The new National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Basiru, has knocked the Serving Overseer of Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, saying he is not competent to speak on President Bola Tinubu’s reforms, especially in the wake of the controversial fuel subsidy removal.
The former spokesman for the ninth Senate made the claim when he featured on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Sunday night.
Bakare had stirred the hornet’s nest when he told 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 fiery pastor emphasised that ’emilokan’ was an epitome of authoritarianism, recalling that he warned Nigerians in January the politics of entitlement would breed dictatorship.
Reacting to his scathing remark, Basiru stressed that Bakare had no moral ground to speak on issues he knew nothing about.
This was even as the APC scribe refused to acknowledge the preacher’s political sagacity.
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 probed on 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.
“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.”
