The new National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Basiru, has faulted the stance of the Serving Overseer of Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, on the reforms of the President Bola Tinubu, saying that he lacks the capacity to speak on Tinubu’s reforms, especially the fuel subsidy removal.
Basiru, the spokesman for the ninth Senate, stated this when he featured on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Sunday night.
Bakare had informed his congregation during his Sunday sermon that he warned against the ‘Emilokan’ kind of politics.
Emilokan, which literarily translated to ‘It’s my turn’ in Yoruba dialect, was a popular slogan introduced by Tinubu in his 2023 pre-election campaign.
In the State of the Nation broadcast at his Lagos church, the cleric emphasised that ’emilokan’ was an epitome of authoritarianism, recalling that he warned Nigerians in January the politics of entitlement would breed dictatorship.
Faulting Bakare’s scathing remark, Basiru stressed that Bakare had no moral ground to speak on issues he knew nothing about.
He said, “I must quickly comment on what Pastor Bakare said. Although I don’t see him as a politician and with respect to him, I don’t see him as being competent to say what he has said.
“The fact that we are talking of palliatives does not mean we are not talking about the dysfunctions, imbalances in the economy and addressing the fundamental problems. We are not limiting our problems to the issue of palliatives.”
When asked what he meant by ‘Bakare not having the competence’ to speak on the country’s challenges, Basiru reiterated that the fact that the pastor is a Nigerian does not mean he can run commentary on any debate.
He said, “I said competence on what he is talking about. The fact that you have ideas doesn’t mean you are competent in what you are saying. But he is entitled as a citizen.
“For instance, I am not an engineer and don’t have the competence to make valid proposition in the engineering field, even though I am a citizen of Nigeria.
“The fact that he (Bakare) is a Nigerian does not give him the right to make the criticism that he is making.
“We have a four-year mandate and by the grace of God, even before the first one year, people will start seeing the fundamental adjustment that is being made in the economy of our country.”
