“Let me tell you the truth by the spirit of God, neither (President Olusegun Obasanjo), OBJ, Atiku (Abubakar), IBB and this tall one, (Muhammadu) Buhari are part of the new. They are part of the old that is decaying. That old one is passing away. The new is emerging and these ones are not part of that new.”
–Pastor Tunde Bakare, the Serving Overseer of The Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos and the Vice Presidential Candidate to Retired General Muhamadu Buhari, on the platform of the CPC in 2011 Elections, in the PUNCH of October 2, 2006
Bakare and Buhari
It is an open secret in the media that Pastor Tunde Bakare is a very close friend of this administration. This ought not to be a surprise to observers of our contemporary political trajectory. This is because Pastor Tunde Bakare has been a close friend of President Muhammadu Buhari for some time now. He was even President Buhari’s running mate on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the 2011 Presidential Elections.
I have no doubt that President Buhari has a yeoman’s task in his hands. I am very sure that he needs a lot of prayers for him to succeed, if he is able to overcome his own incompetence and idiosyncrasies. I know that Pastor Tunde Bakare would be praying for President Buhari’s success because it is very certain that he would not want his friend to fail.
Also with Vice President (Pastor) Yemi Osinbajo, coming in tow with his retinue of RCCG pastors (even his Spokeperson is a Pastor of RCCG), President Buhari would have more than enough prayers to be successful in his tasks to cleanse Nigeria of corruption. If President Buhari fails in his task to turn Nigeria around, it would not be because of lack of enough prayers, it would be as a result of other variables that would be clearer to Nigerians as the days, weeks, months and years go by.
Muhammadu Buhari is the President of Nigeria today. And Nigerians apparently have a lot to do with this, either wittingly or unwittingly. Yet we were once told through prophesy by Pastor Tunde Bakare that Buhari was “part of the old” that was “decaying.” Pastor Bakare told Nigerians in 2006 that Buhari was part of the “old ones” that were “passing away.”He posited stubbornly “The new is emerging and these ones are not part of that new” as he piled up the names of Olusegun Obasanjo-Onyejekwe, Ibrahim Babangida and Abubakar Atiku on the same list.
In a report for PUNCH newspaper by Ademola Oni on October 2, 2006, Pastor Bakare’s vision was detailed as follows:
“The Serving Overseer of The Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos, Pastor Tunde Bakare, on Sunday said the dream of a former military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, to rule the nation in 2007 would fail.
Bakare, who spoke at a special programme of the church titled, ‘If the truth must be told” in Lagos, said the script to install Babangida was already being acted out.
He said, “As it is right now, only God can stop IBB from becoming the president of this nation again. You are likely to disagree but the strategy to bring him back has been perfected and the script is being acted out. “But there is good news there because God has shown me how to stop him.”
The cleric, who did not tell his audience the strategy to stop the Minna-based General from becoming the president in 2007, added that none of the presidential front runners would make Aso Rock.
Bakare said, “Let me tell you the truth by the spirit of God, neither (President Olusegun Obasanjo), OBJ, Atiku (Abubakar), IBB and this tall one, (Muhammadu) Buhari are part of the new. They are part of the old that is decaying. That old one is passing away. The new is emerging and these ones are not part of that new.’
Now that “this tall one,” Buhari, has become the President, what has Pastor Bakare got to say to Nigerians? Now that Abubakar Atiku is a kingmaker behind the scenes and a trusted “man Friday” for President Buhari, what has Pastor Bakare got to tell Nigerians? Even Olusegun Obasanjo whom Pastor Bakare told us was not “part of the new” had some Ministers in this Buhari’s Cabinet where the supposed kingmaker Ahmed Bola Tinubu could not even point to one!
What explanation has Pastor Bakare got to offer to Nigerians and those who attend his church? Is he a fake prophet making fake prophecies? Was Pastor Bakare lying against Eledumare, God the Almighty? Obviously, with the turn of events, his prophecies have not been true and could not have been from Eledumare, because He, Eledumare does not make mistakes. Even someone like me with my agnostic flirtations, know that Eledumare does not make mistakes. God does not lie.
What explanation has Pastor Bakare got to offer to Nigerians and those who attend his church? Is he a fake prophet making fake prophecies? Was Pastor Bakare lying against Eledumare, God the Almighty? Obviously, with the turn of events, his prophecies have not been true and could not have been from Eledumare, because He, Eledumare does not make mistakes. Even someone like me with my agnostic flirtations, know that Eledumare does not make mistakes. God does not lie.
The Christian Holy Book called the Bible even told us in the book of Deuteronomy Chapter 18, verses 21 to 22 as follows:
“And if thou say in thine heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?’ When a prophet speaketh in the Name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously”
For Christians, there could not be any higher authority than the Bible. It is the beginning and the completion of the basis of the faith. It legitimizes or delegitimizes any Christian philosophy and or principle or practice. If the Bible contends as it does in the quote above from the book of Deuteronomy that if it did not happen, it did not come from God, then Pastor Bakare has some explanations to make to Nigerians.
It is still befuddling that despite the fact that Pastor Bakare is yet to tell the truth about his previous prophesy that the then General Mohammadu Buhari would never become the civilian President of Nigeria, he has been able to exude blatant temerity, flagrant effrontery and obstreperous audacity to gallivant up and down the length and breadth of Nigeria calling himself an Overseer of a Christian Ministry.
Well, this could only happen in Nigeria where anything is possible. It is only in Nigeria that a man like Tunde Bakare could commit such an egregious sin against God and Nigerians and still have some followers. It is only in Nigeria that a Pastor like Bakare would engage in this kind of spiritual chicanery and remain relevant without apologizing to Nigerians. It is only in Nigeria that someone could engage in this kind of pastoral charlatanism and still be paid any kind of respect whatsoever.
It is still befuddling that despite the fact that Pastor Bakare is yet to tell the truth about his previous prophesy that the then General Mohammadu Buhari would never become the civilian President of Nigeria, he has been able to exude blatant temerity, flagrant effrontery and obstreperous audacity to gallivant up and down the length and breadth of Nigeria calling himself an Overseer of a Christian Ministry.
Yes, what do you expect from a Nigeria in which a Pastor Enoch Adeboye would consistently manifest the most obnoxious form of insensitivity and exudation of utmost cruelty and wickedness to his followers and still rake in billions every blessed Sunday and quote the Bible to justify such. What do you expect from a Nigeria in which a Reverend David Oyedepo would be worth about $150million (Wikipedia) without any major business enterprise other than the tithes of his human sheep in his ministry.
These are Pastors, so-called representatives of Jesus Christ who himself is the champion of the poor. These pastors, against the teaching of Christ whom they claim to follow, continue to further pulverize the poor, making them more miserable, milking them without mercy, asking them to work harder to be able to have a place in heaven, while they are busy creating empires for themselves on God’s Earth.
Instead of feeding the multitude of the poor like Christ did, these pastors deprive the poor of the little they have by blackmailing them into paying tithes. Instead of alleviating the suffering of their poor followers as Christ did for Peter during the storm at sea and feeding all the disciples at the Last Supper, these pastors further compound the woes of their own followers by forcing the poor followers to pay through their noses for the education of their children. They offer fake prophesies. Give false hopes. Hoodwink the vulnerable and defraud the unwary.
These Pastors consciously and conscientiously undermine the collective survival and viability of society in general. They collaborate with the corrupt political class. They get billions of waivers and avoid paying taxes for the development of the polity. They collect tithes and fight tooth and nail not to pay taxes on them. They encourage their members to loot our commonwealth and pray for them as long as they get their own shares via tithes. They validate and justify obnoxious behaviors of the political dealers.
They prayed for President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, put their hands on him and made him believe that he was the “anointed of God.” President Jonathan’s handlers knew how depraved our society was and still is in terms of blind, sheepish faith in the so-called pastors. Hence they circulated a picture of Jonathan, kneeling down and being prayed for by Pastor Adeboye. But everyone should sit back and look at where Nigeria is today. They are already encircling President Buhari, oozing like deleterious bees, waiting to pounce and suck the life out of him.
Now, we are being made to believe that Buhari is God-sent when many of us know this is not the case. They are already singing their duplicitous songs again as they did during the Jonathan era. Their fake prophesies handy, they hope to further milk Nigeria, as they have been milking their hapless sheep in their Christian Ministries to enrich themselves the more and exacerbate the misery of the people.
It is time for the people to stand up against these spiritual wolves in the garb of evangelical shepherds. It is time for the faithful in the Christendom to fight to actualize the Will of Christ in their lives and set themselves free. Nigerians should open their eyes and emancipate themselves from mental slavery as Bob Marley advised. Do not be hoodwinked by the spurious phrase: “Touch not the anointed.” Do not buy into any preachment that would further encumber your freedom. Hearken to the voice of Christ on this. Shake off the yoke of deleterious pastors.
Christ did not preach misery and slavery. He preached happiness and freedom. Christ did not preach deprivation. He preached sharing. Christ did not preach agony. He preached comfort. Christ did not preach hunger. He fed the people. Christ did not buy a horse to ride with the money of his followers. He was allowed to use the horse as a form of charity. Christ did not preach reveling in reeking opulence. He lived an example of austerity, self denial and sacrifice for his followers.
Believers in and followers of Christ in Nigeria should remember the wisdom of Frederick Douglass. They should recognize that these Pastors represent oppressive power structure in the polity. As a structure of power, these Pastors would resist any change. The Pastors have been getting away with murder because their followers let them. Christians in Nigeria should take the following passage to heart as they seek out the ways of the present quagmire:
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
–Frederick Douglas (1818 – 1895)
The phrase “Touch not the Anointed” is no longer tenable. Time it is, indeed, to touch the “Anointed.”
“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.” – John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address January 20, 1961
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