Vice-President, he was coming straight from prison like (biblical) Joseph. Is that election? The election of June 12 (1993); what did it produce? Is it election that we need now or to restructure our country? I am not a politician in the sense of looking for a platform to campaign for election and go up and down. I am not saying it is wrong. That is the only method you know, but there are other methods. So, let me keep my bird in the pocket, when the time comes, I will bring it out,” he said.
He added: “My priority is restructuring the country; I am not running for any election. Look, it doesn’t matter how clean you are, when you jump into a sewage tank, you are going to come out not smelling like roses; you’ll smell filthy. The constitution, the present structure is messing up even good people. Whether you say 2019 or 20…, those are not my interest. My interest is to moblise Nigerians for a genuine change.”
