Understandably, the nationally televised address by former presidential aspirant and head of the Global Community Citadel Church based in Lagos at Easter, has generated widespread and diverse reactions as his public interventions always do. Aiming severe blows at the President Bola Tinubu administration, the fiery critic contended that an urgent change of course in the government’s policies on security and the economy was imperative to avert a popular uprising in the country. In the light of renewed killings in states like Plateau, Benue, Zamfara, Adamawa and Borno, to cite a few, Bakare, rightly, warned that the country is being driven toward the brink. But inexplicably, he attributed the resurgent violence and insecurity to “the motor park brand of politics nurtured by the old brigade politicians and, in recent times, by President Bola Tinubu“.
Pray, what exactly is this ‘motor park brand of politics’? The good cleric does not give a definition or description. He asserts but makes no attempt to demonstrate logically or empirically. If we knew what this motor park politics actually is, for instance, we would know how to relate it to newly rising cases of herders attacks on farming communities in the North Central, Boko Haram violence in Borno or Banditry in parts of the North-West. It is a largely unhelpful and unproductive criticism. Is the pastor saying that the Tinubu administration has folded its arms and done nothing whatsoever to tame insecurity that has persisted for nearly two decades and worsened steadily as the country’s economic fortunes continually declined? But the administration has scaled up budgetary funding of defense and security including procurement of new military equipment and enhanced use of science and technology to safeguard lives and property.
And the result has been evident in the course of the first nearly two years of the administration with the rapid decline of extremist religious violence, banditry and the unleashing of bloody violence on farming communities by rampaging herdsmen who unconscionably feed planted and harvested crops to their cattle. So what is responsible for the recent deterioration in the security situation? Is it that the security forces have lost steam and let down their guard? Can this new escalation of destabilizing insecurity be at the instigation of desperate and disgruntled opposition politicians out to discredit the current government as the race towards the 2027’general elections intensifies? These are questions the administration must find answers to if it is to get to the root of the matter and provide effective and sustainable solutions.
In one of his recommendations to address current national problems, Pastor Bakare advocated “restructuring security into local, state, and zonal forces” as well as “empowering a nonpartisan Directorate of National Intelligence’. Here, he strikes the nail on the head. It is overwhelmingly agreed that there must be urgent restructuring and decentralization of the security architecture to make it more effective, efficient and efficacious for a federal society. The nation faces an existential crisis and the prevailing security structure is obsolete and all too obviously not fit for purpose.
Pastor Bakare forcefully condemns the declaration by President Tinubu of a State of Emergency in Rivers State. He sees it as unwarranted, unconstitutional and undemocratic. Unfortunately, he is not privy to the security reports which must have been key to the President’s decision on the matter. But even then, that at least two pipelines were blown up as earlier threatened by pro-governor Siminaliyi Fubara youth elements if impeachment proceedings were commenced against him, is in the public domain. And in an interview on national television last week, a key actor in the Rivers State crisis, the FCT Minister, Mr Nyesom Wike, said that his preference, but for the state of emergency, was the outright removal from office of Fubara through impeachment.
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That would surely have led to stiff resistance from Fubara ‘s supporters particularly given the ethnicization of the crisis with the real possibility of plunging a state so critical to the national economy down the path of anarchy. It is doubtful if Tinubu’s decisive and swift resort to emergency measures to check the downward spiral can still be credibly questioned against this background. It is also curious that, as a lawyer, Bakare appears to be quite at peace with the demolition of the premises of the State House of Assembly by the executive to thwart a suspected bid to impeach Fubara and the subsequent running of the state by the governor with four out of 32 members of the House. This followed the farcical invalidation of the seats of the 27 pro-Speaker Amaewhule members by the minority In four members for allegedly decamping to the APC. Being human, the radical pastor’s position on some issues is also so obviously influenced, perhaps subconsciously, by partisan inclinations.
However, the imperative of statesmanship and the benefit of his vast political experience demands that President Tinubu utilize the authority and influence of his office to facilitate an enduring and speedy resolution of the Rivers crisis so that democratic normalcy can be speedily restored and there will be no need to extend the emergency. This will entail getting Wike in particular to toe the path of restraint, rectitude and wisdom given the triumph of his side in the absolutely avoidable power struggle.
Its approval of the President ‘s emergency declaration in Rivers is one of the reasons for Bakare ‘s savage put down of the National Assembly as spineless, unprincipled and no better than a pliant and pliable rubber stamp of the executive arm of government. A combative, adversarial and confrontational legislature continually up in arms against the executive would apparently be more to the pastor’s liking and more in tune with his own radical and activist temperament and disposition. But the legislature has the institutional and democratic right to opt for the strategy of constructive engagement with the executive without recourse to rancorous but unproductive populism. After all, we can still recall how Bakare ‘s seemingly preferred adversarial style, adopted by the Dr Bukola Saraki-led 9th National Assembly, created paralysis in governance for the President Muhammadu Buhari administration with negative implications for national development.
Interestingly, the same National Assembly, so scurrilous denounced by Bakare, in approving the declaration of the State of Emergency in Rivers, modified the Presidential proclamation by removing the supervisory authority over the Sole Administrator, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, from the purview of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to an ad hoc Committee of the House of Representatives. The 20-member Committee set up to supervise Ibas, headed by the Leader of the House, Professor Julius Ihonvbere, has had an interactive session with the Sole Administrator in Abuja and he has promised to furnish the legislators with a detailed report of his activities so far at the next scheduled meeting. This is not an irredeemably pro-executive legislature after all, despite its admitted shortcomings like all human organizations not excluding Pastor Bakare ‘s Global Community Citadel Church.
The pastor rightly highlights the current harsh existential conditions in the country with poverty levels rising higher as a result of the implementation of ongoing economic reforms such as removal of the fuel subsidy and merger of the previous parallel foreign exchange markets to eliminate opportunities for corruption -laden arbitrage. He is intellectually honest enough to state that much of the economic problems were inherited as well as being systemic while also acknowledging some of the gains of the reforms. However, in parts of his address, he seems to insinuate that there are viable alternatives to these reforms but does not concretely specify what these are.
The relatively detailed policy alternatives he outlines appear to me to be sophisticated and fashionably attractive repackaging of some of the measures already being implemented in pursuit of the reform agenda. However, he makes the pertinent point that corruption is still prevalent and that humongous amounts of corruptly acquired resources still lie in private hands. Bakare ‘s suggestions as regards retrieving such stolen resources and utilizing them for national developmental purposes, which in my view is an urgent imperative, appear not only lacking in concreteness but are idealistic and romantic. But for his quite inexplicable and frankly unfruitful diversionary forays into partisan politics, Bakare ‘s often clinical, passionate and patriotic interventions in public course would have been significantly more impactful. Thus, it was so easy for instance, for the relentless Reno Omokri to attribute his fiery denunciation of the Tinubu administration as arising from bitterness engendered by Bakare ‘s loss to the President in the APC presidential primaries.