Bakare Rejects ADC Pressure, Reaffirms Loyalty to APC

Pastor Tunde Bakare, founder of Citadel Global Community Church, has revealed that he has been under intense pressure from political stakeholders to join the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Despite repeated approaches, the cleric firmly ruled out any intention of aligning with the party.

Speaking on Saturday at the inaugural edition of the Citadel School of Governance Dialogue Series, themed “Nigeria at 65: Historical Reflections, Futuristic Projection”, in Oregun, Lagos, Bakare said several prominent figures, including a former governor and a former minister from the South-West, had lobbied for his support of the ADC.

“There has been a lot of pressure on me from who is who to join ADC. They come to my home. Even while I was abroad, the hierarchy of that party kept calling, saying they needed my voice,” he said.

Bakare added that a younger political associate, who has held key positions in the All Progressives Congress (APC), also encouraged him to lend his influence to the ADC.

Despite these overtures, Bakare insisted: “I am not going to take part in ADC. The last time I knew about ADC was about a plane that crashed. I wish them well, because we need a robust opposition. But you don’t birth a child called APC and then try to kill it yourself. We are not going to have another Awolowo–Akintola crisis in the South-West.”

The cleric, a key figure in the formation of the APC, described President Bola Tinubu’s emergence as divinely guided. “If God wants to remove ‘emilokan,’ He knows how to do it. You can’t get the kind of thing Tinubu has brought without God’s support,” he said.

Also at the event, Professor Akinjide Osuntokun, a former Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, identified corruption and tribalism as Nigeria’s primary challenges. He argued that the ethnicity of a president should not overshadow effective governance.

“The two problems our country faces are corruption and tribalism. If there is a way of eradicating these two evils, we will be alright. Corruption is the father or mother of tribalism. If the money being stolen was available for development, Nigeria would be far better. The fact that Tinubu is president does not automatically improve the life of an average Yoruba man, just as an Igbo presidency will not improve the life of the ordinary Igbo man if there is no development,” Osuntokun said.