Popular Nigerian-Apostolic pastor and founder, Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare revealed how he was once offered $50,000 and a cow by a former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe during one of his several meetings with former president Goodluck Jonathan.
Speaking to The Interview magazine, Mr. Bakare revealed how President Muhammadu Buhari chose him as running mate in 2011 and the role of the-then National Leader of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), later the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, and the drama that followed.
“When I first spoke to Tinubu about it (after Lai Mohammed had come to tell me that the ACN wanted me to persuade Buhari to be the party’s flag-bearer), he (Tinubu) said, ‘the greatest mobiliser in the South West will be his running mate….’”
The fiery pastor also said that he once wrote four -point letter to Mr. Jonathan, calling his attention to the level of impunity in his administration.
“Let everyone declare what he has received. I can tell you what I received. I took two people there one day and he invited us to dinner. I had a bad sore throat that day, so I took a pass regarding the dinner.
“Another day, I took a couple there and I took a cup of tea. I told you about the $50,000 which I refused, but that was Orubebe. He sent me a cow at Christmas – which I gave the staff to kill – and a hamper through our pastor in Abuja, but I told him to keep it.”
Bakare ascribed Jonathan’s failure to his lack of capacity. “At best, he worked with some botanical things” before his odyssey to fame and power, said the fiery man of God.
In an interview that he would later say “drained him of virtue”, Mr. Bakare did not mince his words about the leadership tussle in the South West, the challenges before Buhari and his potential role in Buhari’s government.
The pastor revealed that at a point, the former president offered to give him “something”, which he refused and opted for simply a pen.
“Finally, when the opportunity came and he (Jonathan) said, ‘I will like to give you something’. I [then] said ‘I like pens: so if you must give me anything, let it be a pen, so that I can show it to my people and say ‘the president gave me a pen,’” he disclosed.
He said one day, after a meeting with Mr. Jonathan, a former minister in charge of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe, rushed to offer him $50,000 for “transport”, an offer the pastor said he turned down.
“When we were leaving, Orubebe ran after me and offered me $50,000 for my transport. I said, ‘Haba, take your money, I am not for sale’. We said goodbye to him and the rest is history,” Mr. Bakare said.
Giving details of his meeting with the former president, Mr. Bakare said, “When he (Jonathan) became president, I said to him, ‘the things we marched and protested against, you are now perpetrating them – the same impunity’”.
“I gave him four points in writing. Before we left Lagos, I gave a copy to Pastor Adeboye and another to General Alani Akinrinade. I said, ‘we are going to say goodbye to this man’ because if a man cannot keep his own side of the bargain, because if you got here by the grace of God and not because of any pedigree and, within 10 years, had become the president of Nigeria.
“God has brought you into the kingdom for such a time as this, so you cannot begin to commit the same impunity,” he said.
Mr. Bakare said in another meeting with the former president, he (Jonathan) told him that he needed someone to tell him the truth.
“He reached out to me later and said, ‘look, let’s put that behind us; Nigeria’s situation is critical.’”
“Before I went, I called General Buhari and said ‘this man invited me, I don’t know what for.’ When I got there, he said he needed someone who could tell him the truth always. I said, ‘if that is what you want, you have me at your side,’” he said.
Mr. Bakare therefore challenged religious leaders to declare what Mr. Jonathan gave him, saying the clergy did not tell the former president the truth because they benefitted from him.
“However, you see, Christian leaders benefitted tremendously from his administration in terms of licences and waivers. The thing is, when you allow those in power to get you into any compromise, speaking to them will be very difficult.
“I don’t know if any of those allegations were true, but I have seen enough to begin to think that they were not able to use our overwhelming influence. If you have benefitted from evil, you cannot talk about it, nor criticize it. Let everyone declare what he has received,” Mr. Bakare said in the magazine interview.