The Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church in Lagos, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has flapped down those who knocked him over his recent commendation of a former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for his contributions to Nigeria.
Bakare, had, in a sermon entitled: “An Idle Man’s Brain Is The Devil’s Workshop,” at his new church auditorium, The Citadel, Pastor Bakare, lauding Tinubu’s contributions to political development in the South-West said, he has fought and won many battles for the Yoruba people.
The cleric noted that it was Tinubu, who delivered Lagos State and other South-West states from the “onslaught of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from 1999 to 2007,” contending that, without Tinubu, the APC, now Nigeria’s ruling party, would not have won the 2015 and 2019 elections.
In his Biblical reference, Pastor Bakare went through the stories of King David and Jephthah, saying not minding their past and shortcomings, they built their nations and its people and defended them against attacks of the enemy.
Likening the situations of their days to Nigeria’s situations, Pastor Bakare said the role Tinubu played in the South-West Nigeria is similar to the role played by the Biblical Jephthah, who, he said, delivered his people despite the circumstances surrounding his birth.
He said people have equally criticised Tinubu over his ancestral background and his adoption of the late Iyaloja of Lagos, Habibat Mogaji, as his mother, but faulted his critics who, he said held him in disdain for claiming to be an indigene of Lagos State and not Iragbiji in Osun State, where it was believed he hailed from.
Pastor Bakare said holding such impression against Tinubu was not relevant to progress, as such, he said won’t be as important as his contributions to societal developments attributed to him, as he said people may not have a control over who to become their parents but they are free to chose their mentors and whoever they want to associate with.
However, the message, which had gone viral was received by mixed reactions among Nigerians, some, who berated the cleric, claiming it was a paid job, wondered why Pastor Bakare, who, at a time had spoke against Tinubu turned around to praise him.
But, Pastor Bakare, while speaking to his congregation, on Sunday at the headquarters of his church in Ikeja, Lagos, in another message, entitled, ‘There is None Holy as the Lord,’ he said he was amazed people became judgemental, passing comments against him on opinion about Tinubu without listening to the full sermon.
He, thereby, described his traducers as “undertakers,” called on people with proof that he had been bribed to speak out, asserting that nobody was rich enough to pay him for his works.
In his sermon, Pastor Bakare said: “One would have thought that the whole message of over an hour would be listened to so that the context of the clip that went viral would be listened to before judgment is passed by those who considered us to have taken a 360-turnaround compared to the thoughts we had taken previously about the man many love to hate and many hate to love.
“Instead, the bath water and the baby were both thrown out by some self-appointed undertakers who think the way forward in our dilemma as a nation is to uproot the tares and separate them from the wheat long before the harvest time ordained by God.
“The same undertakers wilfully forget that the current mixture of the bad, the good, and the ugly in the polity are a result of the negligence of our past and present leaders, who slept on duty and allowed the enemy to sow the tares while the good man had planted good seeds on the ground.”
The minister also implored people not to be in a hurry to judge anyone because of their past actions, said, the judgment was in the hands of God.
Bakare, who said his commendation of Tinubu’s political success was not an approval of his lifestyle, maintained that while many people were sleeping, the former governor was “working hard and positioning his people in strategic places.
He warned that it would be hard for anyone to win an election against Tinubu’s candidate in Lagos because “it’s not yet time.”
While noting that people have gone to the extreme in the past week to calling him delusional, Bakare said that his comments on Tinubu were not influenced by any “power broker” from Abuja, contrary to speculations.
“As a matter of fact, this past week, this set of individuals went to the extreme of calling me delusional, while others concluded that money must have changed hands for me to say the things that were said contrary to my previous stand concerning the same person.
“You think somebody will pay me for what I am doing? No one is rich enough to do it. No one in this country or elsewhere is rich enough. And I am not for sale because I have been bought. I was bought by the Blood of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary and no other price can match that. And if you know of anyone who has given me money at any time to do what I am doing, expose it.
“One gentleman in particular labelled the part of the message he heard without listening to the rest. With all the PhDs he acquired, he said, ‘Tunde Bakare strategical delegitimisation of Tinubu.’
“Brothers and sisters, I say this before God who will judge the quick and the dead, none of these things is true. They are all the figments of the imagination of the writers and they are entitled to their opinions,” Pastor Bakare said.
