Be involved in the choice of your successor, Bakare tells Buhari

Tunde Bakare, serving overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly (LRA), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that he is succeeded by a leader who would uphold, not destroy his legacies. 

In 2019, Bakare had hinted that he would succeed Buhari. 

Speaking at his church on Sunday, Bakare said it is not a coincidence that Buhari is leading the country into a new decade.

The cleric, who listed three “pivotal points” the Buhari administration should focus on, prayed for the last three years of Buhari’s administration to be the best three years of the president’s life.

“This is the decade of the new Nigeria. In this decade, we have an opportunity to turn the tides of our nation if we make the right choices. I believe it is not a coincidence that President Muhammadu Buhari has the privilege of presiding over the nation at the turn of the decade. I believe a rare opportunity has been thrust upon his shoulders to make history in the service of his fatherland,” Bakare said.

“Therefore, in the first three years of this decade which coincides with the last three years of his administration, the president must take the lead in building a legacy that will facilitate the emergence of the Nigerian dreams.

“Three focal objectives must drive governance in the appropriate path from this moment henceforth. First, this government must be driven by strong leadership. A strong man is different from a strong leader. Africa does need strong leaders who would build strong institutions. Providing strong leadership must the first pivotal agenda of the Buhari administration in the next three years. It includes being not just the commander in chief but also the unifier in chief.

“The second focal objective of this leadership in the next three years should be to strengthen institutions. The third pivotal goal of governance should be to build a strong post-Buhari legacy facilitated by accurate succession.

“A key responsibility that history has bestowed on President Muhammadu Buhari at this point of our journey to nationhood is to institutionalise systems of accurate succession that will build and sustain the Nigeria that we desire, not the ones that will hand us back again to treasury looters.

“God is into succession. Anyone that does not concern himself about succession is destroying his legacies because the person that comes after you can just destroy everything you have built.”

According to Bakare, who spoke on the theme “Unveiling the True Enemies of Nigeria”, the enemies of the country span across all the tiers and arms of government as well as ordinary Nigerian citizens.

He listed them to include “those that seek to keep the country divided permanently as ministers or VIPs at least, the tribalists, the nepotists. They can also be found on the streets, households.

Describing the bill seeking to regulate social media as “misguided”, Bakare said though he has been a victim of “social media mischief”, he would never support a clampdown on freedom of speech.

“Social media offered them (Nigerians) a direct channel through which they can unleash their creativity, express their expectation or release their frustration. This is what living in the 21st-century globalised economy entails. The mobile phone has become a mobile city and we cannot afford to lag behind,” Bakare said.

“The fact that some persons have deployed this tool in ways that have been less than honourable does not justify the attempted clampdown on freedom of speech by the legislature.

“I, too have been a target of social media mischief…but I will not support the suppression of a potent tool for citizen engagement in the 21st century through a misguided social media bill.”