Former presidential aspirant and presiding overseer of the Lagos-based Global Community Citadel Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has said president Bola Tinubu is practising motorpark brand of politics.
While delivering his message in his church on Easter Sunday, April 20, Bakare warned that under President Bola Tinubu, Nigeria risks a popular uprising unless the administration changes course on security and the economy.
“Fellow citizens, at the centre of this political banditry, is the motor park brand of politics nurtured by the old brigade politicians and, in recent times, by President Bola Tinubu. Those responsible for steering the course of our nation lack the humility and character this moment demands…What we have seen since the beginning of the year is a descent into tyranny and the brazen abuse of power.”
Bakare cited a July 2024 report by the Financial Times, which accused the President of allowing the naira to enter free-fall, “fuelling imported inflation and triggering the worst cost of living crisis in a generation…These measures have pushed tens of millions of already impoverished people deeper into misery.”
The clergyman, who participated in the 2012 Occupy Nigeria protests, said there is little patience left in the streets as the economic situation could trigger a people-led revolt if unchecked.
“People of faith have prayed to the point of weariness, and any call for prayer now appears to be a mere religious ritual.
Some have concluded that we have prayed long enough and that unless certain pragmatic steps are taken with immediate effect, the rage of the poor may engineer social, economic, and political worst-case scenarios,” he argued.
He accused the President of reducing the National Assembly to “a haven for legislative rascality” and the 48th member of his cabinet.
“Through its actions and inactions, the National Assembly has, in effect, become the 48th member of the President’s cabinet, while a cabinet minister has, more or less, become a third-term state governor in Rivers State, pampered by the indulgences of the President.
Mr. President, it is through your influence that the Nigerian National Assembly has become a haven for legislative rascality. Mr. President, it is under your watch that the National Assembly has become an extension of the executive, grossly violating the principles of separation of powers and rubber-stamping the whims and caprices of your office, all while singing the international anthem of sycophants: “On your mandate, we shall stand.”
Mr. President, thanks to your political machinations, Nigeria is now bedevilled by a captured National Assembly, the most ineffective in its checks-and-balances role since the start of the Fourth Republic. This National Assembly, the Tenth, has by its unconstitutional endorsement of the President’s abuse of powers proven to be the most spineless in our recent history,” he argued.
Bakare urged Tinubu to sack under‑performing aides and appoint persons of impeccable integrity reputed for transparency and accountability.
