Bakare: I’m under pressure to join ADC, but I can’t destroy the APC I helped build

Tunde Bakare, founder of the Citadel Global Community Church, says he is facing intense pressure to join the opposition coalition of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

According to The Punch, Bakare spoke on Saturday during the inaugural edition of the Citadel School of Governance Dialogue Series, where he dismissed suggestions that he might dump the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the ADC.

The cleric said several influential politicians, including a former governor and a former minister from the south-west, have been trying to persuade him to align with the opposition 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.

He added that a younger political associate, who had previously benefited from key roles in the APC, also urged him to lend his support to 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.”

Bakare also described President Bola Tinubu’s emergence as 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 was among the aspirants who contested for the APC presidential ticket in 2023, alongside the eventual winner, Tinubu.

In 2011, he served as running mate to Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of the legacy parties that merged to form the APC in 2013.