Chief Convener
of Save Nigeria
Group (SNG),
Pastor Tunde
Bakare, has
passed a vote
of no
confidence on
President
Goodluck
Jonathan,
saying he is an
under
performer. Bakare, who is also the Pastor,
Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos, spoke with
Daily Sun in Abuja.
Excerpts:


State of the nation
We must give thanks to God that we still
remain a nation after all. We should go
before God in a heart of gratitude for helping
us in the midst of these myriads of problems.
Nigeria is imploding. The bomb blasts, the
kidnappings, the massive corruption, the
army of jobless youths, infrastructural decay
and decline, and all kinds of vicissitudes of
life that have befallen Nigerians. They are all
by-products of planless, clueless leadership
that has characterized the government of
the PDP, especially in the last four years. If
there is anything at all, Nigeria should rise
up and take their destiny in their hands. This
time around, let every Nigerian of voting age
come out and register. Let them choose
candidates that they know are credible, that
have the antecedents of credibility and
integrity, so that we don’t end up in the
same mess after 2011.


Will Nigeria disintegrate in no distant time?
The way it is going, with this lopsided federal
system, with the republic that is not a true
republic, you are playing with disintegration.
In fact, you might be pushing it to the
extreme when you talk of extinction. But God
Almighty who puts Nigeria together, is able
to hold it. Nigeria must be delivered from the
grips of those who are in power for self and
not for service and who have a sense of
entitlement to the leadership of this nation.
If Nigeria belongs to us all, then every
Nigerian must be free to aspire to the
highest office in the land. The way it is now,
there are warlords already beating war
drums that if it does not go their way, they
will rather sink the ship of their party or they
will bring about violent change because
others have made peaceful change
impossible. All those are drums of war being
beaten by those who are losing out, but
Nigeria belongs to us all. I am of the
considered opinion that God has a reason for
putting Nigeria together.
My desire is to see Nigeria’s fulfilled destiny,
but Nigeria must be restructured in order for
that to happen and there must be a peoples’
constitution as against imposed constitution
by the military upon us. Until then, those
who are saying Nigeria will disintegrate have
a reason to say so. But we all must work to
ensure that it does not disintegrate. It will be
a total chaos if Nigeria disintegrates or any
crisis erupts in this nation that will force us
to flee and become refugees. We will
overwhelm West Africa. God forbids evil. I do
not pray that Nigeria should disintegrate. I
desire for it to be united, to be strong and to
fulfill its destiny in the Comity of Nations.


What makes the Save Nigeria Group (SNG)
tick?
Save Nigeria Group is a child of necessity
and in the throes of death, President
Yar’Adua abandoned the ship. The cabal
hijacked power and began to exercise
executive authority that was not given to
them. It was like in that situation, we had a
president, who had no kidney and we had a
vice president, who had no balls. But this
time around, through the Doctrine of
Necessity, they brought him to power.
Honestly, if I have my way, the best for this
country today is for President Goodluck
Jonathan to make up his mind to conduct a
free, fair, credible and peaceful elections, to
use his executive powers to lay the
foundation against the time to come. He will
go down in history as a man of honour. If all
these cluelessness and planlessness and
greed for power continue, he will go down to
the dustbin of history. That, once upon a
time, there was a president, who had the
greatest opportunity but who blew it.
SNG was a child of necessity in the throes of
crisis. We rose to the occasion to ensure
that we enforce constitutionalism. By the
grace of God, we have taken it beyond that
child of necessity. It is maturing to ensure
that social mobility is not frozen any more in
our country. To unblock the minds of
Nigerians, to let them know that sovereignty
belongs to them and not to those in
government and finally. To ensure that they
can exercise their rights of vote to choose
candidates of their choice. After all,
government that is good government is only
there for one purpose: the welfare of the
people of the nation.


Toughest situations SNG had to face
All situations in Nigeria are tough. The
toughest so far is to see that the same
recycled, the same good for nothing, self-
centered, self-serving people are still the
ones we are parading around with the fewest
exceptions. We want to be in a situation to
point in the direction that the nation should
go and candidates to vote for. SNG is an
amalgam of so many other organizations.
Some are serious, some are not too serious.
We are whittling down all these things so
that SNG can have its own distinct identity.
Those who believe in change and those who
desire for this country to fulfill her destiny
and to be removed from just being a country
with great potentials, to become a truly
great nation. Those are the ones we will
work with and collaborate with. We trust that
in the days to come, the difference will be
clear to all that we are not going to
compromise the values and the vision that
we set up when SNG began.


Visit to Aso Rock
There is nothing to it. We went there to
present our position paper to him (Jonathan).
They tried to give us money, we said thanks,
but no, thanks, take your money back.
Whatever they made out of that is between
them and the Press they leaked it to. We
stand erect by the grace of God, untainted.



Are you satisfied with his administration?
No, not at all. I am not satisfied. Not in the
least and Nigerians are not satisfied. He has
underperformed. I do not think we can trust
him with the leadership of this nation in
2011. He has grossly underperformed, he
has goofed in so many instances. He is yet to
correct his stand that Sovereign National
Conference is 96 years late. I am yet to see
the publication he promised when we met
with him; that he goofed and he is going to
correct that. He has not made a public
declaration that in future we can trust him
for a proper restructuring.
Not only that, the culture of impunity that we
rose up to fight against, has permeated the
length and breadth of Nigeria. In Bauchi
State, there are two deputy governors. In
Ogun State, there are two deputy speakers
and two speakers of the House. This same
culture of impunity has continued and he had
appointed the governors of such states as
his whatever for his election.
He has appointed them as his coordinators
for his election in South-West and North-
West. No, he has grossly underperformed
and he has not demonstrated the capacity to
lead a complex nation like Nigeria. We
definitely need change. As a matter of fact,
PDP has done enough. We must have
progressives as they call them. They must
come together, although they themselves
are not serious. They are all birds of the
same feather flocking in the same direction.
We will not allow him to ruin the nation even
if he wants to.



Muhammadu Buhari presidency: Is he the
best for the job?
For now, he is the only one I have seen. If
you have any other who has the antecedent,
the integrity, the credibility, you can make
up your mind and tell the whole world who
you think can save this looting that is going
on in our nation. Who has the moral will to
stop all the religious crises and bomb blasts.
I know they hang him that he is a Sharia
fundamentalist. But don’t forget he was the
one who rose up and said, stop wasting
government’s money on Hajj and all those
pilgrimages.
They are private things; individuals should
seek their God in their own way and
government’s money should not be wasted.
Remember it was not him who took us to the
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
He is a devoted Muslim just the way I am a
devoted Christian. Everyman approaches his
God the way he chooses. We are in the boat
of Jonah where everybody is calling upon his
God. The true God we know and the false
gods are all there. But nonetheless, he is the
one that I have seen that has the credibility,
that has the integrity and that has the will
and the forthrightness to bring discipline and
order back into a corrupt society.
He is not the only Nigerian that we expect to
team up and bring this to a glorious
conclusion in 2011. The Congress for
Progressive Change (CPC) alone cannot win
the election. Buhari alone cannot win the
election. Men of goodwill must team up. The
best of the North, the best of the South, must
come together to stir this ship up the iceberg
that this titanic called PDP is about to heat
and sink the entire nation if need be. But by
God’s grace, it will not happen. My
assessment of Buhari as a person has
nothing to do with any desire to run for any
elective office. I am not interested.


My zoning philosophy
I believe in zoning. My own philosophy of
zoning is that the best of the North, the best
of the South, the best of the East and the
best of the West, must come together to
rescue our nation. East, West, North and
South, only the best is good enough for
Nigeria. That is my zoning philosophy. Not all
these northern face, Islamic face and
Christian face. We need Nigerians who have
the capacity, capability, mental alertness to
stir the affairs of our country. Who
understand economic principles and can
revolutionize our nation, economically and
otherwise. Not these men who do not know
their left from their right. Whose credentials,
including educational credentials, must be
examined because the way they are
functioning, it does not look like they went to
school.


INEC, free and fair elections
I have met with Prof. Attahiru Jega in his
capacity as INEC Chairman. Before he came
in, he was known to be a radical and a man
of integrity. I hope he will still keep his
integrity intact before he leaves.
The signs are not clear that there will be a
free, fair and credible election. At SNG or my
personal opinion I should say right now is,
don’t trust Jega but give him the benefit of
the doubt. He has started giving a kind of
signal as to where we are going, that we
should not expect a perfect election. Nobody
is expecting a perfect election. We are
expecting a free, fair and credible election
and we will not be convinced about that.
Hope for Nigeria
There is hope for Nigeria if Nigerians will rise
up. It is in their hands now. Nigerians must
rise up and say enough is enough. They
would not allow their rights to be trampled
upon anymore. If they can have a critical
mass of people with balance of terror, so
that they know that we will not be
intimidated. Nigerians will rescue power out
of these people and a peaceful, credible and
fair election can still be conducted even if we
will have to call for external help this time
around because except that, then the future
is bleak. But if Nigerians will rise up and say,
you know what, we have been calling upon
God, we want to back our faith with our
action now. Faith without work, is dead. If all
Christians, Muslims, all Nigerians of deep
conviction rise up and say, let us rescue our
nation, it can be done. It has happened in
other places, it must happen here also. We
must not allow this country to disintegrate.
Nigerian justice system
I do not pass comments on the judiciary. In
recent times, there have been so much delay
in justice that some who did not win
elections stay there for three and a half
years. They can go to Church and do
thanksgiving before you say they should not
have been in power. No. If they had rigged
election, they should be handed over to the
law to punish them. Until there is a punitive
system within the electoral system that
punishes those who are criminals rigging
elections, you cannot have free, fair and
credible elections. Nobody has ever been
punished for electoral malpractices in
Nigeria. All those governors who are still
manipulating the will of the people, should
have been brought to book. Justice delayed
is justice denied.
Religious leaders not doing enough?
I know that every man is attempting to do his
best for this country. We should not hang the
fault on religious leaders. People patronize
them. If you stop going to their shops, they
will close down that shop. That is it.
War on corruption
Nigerians are behind it. It is not foreign
experts that are running the Independent
Corrupt Practices and other Related
Offences Commission (ICPC) or the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). If
the system is corrupt, you will have all kinds
of people there. I don’t know the details or
have enough parameters to judge them but
it looks like in the days of Ribadu, we got
more results. Though some excesses, we still
got more results than now. I just hope that
the ICPC and the EFCC do not become a
witch-haunting dogs in the hands of the
executive. The bottleneck is at the top. The
fish is smelling from the head once it starts
going bad. Bring everyman to book and let
us stop this nonsense. Let those who can do
it be put there and remove those who do not
understand their left from their right.
Nonetheless, let Nigerians know that the way
you lay your bed, is the way you lie on it. Act
now before it is too late. God bless Nigeria.
Are you satisfied with his administration?
No, not at all. I am not satisfied. Not in the
least and Nigerians are not satisfied. He has
underperformed. I do not think we can trust
him with the leadership of this nation in
2011. He has grossly underperformed, he
has goofed in so many instances. He is yet to
correct his stand that Sovereign National
Conference is 96 years late. I am yet to see
the publication he promised when we met
with him; that he goofed and he is going to
correct that. He has not made a public
declaration that in future we can trust him
for a proper restructuring.
Not only that, the culture of impunity that we
rose up to fight against, has permeated the
length and breadth of Nigeria. In Bauchi
State, there are two deputy governors. In
Ogun State, there are two deputy speakers
and two speakers of the House. This same
culture of impunity has continued and he had
appointed the governors of such states as
his whatever for his election. He has
appointed them as his coordinators for his
election in South-West and North-West. No,
he has grossly underperformed and he has
not demonstrated the capacity to lead a
complex nation like Nigeria. We definitely
need change. As a matter of fact, PDP has
done enough. We must have progressives as
they call them. They must come together,
although they themselves are not serious.
They are all birds of the same feather
flocking in the same direction. We will not
allow him to ruin the nation even if he wants
to.