The Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has said that he will never call the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, his president.
The clergyman said this during a webinar on Saturday, May 27, after delivering his speech on the Zoom programme titled, ‘Building the New Nigeria: The Role of the Diaspora.”
Bakare had said the 2023 elections were below acceptable standards.
When asked if he would be happy to work for the new government as a ‘Minister of Diaspora Engagements,’ the clergyman laughed and spoke about how he addresses President Buhari.
Bakare said he recently told Buhari that sometimes he called him President of Nigeria and other times, he called him “My President.”
He however said he would never refer to Tinubu as “My President.’”
“Last Wednesday, I was at the Glass House where he (Buhari) has been restricted now because the main house is being renovated. I said I have done that for you. I want you to know that, because of the circumstances of your flying into power on the wings of integrity and incorruptibility, but you’re now passing onto someone who does not have that value,” the cleric told the participants.
He continued;
“ at any public lecture anywhere, before this mess is cleared off, I will address Asiwaju as a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria but I will never call him my president.”
He said he didn’t participate in the elections, therefore, no one would say he lost in the exercise.
Bakare, who participated in the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary election on June 14, 2022 and polled no vote, said;
“I participated in the primary, and there were hundreds who participated only by stepping down, so there is no shame in what we have done. We spoke truth to power within seven minutes. I wasn’t there when they voted, I wasn’t there when they scored (me) zero, but we won that badge of zero and badge of honour.”