The founder of Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare, has revealed that he is facing intense pressure to join the African Democratic Congress (ADC) opposition coalition.
According to The Punch, Bakare made this known on Saturday during the inaugural edition of the Citadel School of Governance Dialogue Series, while making it clear that he would not be joining the ADC.
He disclosed that several influential politicians, including a former governor and a former minister from the south-west, have been urging him to align with the party.
“There has been a lot of pressure on me from who is who to join ADC. They come to my home. Even while I was abroad, the hierarchy of that party kept calling, saying they needed my voice,” Bakare said.
The cleric added that a younger political ally, who had previously benefitted from significant positions in the All Progressives Congress (APC), also advised him to support the ADC.
“I am not going to take part in ADC. The last time I knew about ADC was about a plane that crashed. I wish them well, because we need a robust opposition,” he said.
“But you don’t birth a child called APC and then try to kill it yourself. We are not going to have another Awolowo-Akintola crisis in the south-west.”
He further stated that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is divinely ordained.
“If God wants to remove ‘emilokan,’ He knows how to do it. You can’t get the kind of thing Tinubu has brought without God’s support,” he added.
Bakare, who contested for the APC presidential ticket in 2023 alongside Tinubu, also served as Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election under the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of the legacy parties that later merged to form the APC in 2013.