The Serving overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, as stated that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was economical with the truth when he announced during his inaugural speech that fuel subsidy has been removed, stating that Nigeria was inadvertently plunged into chaos by very poor change management process because the administration was running leadership by impulse.
The fiery pastor and politician stated this on Sunday, 13th August, 2023 during his State of the Nation address titled, Vice, Virtue and Time: The Three Things That Never Stand Still, monitored by Osun Defender at his Church in Oregun, Lagos, Nigeria.
“Amid the turbulent start to the administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I have held my peace, hoping that wisdom would prevail even while the government was in its so-called honeymoon phase. When, in his inauguration address on May 29, 2023, President Tinubu announced that “fuel subsidy is gone” despite the cautious exclusion of that contentious subject from the inauguration speech by his advisers, it was clear that our nation had been unwittingly plunged into chaos by a very poor change management process.
“Whatever the president’s true motivations were, it is clear that he put the cart before the horse. What is also clear is that the president was economical with the truth by giving Nigerians the impression that he was taking a courageous move to remove the fuel subsidy when the previous government had already taken that step.
”As Nigerians would later learn, subsidy payment had already been ended by the Buhari administration, and no subsidy was paid in 2023 even though there was provision for it on paper up to June 2023. What is again clear is that, in line with change management principles, the president should have handled more circumspectly the announcement of such an issue that borders on the livelihood of the Nigerian citizen,” Pastor Bakare opined.
Nigerians are fed up with what APC
Pastor Bakare who was an aspirant for the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Primaries held earlier this year at the Eagle Square lamented that the ruling party has become a platform for politicians “with no ideology”, stating that Nigerians are fed up with the party.
“At this juncture, I must also sound a warning to the APC. I was there when the APC was formed and the extent of my involvement is well documented. As a stakeholder and more importantly as a nation builder, I’m more obligated to state without equivocation that this is not the APC we envisaged. The results of the last elections were clear indications that Nigerians are fed up with what the APC had become.”
He said the fact that the votes polled by the APC during the 2023 presidential election declined from what it had in 2015 and 2019, was an indication that there was a loss of support base for the party.
“If it were not for the divisions within the Peoples Democratic Party and the emergence of the Obidient movement of the Labour Party that split the traditional support base of the PDP, the APC would have convincingly lost the 2023 elections. Even now, the party’s victory as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission is being challenged in court,” Bakare quipped.
Bakare’s State of the Nation broadcast was the first of his kind since the emergence of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration on May 29, 2023.
