2023: Prioritise Nation Building Above Religious, Ethnicity Sentiment – Tunde Bakare

Ahead of the 2023 general election holding in the country, Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church and All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has urged Nigerians to shun politics of ethnicity or religion, saying they should prioritise nation building above any religious or ethnicity sentiment.

Bakare made this call on Sunday while speaking with newsmen during the Church service in Oregun, Ojota Lagos, in reaction to the Muslim- Muslim presidential ticket of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former Borno State governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima Mustapha, even as he urged Christian leaders to learn from past mistakes of not participating in politics.

The cleric, who noted that the national discourse had been in a tailspin with vehement opposition, rejections, resignations and resentment, trailing the choice of Muslim as APC vice presidential candidate, from members of the Christian community, however, said such aversion to what has been termed a Muslim-Muslim ticket was not unexpected, but quickly charged the Christian leaders to bring all the candidates and their running mates across the political parties in the country to the negotiation table with an open mind to discuss and agree on a way for nation-building and national development.

“Going forward, ahead of 2023, we must learn from our mistakes. Christian leaders must, at this point, bring the candidates and their running mates to the negotiation table, doing so with an open mind and based on a clearly articulated charter for nation-building and national development.

“This moment calls for every Nigerian, from the North, South, East and West, to renew our commitment to nationhood, building upon what worked in the time of our founding fathers, while learning from their mistakes and imperfections as we build a more perfect union,” Bakare said.

According to him, such strategic engagement would be reminiscent of the interventions of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) in 2010 when it engaged then-presidential candidates on the basis of the SNG Charter, A Contract to Save and Transform Nigeria, saying that Christian leaders in Nigeria should interrogate the candidates for development and convene a strategic concourse to define the minimum standards across sectors of governance below which no Nigerian, Christian or Muslim, must be subjected.

Bakare, while making the suggestion, said such parley must be held before September when the campaigns would officially commence, even he further called on the Christians in Northern Nigeria who felt marginalised by the choice of a Northern Muslim as running mate, to note that the time had come to upgrade the conversation from politics to governance.

“Christian leaders must then carefully engage each presidential candidate and running mate based on that charter and provide a unified direction to the body of Christ in Nigeria having assessed each presidential/vice-presidential ticket based on key performance indicators around the Charter.

“This would be a more mature, structured and strategic way to respond to the situation as against the emotional reactions that have dominated the polity since the choice of a running mate was made by the APC presidential candidate.

“It is time to interrogate the impact of politics on development. In this regard, key questions must be asked: What will the candidates do to change the social, economic and political landscapes in Northern Nigeria to ensure the emergence of an enlightened electorate that will make political decisions not based on religion or region but on rational indices of character, competence, capacity and policy?” he said.

Speaking further, the APC presidential aspirant, who cited a UNICEF report which suggested that 18.5 million Nigerian children of school age were out of school, an increase from the 13 million previously reported, with the majority of these children from Northern Nigeria, while the North East accounted for 60 per cent of the total, said the running mate of the APC presidential candidate is from the North-East and engagement should be about what would this ticket do to get these Nigerian children back to school, among others.

“The running mate of the APC candidate is from the North-East. What will this ticket do to get these Nigerian children back to school? What will this ticket do to put an end to the ignoble and shameful situation in which the political class has, over the years weaponised the poverty and illiteracy of a population and used it to perpetuate itself in power?

“What are their antecedents? What have they done in the past to address these issues? This is the root of the unrest in the North, a crisis of human development, the consequence of which Nigerians, Christians as well as Muslims are faced with today,” he said.

Bakare said these were issues that must be brought before the ticket and before every party and candidate for the presidency, insisting that time was now to upgrade the conversation from politics to governance and a new Nigeria of everyone’s dream.

“As we advocate for balanced political representation, the weightier matters should be the stark realities of underdevelopment, not just in the North but across the nation. Peace is the foundation for increase and prosperity, and until we learn to execute true justice and show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother.

“The peace we long for in this nation may continue to elude us. As a standard-bearer of the message of the new Nigeria, we dream of a nation in which every Nigerian will be judged, not by their ethnicity, political leaning, regional affiliation or religious persuasion, but by the content of their character.

“We dream of a Nigeria where there will no longer be indigene or settler but only a Nigerian citizen. We dream of a Nigeria where state of residence will replace state of origin in our official forms and where ‘zoning’ or ‘Federal Character’ will become archival aspects of our journey into political maturity. We dream of a Nigeria in which every woman, as well as every man, will be able to aspire to any political office at any time without playing the ethnic card and without recourse to ‘it’s our turn’ or ‘it’s their turn.’

“We dream of a Nigeria where the political mantra will no longer be ’emi lo kan’ or ‘awa lo kan’ but ‘Nigeria lo kan.’

“A Nigeria where every Nigerian citizen, at any point in time, will have the absolute freedom and liberty to contest for any political office and will be assured of the citizens’ wise use of the power of the vote without consideration of what part of the country he or she is from or in what manner he or she chooses to worship God; a Nigeria where the phrase ‘tiwa n tiwa’ will no longer be relevant because Nigeria will be for every Nigerian and every Nigerian will be for Nigeria,” he stated.

Bakare said he chose to remain the bridge between Nigeria’s past, present and future, and the galvanising force that brings all citizens together around the ideal of a New Nigeria irrespective of what part of the country they come from, what political party they pitch their tent with, or in what way they choose to worship God, recalled that Northern Nigeria had its political foundation built on the principles of inclusion and religious harmony, noting this value system of religious neutrality and inclusion played out when military forces from Northern Nigeria took over power in the 1966 counter-coup.

“We choose to do this because we believe that building the new Nigeria is the calling upon every Nigerian worthy of the name. In line with this ethos, in tackling complex matters of nation-building, our position has always been in favour of statesmanship.

“On the difficult path to nation-building, statesmanship demands that leaders take into consideration the mood of the nation in making decisions unless, of course, the motivation of such leaders is neither statesmanship nor nation-building but raw politics.

“Northern Nigeria had its political foundation built on the principles of inclusion and religious harmony. This value system of religious neutrality and inclusion played out when military forces from Northern Nigeria took over power in the 1966 counter-coup.

“The military had the confidence to leave the nation in the custody of a Christian from a minority ethnic group in the North. General Yakubu Gowon would go on to govern Nigeria for nine years keeping Nigeria one amidst a Civil War,” he said.

“This moment calls for every Nigerian, from the North, South, East and West, to renew our commitment to nationhood, building upon what worked in the time of our founding fathers, while learning from their mistakes and imperfections as we build a more perfect union,” he added.

“I challenge the political class not to sacrifice nationhood on the altar of political expediency but to demonstrate, as candidates, that they can unify the nation as president.

“This is the time to show maturity in decision-making and to give every Nigerian a sense of belonging. This is the time to become statesmen and stateswomen, mindful of the next generation, and not just politicians, consumed by the next election,” he further added.

The cleric, while further calling on his fellow Christian leaders to approach the issue in question and the broader context of the 2023 elections with civility, clarity and with continued hope in the possibilities of a united Nigeria and a New Nigeria that works for every Nigerian, Christian as well as Muslim, pointed out that nationhood, rather than divisiveness must be the objective of every engagement.

This was just as he noted pointedly that what was happening today was the price “we are having to pay for the years of failure of the church to strategically participate in the political process.”

“The antagonism that was meted to some of us who have ventured from the pulpit to the podium, even from amongst our fellow Christian leaders, was always a pointer that a day would come when the Church would face a rude awakening of the consequence of passivity, apathy, non-participation and an anachronistic adherence to the Aaronic priesthood, especially long after the author and finisher of our faith had moved on to the Melchizedek priesthood.

“Failure to admit this would amount to hypocrisy. Going forward, ahead of 2023, we must learn from our mistakes,” he said.