Key issues Pastor Bakare raised on the need for peaceful change in Government

It is unfortunate that our people are
crying today for change, but they
are expecting the change to either
fall from the sky or come from
sources that cannot produce it. It is
simple logic that when a corrupt
leader is in office, he corrupts those
he leads. This is true of a family,
true of a church, and true of a
nation. A corrupt father will
ultimately corrupt his family as he
cannot distinguish between his wife
and his son’s wife. A corrupt pastor
will corrupt, influence, affect and
infect his church as he prioritizes
outreaches, programmes and
projects executed with filthy lucre
flowing from the perverse and the
corrupt above the spiritual welfare
of the congregants. And a corrupt
elected official will infect his nation
with corruption. I cannot but
borrow a leaf from the profound
lecture delivered by Prof. Niyi
Osundare recently on the state of
the nation titled: ‘Why We No
Longer Blush: Corruption as Grand
Commander of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria’. He said, and I quote:
“Watch out, Nigeria: a new
Jonathan seems to be emerging, one
who confuses cockiness with
confidence, tactlessness with
toughness, strong-manship with
statesmanship.”
President Jonathan’s combination of
naivety and amorality is as
profound as it is injurious to the
health of this country. Can a
corruption-compliant ruler really
lead a corruption-free country? If
change – positive change – will ever
come to our clime, it will not be
engineered by those who are
benefitting without conscience from
the present cesspool of corrosive
corruption. It will and can only
come from a new breed without
greed and a radical opposition to
corruption. True, genuine change
can only come from those not
infected by the present corruption
malaise; it can only come from
positive agents of social change who
are totally sold out to public good.Every time I have considered this
subject, only one thing flows from
me towards President Goodluck
Jonathan – genuine pity. Anyone
who has had the privilege of sitting
with Mr. President, as I sometimes
have, will feel the same for this
simple soul who has become a
victim of circumstances generated
and orchestrated by his bramble
predecessor, who, in his bid to be
king of all trees, used his position to
force on the nation the sick, the
weak, and the ill-equipped in an
attempt to dominate the polity and
maintain his larger than life status
out of office (Judges 9:8-15). So, it
did not come as a surprise to me at
all when, two days ago, the
minority leader of the House of
Representatives, Mr. Femi
Gbajabiamila cited Section 143 of
the 1999 Constitution, saying that
any action of the President defined
as “gross misconduct” by the
National Assembly was “sufficient
grounds to initiate impeachment
proceedings against him.” Let me
quote verbatim from Friday July 20,
2012’s Punch [‘Budget: Lawmakers
threaten to impeach President’] to
buttress my point: Gbajabiamila had
proposed the amendment to a
motion before the House on the
poor implementation of the 2012
budget.
“If by September 18, the budget
performance has not improved to
100%, we shall begin to invoke and
draw up articles of impeachment
against Mr. President”, he said.
Members shouted aloud “yes”,
“yes”, “yes” and clapped for the
minority leader as Gbajabiamila
made the proposal.He accused the
executive of allegedly breaching the
Appropriation Act,2012 by engaging
in “selective implementation” of the
budget. Gbajabiamila added, “What
we have in our hands today is a
budget of abracadabra; a budget of
voodoo economy.
“I like Mr. President, he is a fine
gentleman, but I like my people, the
Nigerian people more.”
Indeed, Mr. President may be a fine
gentleman thrust into a position of
leadership by circumstances beyond
his control who is now facing a
barrage of problems he is incapable
of solving. He deserves our
sympathy, our prayers, and
whatever else we can honourably
and legally do to make sure he gets
back to his home-base safely.
Perhaps a few suggestions may
change the course of our rapid
descent into the abyss, since free,
fair and credible election is
presently alien to our polity. In all
honesty, I perceive very strongly
that our next general election will
be better, though it may come
earlier than expected.
RESIGNATIONS
Even for a
seasoned, well-cooked and well-
equipped UK prime minister like
Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady,
the moment the people rose against
her policy, she did the honourable
and noble thing – she resigned and
returned to the parliament before
retiring from politics. Resignation 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 the
nation to carry on with nation-
building where the exiting leader
stops.
IMPEACHMENT: This can only
be carried out by the National
Assembly and the process has
begun. It may be aborted, or it may
be carried to its logical conclusion.
Either way, it is a worse option and
carries a load of shame with it
compared to resignation. Come to
think of it, Mr. President should not
wait for the conclusions in the court
of law and the court of public
opinion for the rape and atrocities
committed against the
Appropriation Act 2011 in respect of
the subsidy scandal (a ghost that
still haunts his administration and
will not rest in peace until the truthy
is made known and justice is
served). The admission of extra-
budgetary spending of over N2
trillion without appropriation is
another impeachable time bomb
that can explode anytime. It would
be a total disgrace if resignation
comes after that explosion as was
the case for Richard Nixon following
the Watergate scandal.
At this juncture, I cannot but
wonder what is going on in the
minds of those who falsely accused
us of crying for regime change in
January during the fuel hike crisis.
It is the House of Assembly that is
now championing same with
overwhelming shouts of “yes”, “yes”,
and “yes” from the floor members.
History truly is lived forward but is
written in retrospect. Today’s
headlines and history’s judgement
are rarely the same. Those who are
too attentive to today’s headlines
will most certainly not do the hard
work of securing a positive verdict
from history. Whether or not the
President resigns or allows himself
to be impeached is his call. In the
words of Lord Chesterfield:
“A weak mind is like a microscope
which magnifies trifling things but
cannot receive great ones.”
If I were Mr. President –
unfortunately, I am not, and I do
not envy his tottering position, but if
I were he – I would give no thought
to what the world might say of me,
or the drum the hangers-on and
political jobbers benefitting from
the present chaotic disorder might
be beating. I would not “give a
damn” if I could only transmit to
posterity the reputation of an honest
man thrust into the boxing ring to
fight enemies I am ill-equipped to
fight, and I would therefore resign
before I receive a death blow.
THE PEOPLE’S REVOLT: I
seriously wish and fervently pray
that it will not get to the stage of a
people’s revolt before positive
changes begin to happen in the
north and south of Nigeria. Without
a doubt, if corruption remains king,
violence its deputy, and insecurity
the treasurer of the ill-fated status
quo Federal Republic of Nigeria, we
might as well write the gravestone
epitaph today:
“Here lie the remains of a
potentially great country whose ruin
came because leadership did not
give a damn; her filthiness was in
her garments, her collapse was
awesome, because she did not
consider her destiny.”
THE WAY FORWARD
Without a doubt, the catalogue of
scandalous mismanagement of
national resources, the unbridled
stealing of public funds, and the
bewildering exposure of the level of
corruption in almost every arm of
government as well as
governmental agencies and
parastatals, call for a change of
guards – more so when the
president has openly admitted that
the security situation in the country
has changed his pre-election
agenda. And 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.
During the fuel hike protests in
January this year, neither the
threats to our lives nor the tanks
that were rolled out brazenly to
suppress genuine agitation against
oppression, were scary to me.
Rather, it was the bold placard held
up in Abuja and Ojota Freedom
Park by people unknown to me. The
placard contained this startling
message: “ONE DAY THE POOR
WILL HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO EAT
BUT THE RICH”; that was very scary
to me, “because no nation, no
matter how enlightened, can endure
criminal violence. If we cannot
control it, we are admitting to the
world and to ourselves that our
laws are no more than a facade that
crumbles when the winds of crisis
rise.” (Alan Bible)
For that not to happen is the reason
for this message. This is no time for
false accusations and counter
accusations. Mr. President may be
doing his best but the impact is not
felt anywhere except in the bank
accounts of oil vultures, his corrupt
political allies and corporate
cowboys. We have a patriotic duty
to educate our people and we will
continue to do that until light
replaces the darkness in foggy
minds, since education is
considered a better safeguard of
liberty than a standing army. In the
words of Henry Peter Brougham:
“Education makes people easy to
lead, but difficult to drive, easy to
govern, but impossible to enslave.”
If this message does that, our
expectations would have been fully
satisfied.
The starting point of any great
enterprise is reality. If we are all
ruthlessly and brutally honest about
our inventory as a nation, Nigeria
requires better handling than we
are presently experiencing.
May the good Lord in His infinite
mercies look down upon our
affliction as a people, burst the
gloomy cloud of despair over our
nation, and raise for us visionary
leaders imbued with wisdom,
integrity, justice, courage,
temperance and fortitude; leaders
who we can trust and who can
inspire confidence in our people for
the rebuilding of our nation. Let me
end this message by quoting Joseph
Addison:
“There is no greater sign of a
general decay of virtue in a nation
than a want of zeal in its
inhabitants for the good of their
country.”
May the zeal of God consume us as
a people for the good of our
country.
Thank you so much for your
attentive ears. And may the good
Lord heal, save, and make Nigeria
great in our lifetime.
Once again, thank you all.

Dr. ‘Tunde Bakare
Serving Overseer,
The Latter Rain Assembly

#CONSENSUS 2015