23rd July, 2012
Nigeria’s State Security Services, the SSS in Lagos has invited the Serving Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly and Convener of the Save Nigeria Group, Pastor Tunde Bakare for a chat.
The controversial pastor was not detained, but he was quizzed for about one hour, following his statement yesterday calling for the resignation of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Yinka Odumakin, a political ally of the pastor told AFP:
“He was invited today for an interview by the Lagos director of the SSS. The director complained about his preaching in the church yesterday on how to change a government.”
Bakare, who ran for vice president in 2011 on the Congress for Progressive Change ticket, said in the sermon that resignation was the best option for Jonathan, according to Odumakin.
An SSS official confirmed on condition of anonymity that Bakare was questioned, but did not provide further details. An SSS spokeswoman did not respond to phone calls.
At a press conference, Bakare asked Jonathan to quit power honourably or be disgraced out of Aso Rock.
He titled the speech: How To Change Government Peacefully And Make Society Better.
He said he was calling on Jonathan to resign because he is too ill-equipped to rule the country and that the problems of the country have overwhelmed him.
“In spite of the president’s promises to deal with insecurity head-on, this government appears helpless because it cannot see the linkage between corruption and violence,” he said.
Pastor Bakare, who quoted the scriptures copiously, especially books and verses that relate to prophetic revolutions and how God enthroned kings and disgraced out of power those that failed to keep His precepts and rule properly, decried the corruption in the country and warned that the country cannot continue to slide down the precipice.
He said: “the nation has been thrown to the dogs of pervasive corruption and disruptive, perennial insecurity”.
In the speech, which had four major headings: Who Really Rules in the Affairs of Men; The Purpose of Government in a Nation; How to Change Government in a Peaceful Manner; and The Way Forward, he also listed four factors that could lead to change in the leadearship of the country in the foreseeable future.
The pastor listed the Unquestionable God Factor, Resignation, Impeachment and the People’s Revolt as some of the options open to Jonathan.
Out of these options, he said the immediate one is resignation which, according to him, “is not a sign of weakness– it is a sign of patriotic truthfulness. It is giving opportunity to those who can do a better job in the interest of a nation to carry on with nation-building where the exiting leader stops.”
Bakare added that there will be change of leadership in the country before 2015, saying there will be a free and fair election before that year.