The Senior Pastor of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare has addressed his critics following the viral clip of a sermon in which he praised ex-Lagos state Governor, Asiwaju Bola- Ahmed Tinubu for his benefaction to Nigeria.
Bakare labeled those criticizing him as ‘undertakers’ and prompted them to provide evidence that he was bribed as no one was wealthy enough to afford his works.
Comparing Tinubu to Jephthah in the Bible, Bakare said that the former Governor had fought many battles for the Yoruba tribe and had “delivered Lagos State and nearly all the South-West states from the onslaught of the PDP from 1999 to 2007″.
Citizens however replied the preacher’s message with mixed reactions, wondering why Bakare, who once publicly rebuked Tinubu took a reversal to praise him.
Bakare while preaching on Sunday at the church’s headquarters in Ikeja, Lagos, in another message, titled, ‘There is None Holy as the Lord,’ inquired into the people’s judgement based off a clip which was only a ‘part’ of the full sermon.
“One would have thought that the whole message of over an hour would be listened to so that the context of the clip that went viral would be listened to before judgment is passed by those who considered us to have taken a 360-turnaround compared to the thoughts we had taken previously about the man many love to hate and many hate to love.
“Instead, the bath water and the baby were both thrown out by some self-appointed undertakers who think the way forward in our dilemma as a nation is to uproot the tares and separate them from the wheat long before the harvest time ordained by God.
“The same undertakers willfully forget that the current mixture of the bad, the good, and the ugly in the polity are a result of the negligence of our past and present leaders, who slept on duty and allowed the enemy to sow the tares while the good man had planted good seeds on the ground”, he said.
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Bakare declared that judgment was in God hands and people should not be quick to judge anyone because of their actions in the past.
He further rectified his commendation of Tinubu’s political success, adding that it was not an approval of his lifestyle.
The preacher insisted that while many were asleep, Tinubu was “working hard and positioning his people in strategic places.”
He noted that it would be almost impossible for anyone to win an election against Tinubu’s candidate in Lagos because the time was not right.
Pastor Bakare explained that his comments on the former Governor were not controlled by any ‘power broker’ from Abuja.
“As a matter of fact, this past week, this set of individuals went to the extreme of calling me delusional, while others concluded that money must have changed hands for me to say the things that were said contrary to my previous stand concerning the same person.
“You think somebody will pay me for what I am doing? No one is rich enough to do it. No one in this country or elsewhere is rich enough. And I am not for sale because I have been bought. I was bought by the Blood of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary and no other price can match that. And if you know of anyone who has given me money at any time to do what I am doing, expose it”, Bakare said.
Addressing a particular critic, the preacher said, “One gentleman in particular labelled the part of the message he heard without listening to the rest. With all the PhDs he acquired, he said, ‘Tunde Bakare strategical delegitimization of Tinubu.’
“Brothers and sisters, I say this before God who will judge the quick and the dead, none of these things is true. They are all the figments of the imagination of the writers and they are entitled to their opinions”.