The founder of Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s emergence as Nigeria’s leader was divinely ordained, insisting that only God can remove him from office when the time comes.
Bakare stated this on Saturday during the inaugural edition of the Citadel School of Governance Dialogue Series in Lagos, where he addressed political developments and his position regarding the opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC).
“If God wants to remove ‘Emilokan,’ He knows how to do it. You can’t get the kind of thing Tinubu has brought without God’s support,” Bakare declared, referring to the president’s popular campaign slogan.
He maintained that Tinubu’s ascent to power was not accidental but a product of divine orchestration. “You can’t deny that his rise and what he has achieved came through the hand of God,” the cleric said.
The fiery preacher also revealed that he had come under intense pressure from top political figures to join the ADC but had resisted. According to him, both senior politicians and younger allies have approached him to lend his influence to the party.
“There has been a lot of pressure on me from who is who to join ADC. They come to my home. Even while I was abroad, the hierarchy of that party kept calling, saying they needed my voice,” Bakare said.
He added that even a younger political associate who had benefitted from appointments in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) encouraged him to align with the ADC.
However, Bakare said he has no intention of abandoning the APC, a party he helped build.
“I am not going to take part in ADC. The last time I knew about ADC was about a plane that crashed. I wish them well, because we need a robust opposition,” he said.
“But you don’t birth a child called APC and then try to kill it yourself. We are not going to have another Awolowo–Akintola crisis in the South-West,” he added.
Bakare, who contested the APC presidential primary in 2023 against Tinubu, was also the running mate to Muhammadu Buhari in the 2011 presidential election under the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of the legacy parties that later merged to form the APC.
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