Pastor Tunde Bakare, General Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church has lambasted the Call by Nigerian politicians on the masses to sacrifice as the #EndBadGovernance Nationwide Protest is yet to abate in some States.

 

The vocal and blunt Clergyman said contrary to the call by politicians for Nigerians to sacrifice, they (Politicians) are leaving fat, while the masses are lean and living in abject poverty and penury.

 

The 2023 Presidential Aspirant under the All Progressives Congress, APC, said the politicians are not sacrificing like the rest of the citizens whom they asked to sacrifice for the country by enduring economic hardship.

 

Bakare made this assertion at the Wilson and Yinka Badejo Memorial Lecture 2024 held at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Victoria Island, Lagos.

 

In a keynote address delivered by Bakare with the theme: “Cultivating a Culture of Dialogue: Nurturing Understanding in a Culturally and Socially Diverse Nation”, he lamented the state of the nation, especially the ongoing nationwide protest, Calling for a need for dialogue rather than confrontation to resolve the challenges facing the country.

 

Bakare said, “All parties must approach the dialogue table with open minds, effective communication and empathy. Open and honest communication helps to establish transparency, making intentions and actions clear. When leaders communicate transparently, they demonstrate that they have nothing to hide, and that builds trust.

 

“Empathy is a bedrock of dialogue. It requires us to see beyond our own perspective and seek to comprehend the experiences of others. The ability to feel with others, to share in their joys and sorrows.

 

“It also means sitting where the people sit, as in the book of Ezekiel – feeling their pains and sharing their burdens.

 

“An empathetic leader does not feed fat while asking the people to tighten their belts. Nigerian political leaders have mostly not demonstrated empathy. Otherwise, how do you live so large while your people are ravished in (penury)?”

 

According to the cleric, who also spoke on the heels of the #Endbadgovernance protests in Nigeria, hunger knows no religion, tribe or political party.

 

Speaking further, he noted that at the root of even a religious crisis was a struggle for economic resources that manifested itself in politics.

 

“And you say, why? Because politics is the authoritative allocation of value.”

 

He stressed, “This is why it’s often said that hunger is a unifier. This is why citizens are responding or reacting to the hashtag #EndBadGovernance protests across the land, from the North to the South, to the East to the West. Hunger does not ask whether you are a Muslim or a Christian, male or female, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, APC, PDP, or Labour Party.”

 

Bakare also said he did not believe the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party had any ideology, adding that both parties aren’t different from the other.

 

 

“The process of disagreement of methodologies is the way political parties are formed around ideologies. I don’t think the PDP and the APC have any ideology.”

 

He cited the fact that the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, had been a member of the APC before joining the PDP.

 

Bakare said, “Obaseki contested on the platform of the APC for his first term and he won, and he contested on the platform of the PDP for his second term and he won. What’s the difference between the APC and the PDP? Two sides of the same coin.”