Monday, April 12, 2010

BAKARE: 'We Will Give Jonathan Time, But We Won't Fold Our Arms'

  • My Problem With Obasanjo
  • Foreign Aid Is Only Enriching The Priviledged
  • The Dilemma Of Jonathan Acting For Someone Next Door
Until very recently, Pastor Gbolahan Babatunde Bakare was simply a popular Tele-evangelist and founder of the Latter Rain Ministries, a Lagos-based Pentecostal church; but gradually, he's becoming more popular with a newly formed pressure body, the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), which came into being as a result of the political and constitutional logjam created by the prolonged health vacation of President Umaru Yar'Adua. On the heels of recent Christian and Muslim clerics' visit to the ailing President, Bakare explained to KAMAL TAYO OROPO what the SNG set out to achieve. Giving insight into the group's perception of the clerics' visit, the new cabinet put in place by Acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as well as the score sheet of the administration and the general well being of the nation, Bakare stated that most leaders that have ruled the country were never ready for the job they got. What informed your current political activism?
I have never been dormant in my life; any person who is not active, maybe, part of his body is suffering from atrophy. You can label it political activism, social activism or anything, but once you are alive and you are active, you should be conscious of what is going on. It is not a current thing; it has been a lifetime thing.
One of the questions your critics ask is that during the eight-year reign of Obasanjo, you were not this politically active, as in participating in street demonstration, apart from the initial prophecy; what informs your new stance?
There is time and season for everything under the heavens; all my activism then was done via the media, on television and radio, through constant exposure of the evil that was going to befall Nigeria. I remember clearly saying in the public domain that if Obasanjo comes out to say he is a Christian, truly born again and repented, and he has never been in any secret cult, I will quit preaching. That was not just a one-off thing; after the prophecy and all that, I kept on saying that he is not interested in anybody. He is only interested in five people -- Aremu, Mathew, Okikiola, Olusegun, and Obasanjo.
Those are the only five people he is interested in his life. And at every point in time, when he was saying the Sovereign National Conference was not possible, I said it was because of his vested interest. When he was trying to elongate his era through the unpopular Third Term, God gave me a word that it is going to rain on Nigeria on the day the vote would be counted, and if that rain falls, the vote would fail. I said it openly and I remember how many texts came into my phone; it rained, and it failed. So, as for marching on the streets and activism, one can be a symptom or function of the other. But activism is not limited to just coming out on the streets; we came out through various mediums of expression to let the nation and the whole world know that Obasanjo was an ill wind that will blow the nation no good. Activism begins from the womb; if the baby does not move, it is dead inside.
Personally, do you have an axe to grind with the former President; you seem to be so ready to take him on all the time?
As a person, I can't even hate anybody, but his polices, and some of the things he did are just nothing but a way of telling a people: 'you need me, I don't need you.' He was a terrible megalomaniac, too full of himself, not a servant-leader. Such people don't have any business in leadership. How many people follow him now? Except those who still believe he has any influence to get them political patronage.
Three years on after he left, would you say there has been any departure from the Obasanjo years?
We are still suffering from what he planted, I don't want to use strong words, we are suffering from what he bedeviled the nation with, something close to that. He has already placed a curse on himself and let the good people say, amen. He said that if he did it knowingly, that if he knew anything about the sickness of the man he forced on the nation, God should punish him. So, it is between him and God.

'With Yar'Adua Next Door To Ag. President, We Are Sitting On A Keg Of Gunpowder'
WITH the state of things now, how satisfied are you with what the Save Nigeria Group has achieved, with an Acting President who seems to have shown willingness to exercise power?


Well, as you have rightly said, a measure of success has been recorded, but we are not interested in anything that is short term or mid term, but something that is okay; under this Acting President, let us see it. Something that has never happened in our nation has happened. We have a situation in which an Acting President is acting for a person next door whose status we don't know. That is a keg of gunpowder that can blow on our face. You act for someone who is absent; the doctrine of necessity was cooked up to give us an Acting President, who you could not say his coming into power, on all grounds, conforms totally with the Constitution.
We have insisted and we have maintained that it is high time Section 144 of the Constitution is invoked; though it is an imposed Constitution, yet, it is the constitution the man swore to when he came into leadership. So, if Section 144 is not invoked, it is still like a pitfall, anything could happen and we would be back to square one because the man next door, whether dead or alive, you and I don't know, except that some clerics have now visited him. I think the words of babalawo or voodoo priests may be better because at least some of them are more truthful than the ones who have gone, saw nothing, said nothing, and everything has been in the limbo.


Are these people not supposed to be sufficiently reliable, given that they are respectable members of the society?
You heard one of them saying he is not obliged to the public, that whatever they have seen there is not for the public to know. So, how is the public going to feel safe? Don't let's even dabble into the issue of whether they are respectable men or not; the issue is, what is the state of health of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, because we have a President and an Acting President. You can only act for a person who is absent, so if he is in, he should let us know the actual state of his health. If he can't run Nigeria anymore, then let the Constitution take its full course; it is as simple as ABC. Let the Constitution be implemented fully; let us have a full President, an action President, no longer acting President, supported by a Vice President as provided for in the Constitution. It is either of two things that would happen the way we are going; we either end up with a Shonekan Interim Government that would be short-lived, or we end up with what the same people who are trying to balance all the equation now, visited upon this nation when they came to the conclusion that this equation must be balanced one way; that if Abacha is dead, Abiola cannot live.
The same people are still around the corridors of power today; it is more or less like saying: 'If Yar'Adua cannot be President, we won't let this Acting President function, and then we eliminate both of them, and we get an election within three months to impose our own candidate.'
But what do you think could have necessitated the high level of secrecy surrounding the President's health?
The election that produced this President, according to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, was 'do or die'. So, the first effect of that today is: 'hang on to power at all cost,' and the man you claim to be hanging on to power is not there. But there is no power vacuum anywhere, not even with the Acting President. Even before then, there was no power vacuum, there was power hijack; all that is going on with the clerics visits, I believe is arranged so that you can intimidate the Acting President not to act. It is like telling him that if he ever touches the Executive Council, all hell will break loose, but nothing happened. Again, they said 'if you ever swear them in, all hell will break loose, and Nigeria will go into destruction,' but nothing happened.
What I am concerned with now is whether, or not, we have bureaucrats or technocrats in the executive council. If you have technocrats; men who are trained, what you have is result. What I have seen now is a cabinet of patronage and political survival.


But we are already on the threshold of another general election year, shouldn't you be satisfied to let the status quo remain pending the outcome of the election?
My brother, there is no status in status quo. Are you satisfied with the state of things? There is panic in the system. There is fear everywhere. A whole former governor of Kano State and former presidential candidate and statesman in his own right, Abubakar Rimi just got killed by the state of insecurity in the country; the state of comatose health system in the country killed him. Can't we see the handwriting on the wall? As we are talking right now, how many Nigerians are dying of clearly preventive causes? How many are dying as victims of harassment on the roads? And we are busy retaining a status quo, what status?
Wife former minister of Works, Tony Annenih -- I don't know whether they are still married or divorced, I don't know -- but his wife's name suddenly just emerged as a minister. What did her husband, with all the budget allocations to the ministry of works, do when he was in charge? Who is calling these people to account?
Some people claim that some of these agitation seem to eventually produce same of the same, don't you think so?
No, no. You only think so. Not this one. This is totally focused. You have not seen the results of the SNG activism. We have not said Uhuru, we have not said we are letting down our guard, we have not said we are relaxing, that every thing is okay. We have not even started; we just scratched the surface.
Whether it is Jonathan that is there, or it was David or Mephiboseth, it does not matter. What matters is that you chose this man as your Vice President, when you are not there he should act for you, when you can no longer act he should be the President; that's what the Constitution provides. It is not about Jonathan as a person. We are not going to sit down and say, this Jonathan self, as dem dey talk am for Nigeria, which kind person he be? The one that was there was sick and had no kidney, does this one have liver? We are not for or against this or that, we are for a new Nigeria, where the brightest, the best and most skillful will win an election and steer the ship of the state. Not just those who hold the country down, people we don't even know if they understand what they are doing. In a society where people have their brains, where it ought be and not under their feet, what is going on here will never happen.




'I Have No Personal Political Ambition'
DON'T you think most of the things the SNG desires can be best achieved through a political party that is able to wrestle power? Is the SNG going to metamorphosed into a political party?
You are talking as if the SNG is caterpillar that is going to metamorphose into a butterfly. However, the truth of the matter is that those key players in all the groups you are seeing are tired of working for another person to eat. Everywhere that I have been in the last three months and every function that I have attended, people are just talking of who is going to gain power and who is likely to function in one capacity or the other. Nobody is talking about the poor Nigerians. We are now saying this is about the people.
First and foremost, we are revamping social mobility. Secondly, we are returning voice to the voiceless. We are not going to be their voice; they will have their own voices and we are going to retain our voices too. Thirdly, we are going to ensure that sovereignty goes back to the people of Nigeria, so that they can freely elect their own candidates that they choose. This is not about activism to produce just anything; no. We are also interested in the driver's seat, from the local government level to ward level to state government level to federal level. Every Nigerian citizen, who has something to offer, should be able to aspire to any office of his choice without thinking of being in 'in one corner of the country'. I was speaking to a misguided young man recently and he said, 'I am speaking for my constituency'. I asked him what constituency is he talking about and he said, North. I had to tell him that he's part of the problem; that he's still in the 18th Century. Your constituency should be Nigeria; it is not North or South or Muslim or Christian. It is abut the greatness of our nation that is being wasted daily by those who don't care about others, but only themselves.
How do you plan to effect that change, given the situation we have now, where you have to hold political power to attain such lofty goals.

Out of Order : How the Decline of the Political Parties and the Growing Power of the Media Undermine the American Way of Elections
Personally, I have started giving and everyone in the group contributed his own quota to putting smile on people's face. I remember a little while ago of a young lady whom I bought grinding machine and some things to do akara. She will ever remain grateful because that changed her life. I started giving scholarship since 1985. One of the beneficiaries is a Permanent Secretary in Ondo State today. I continued consistently. If I have the opportunity and I give every child in my local government and in my state a scholarship, it will not still change the problem of this country, I will just end up broke.
We need to change the educational policies of this nation. We will not just ask somebody to change them we need power to change those policies. We are not only going to be philanthropists. If we continue to do that as much as God give us power, then we should also be interested in why we have bad policies. It is because we have wicked men in power. Let us let Nigerians know who their enemies are. Then let it be between the people and the warlords and see who will be overwhelmed first - whether the people will give in or the wicked ones will give in.
How do you hope to surmount the problem of poverty that makes people go towards the direction of their stomach, when any politician can induce the electorate with just N1000?
When the season changes, that also goes with it. Remember, it was the same people that you think were totally oppressed and couldn't do anything that rose up to say 'enough is enough'. It was the same people that said to Rehoboth, you were the one that oppressed us. We have ancient history; we have national history. It was a woman by name Funmi Ransom Kuti that threw an Oba out of his palace. For a long time the Oba was a paramount monarch. The woman woke up and said no.
It is because we have not found credible people living that mood or such people get compromised midway because they can be bought. But those who have been true to God and what they believe in, will go through; it is a long journey but we are willing to take it. You can see that all over our nation today, people are marching. Some even marched for Al-Mustapha, in prison. So we are not against them marching for what they want.
We have focus of where we are going. We want to save Nigeria. We are a united nation. We want to change Nigeria because it cannot continue this way without it going into disintegration. Our desire is to make Nigeria great. And no one will do it for us. It will be the people under credible leadership that will bring about that change. America will not develop Nigeria; Britain will not develop Nigeria; Europe will not develop Nigeria. Foreign aids, as far as I am concerned is robbing poor people of great nations and putting money in the hands of rich people of poor nations.


How do you source for funds to run the SNG; Are you aware of insinuations that politicians are the ones sponsoring the activities of the group?
You cannot help the blind by turning on the light. You cannot help the deaf by increasing the sound of the music. You can only give sight to the blind by act of miracle, if it cannot be done medically. You should give ear to the deaf so that he can hear. Those who said that politicians are sponsoring us, is it not ridiculous that I will go to Obasanjo? Think for yourself. So, if they know what was collected, who collected it and where it was dispatched, let them say. The Oceanic woman who was alleged to have given N850million, when you cannot transfer N10million from bank to bank now without some written document to show that, let them give the figures. The groups making up the SNG contribute to the running of the group's activities according to their ability. There was no single bank that sponsored SNG. Not a single dime was put down to sponsor it. We are tired of the broken eggs that brought this mess to Nigeria. Don't believe in lies, you can investigate. We will not be distracted.
What is your stake in all these? Do you have any immediate political ambition?
Ambition? It's such a loose word. Ambition is ambiguous. Ambition could lead to anxiety. I am not looking for power; I already have power. It will just come in the manifestation and in the fullness of time.
When we get to that bridge, we will cross it. They know what to do; I can't talk solo because many people are involved. That is why I said it is ambiguous. My ambition drive this. I told some friends some days ago, I said a statement of vision is not a statement of the words of an organization. If it is just a statement of words, after a while, staff will come in, staff will go out, it will not function.
But in a pioneering vision somebody received that will benefit the society, that individual as a pioneer if he knows how to translate that pioneering vision into an empowering vision that individuals can be empowered and can find their destinies fulfilled.
So, it is not going to be like 'eh, come I want to be President for all you because I have money. Come and support me.' If money is the only ingredient of getting power, many people will have gotten it. It is not about money; it is not about wealth but about clear understanding that the greatest among you is the chief servant of all.




TALKING of pressing national issues, it appears Nigerians are unanimous in their desire for electoral reform, but between now and the next general elections, do you have confidence in those who are to implement the reforms?
It is not a matter of if they will do it or not; we will make this government implement the reform. We will enforce the will of the people of this nation that this is done. And where it is not done, then when an irresistible force comes into contact with a removable object, then...
In specific terms what part of the Uwais Electoral Reform Recommendations will you like to see implemented?
All the recommendations that will make Nigerians, regardless of gender, education, religion, financial status and so on, counts; all of it; but you cannot get an (Prof. Maurice) Iwu to conduct a credible election; you cannot get him to deliver credible results. This is one area that I have a very deep pain inside of my heart. Just imagine for a split second, that the wicked, the people that destroyed the greatest opportunity Nigerians had to start afresh in 1993, had not truncated that poll, had not shattered that hope of the freest and fairest election in Nigeria's political history.
Not minding the Muslim-Muslim ticket, Nigerians saw a credible mind and decided, 'eh, let us go for this one, he's not likely to deceive us'. Those who truncated that hope, number one, have no business in Nigeria's future, regardless whatever explanation they want to give to us; they don't have any role in Nigeria's future. Number two, all their agents must be uprooted wherever they are. So that, God may help us with God-fearing people and people-loving individuals that will man all the electoral body's offices from the states to the federal government level. That's the cornerstone of, not do-or die, what we are prepared to lay down our lives for in this electoral reform we are asking for.

Elections and Political Order in Russia: The Implications of the 1993 Elections to the Federal Assembly --1996 publication.
Secondly, we are comfortable with everything as represented in the Uwais report and we have written to the Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan. While we are still waiting for his response, we are not going to fold our hands or be doing vigils in our churches and mosques, hoping for things to happen. It is not going to be only street marches. There are many other things we could do to let them know that the true sovereignty of the nation lies in the hands of the people; and not in the hands of the elected officers. They may have power, we have the grace.
In the same light, it appears nothing much can be achieved without amending the Constitution, but some have made a case for total re-working of the Constitution. What is your position on Constitution Review; is it possible under the given circumstance?
The present Constitution, I have said severally, is a fraud, because we the people of Nigeria never sat to write one. The pre-independence Constitution that was set aside by the military, again, will be difficult to revive because the Regions that were part of the arrangement before the military came into governance are no longer in existence. The geographical locations might be there, but the people have been cut apart and polarized so that they will never come together.


Whatever review they are doing now will require credibly elected people and us, the people, to do the right thing in the right manner, that can bring about a people's Constitution. A lot of work had been done by PRONACO and a lot of is being done by a group called Change Nigeria, as well as allied groups in the country. But when a tree falls on a tree, you don't start lifting it from the bottom, hence you break your backbone. Let's start from the top. What can we get done now? Every inch that we take in this journey and we succeed, encourages us to do more so that when we get to that place, we can now have a total and holistic approach.
Against the backdrop of a recent advice that Nigeria should be broken up into two countries, do you share the possibility of the nation getting to that point?
The United States said that Nigeria, by 2015, would become a failed state. But we have a choice; we can fold our hands and let it come to pass. Therefore, it will be 'oh, Israel back to your tent'. Oh, Igbo, Yoruba, oh Fulani, oh Hausa, if you ever want to work together again, let's come together.
But the truth is that such consequence is putting the fear in the minds of everybody, including the Americans. No one is actually looking forward to a Nigeria that produces refugees that will overwhelm the whole of West Africa region. Nigeria is too important to be allowed to be broken or disintegrated. All the cars in the whole of West Africa from Accra to Kumasi to Freetown to Monrovia to Upper Volta are not up to those in Lagos alone.
Imagine us pouring out in different directions as a result of civil war, strife or other violent crisis, we could overwhelm everywhere in the region. Personally, I don't want Nigeria to disintegrate; I don't want the nation's break-up, but a Constitution that will not bend just has to break.
We will have to drive some senses into the heads of these power-drunk monsters, who think the country is their own private estate; that if care is not taken this will happen. But if they insist that is the only way out, so be it.

We Will Leave Jonathan For Some Time But We Won't Fold Our Arms'
ACTING President, Goodluck Jonathan, has been in the saddle for a while now, what is your assessment of his stewardship?
Let's give him a little of chance, after all he got to where he is by default. Unfortunately, it does not appear that those who have been privileged to lead this country have ever been ready for the position they found themselves. From 1960 till date, those who have been in the saddle of government do not seem to get their through any particular blue-print or vision to lead the country.
In the same country, where the likes of Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo, was and where the likes of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, whose youthful activism changed Ghana as former Ghanaian President Dr. Kwame Nkruma testified. In the country where these individuals were, a late Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who did not struggle during the fight for the nation's independence, who was not even the leader in his political party, became the Prime Minister and people like Awolowo was reduced to Regional Premier and later leader of the opposition. Azikiwe only emerged as a ceremonial President; he reigned but did not rule. You leave that era and come to the military adventurists; has Major General JTI Aguiyi-Ironsi ever received any training in leading a nation? Did he have any plan for the nation? Did he have any blueprint on national transformation? There is nothing like that. They were all creation of necessity; it just happened like that.
And there was General Yakubu Gowon, who though was not exactly a teenager when he assumed power, but the young man only got married after he became the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. It was no surprising when he came out to say that the proposed transition to civil rule in 1974 was no longer possible and people like Tai Solarin had to come out in the streets.
Then General Murtala Mohammed came in. But was he grooming himself or was he groomed by years of training to lead Nigeria economically, politically or otherwise? Or is it General Olusegun Obasanjo, who has always reaped from where he did not sow his labour? And then when he was to hand over power, he said the best candidate might not win. It was (President Shehu) Shagari who was already content with being in the Senate that they went to bring saying, 'bring your long cap we want to put something on top'.
Then Muhammadu Buhari kicked him out and Ibrahim Babangida kicked Buhari and all those stuff.
That's the way it has been with us. In the present dispensation, Obasanjo was sitting in his prison and they went to plead with him to come and replace Chief MKO Abiola in the scheme of things and killed Abiola in the process. Obasanjo came in, and started feeling like a warlord, as if he has conquered this territory and it has become his private fiefdom. And when Obasanjo was going he decided to impose a man, who was already looking forward to go and lecture somewhere, upon us.



We have a lot of people who have been trained in what it takes to lead a nation, people who dream, drink and eat how to move this country forward with genuine ideas. It reminds of people like Awolowo, who in 1979 launched the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) with four cardinal agenda resulting from years of painstaking preparations. Our present leaders are ill equipped. The worst assault on education happened when the President and Commander-in-Chief, the Vice President and Minster of Education, all former lecturers in our tertiary institutions, took funds meant for education and use it to construct road.