Mr. Bakare, a
former running-mate of President Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of defunct
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011, said he wrote four -point letter
to Mr. Jonathan, calling his attention to the level of impunity in his
administration.
Let religious
leaders declare what Mr. Jonathan gave to them
Giving details of
what he benefitted from the immediate past president, Mr. Bakare said, “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.”
Mr. Bakare stated
this in an interview with an Abuja-based magazine, THE INTERVIEW.
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 them,
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.