15th January, 2023
The Presiding Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has warned Nigerians to avoid politicians playing ‘emi lo kan’ politics.
Bakare said this on Sunday during a state of the nation broadcast at his church auditorium in Ikeja, Lagos.
The term ’emi lo kan’ which means ‘it is my turn’ in the Yoruba language was made popular by the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, who used it to canvass for votes in Abeokuta, Ogun State in the build-up to his party’s primary election last June.
Speaking on the broadcast titled ‘Bridging The Gap Between Politics & Governance,’ Bakare who lost APC’s presidential ticket to Tinubu said politicians who practice entitlement politics are intolerant.
He highlighted politics of division, deception, manipulation, merchandise, exploitation, betrayal, slander, intimidation, elimination, and entitlement as bad forms of politics.
Explaining the politics of entitlement further, the clergy said ‘emi lo kan’ politics only aims to gratify long personal ambitions.
Bakare said, “This ’emi lo kan’ politics that insists on one’s turn, even if circumstances do not align, is bad. Politics of entitlement also manifests as a perennial candidacy, not with the intent to serve but to gratify long-time personal ambitions.
“It could also manifest as insistence on a given political office as a reward for what one considers a lifetime of sacrifice to the nation. Politicians with a sense of entitlement evade political debates; they do not consider it imperative to communicate with the electorate.
“Entitlement politics will breed an imperial presidency that is distant from the people and has no sense of responsibility or accountability to the people. Such imperial governance will slide towards dictatorship and will be intolerant of dissent.
“Entitlement politicians set low-performance benchmarks for themselves when they secure power and are content with projecting molehills as mountains of achievement.”