Dissecting Pastor Tunde Bakare’s Press Conference Titled ‘The Birth Pangs Of A New Nigeria’ By Lady Aite- Ehiemua

On Monday the 18^th of June, 2017 most major newspapers were agog with the said press conference granted the press by Pastor Tunde Bakare.

The pastor had blamed the current political scenario as an aftermath on the choice of an elderly President. He made comparison with France’s President Emmanuel Macron stressing that it was indicative of a global paradigm shift. Not done, he wondered why Nigeria which once produced a 30 year old leader in the person of Yakubu Gowon would now go for people in their 60s and 70s.

Pastor Tunde Bakare went further to state that the leadership vacuum often allowed the likes of Adonijah and Absalom In biblical mythology who overthrew their father for inordinate ambition, as nature does not allow for vacuum.

Pastor Tunde Bakare enthused that if President Buhari is ‘very healthy’ then there would be no room for the likes of Absolom and Alutoped to exercise their ambition.

The water however sees the press conference as double-speak after all, it was the same Tunde Bakare who volunteered to be a vice-president to this same President in 2011 presidential election . so blaming the current political quagmire (if any) on the choice of an elderly president is totally uncalled for as we know assuredly that this president Buhari has done more than his predecessors going by the socio-political and economic state of the country at the time he assumed office, governance has not stopped .

The government is focused, trying hard to do away with the old order of things that gave room to unprecedented corruption in the nation’s political history. So how has age affected the performance of the president after all, America (the mother of all democracy) has recently elected a man who President Muhammadu Buhari is 3 years older.

It was same Buhari before Bakare, that globed trotted countries in his first year simply to re-write his country’s battered image tha Nigeria and Nigerian’s were treated as epileptic people.

Today it is paying off. Think for example, Morocco’s bilateral agreement with Nigeria on fertilizer importation which will lead Nigeria to be its greatest exporter in the West Africa sub region many more benefits abound. Today, Nigeria is test running on how to export yams to the US and UK. This is a product of a 74 year old man’s vision when he took up the gauntlet to diversify the economy as a promise of his electioneering campaign promise.

Secondly, the analogy of Pastor Tunde Bakare of  Absalom and alutophel which the preacher say can be avoided if ‘the president is very healthy and able to discharge his duties’ I dare say, there is no vacuum, there is no guarantee that any president is immune to sickness. So the adjective ‘very healty’ as Bakare was quoted in punch’s Newspaper on page 12 as the only condition to avoid the uprising of Absalom and Alutopel (the military) is in bad taste.

In any case, there is no vacuum; the president has transmitted powers to his vice, now Nigeria’s acting President, so no vacuum at all.

We thought the military has laid to rest the controversy of possible military takeover where they all re-affirmed their total loyalty to the C IN C.

Finally, the writer would like to observe that President Muhammadu Buhari from the days of his electioneering campaigns moving from one state to another up till now has not shown himself as a weak feeble president, Hence a quiet and peaceful nation except for the recent clamor by some ethnic bigots for the succession of the country.

All Nigerians hands must be on deck as we ask for Pasto Tunde Bakare to pray for Buhari as says in the bible so that there indeed will be a new Nigeria where issues of inequality and injustice will all be redressed for a greater Nigeria.

Lady Aite- Ehiemua is a public affairs analyst

ehiemuagao@gmail.com