A PROPHECY by the Senior Pastor of the Citadel Global Community Church Tunde Bakare that President Muhammadu Buhari would be the one to stabilise Nigeria has generated a lot of controversies and mixed reactions on Twitter.

While revealing the reason why he supported the candidature of President Buhari during the 2015 and 2019 presidential elections in a sermon he preached in April 2019, the clergyman claimed that God showed him that Buhari has a major role to play in stabilising Nigeria.

Bakare also recalled his role in the coalition of political parties that formed the All Progressive Congress (APC) in 2015.

“After the controversial and divisive 2011 elections, as Nigeria drifted along with sectional undercurrents and the nation sought a unifying force, some of us prevailed on General Muhammadu Buhari not to quit the stage but to take back his words and form a coalition of the best of the North and the best of the South to salvage our nation.

“I must admit that I played a critical role in that mission. God had shown me in a vision that GMB still had a role to play in stabilising Nigeria,” he said.

Apart from this prophesy, which he claimed most times to be from God, Bakare has been actively involved in the political sojourn of President Buhari. He was the running mate to Buhari during Buhari’s 3rd attempt at the presidency under the Congress for Progressive Change in the 2011 presidential elections, where they were defeated by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

---

You may wish to read

Open grazing is obsolete, government should end it – Bakare

Twitter users trend #EndNigeriaNow to protest insecurity, doctors’ strike

FG’s support for Pantami, damaging to Nigeria’s relationship with key foreign allies- CHRICED

---

This was after he claimed in an interview with newsmen on October 2, 2006, where he said, “Let me tell you the truth by the spirit of God, neither OBJ, Atiku, IBB and this tall one, Buhari, are part of the new. They are part of the old that is decaying. That old one is passing away. The new is emerging, and these ones are not part of that new.”

Nigerians, who took to their various accounts to express their dissatisfaction with the rising case of insecurity across the country on Wednesday, wondered if the clergyman had truly heard from God.

Some were also angry because they believed that both Tunde Bakare and the Spiritual Director of Adoration Ministry  Enugu Nigeria (AMEN) Ejike Mbaka influenced their decisions and perceptions about the elections.

Mbaka had expressed support for President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 presidential election.

In the 2015 message entitled, ‘From good luck to bad luck,’ Mbaka had faulted the performance of former President Goodluck Jonathan, predicting that Buhari would win the presidential poll. He re-endorsed him to his congregation prior to the 2019 general elections.

The ICIR was able to collate some of the reactions to 2019 Bakare’s prophecy.

Pastor Tunde Bakare and Father Mbaka coming to tell us that God told them that Buhari will stabilise Nigeria is an eye opener to the fact that not all Men of God hear from God

— Chlorpheniramine #OBIdients 🇳🇬 (@VictorIsrael_) April 27, 2021

Tunde Bakare owes no human any apology. His apology won’t fix anything. He owes God and his conscience a big apology.

— Slimfit (@iSlimfit) April 27, 2021

Religion is a big problem here. Alot of people voted buhari simply because tunde Bakare, Mbaka and Abeboye talked them in.
imagine if they knew how to think for themselves.

— MUSA MADAKI 🇳🇬 (@PillzMadaki) April 27, 2021

Tunde Bakare said God told him that Buhari was going to stabilise Nigeria, only for unknown gunmen, bandits, Boko Haram, inflation and insecurity to be causing instability in Nigeria.

I hope God won't let this slide God, God must punish those using God's name to lie & deceive.

— Uncle AJ (@UNCLE_AJALA) April 27, 2021

The 4 major problems in Nigeria are the: Politicians, Tribalism, Bigotry, & Religion. Most pastors continue from where the politicians stop.

While Pastor Tunde Bakare is singing in tenor, father Mbaka is chorusing in crescendo. Both men belong to the same choir. Aki & Paw Paw.

— NEFERTITI (@firstladyship) April 27, 2021

Tunde Bakare said God told him that Buhari was going to stabilize Nigeria

I think there is somebody somewhere impersonating God in the ears 👂 of Nigerian pastors and that is very disturbing.

— Doctör Penking™ 🇦🇺🇳🇬 (MBBS, MPH) (@drpenking) April 27, 2021

Tunde Bakare and Father Mbaka said God told them that Buhari was going to make Nigeria great. These men need to apologize to Nigerians then ask God for forgiveness.

— Tobi Samuel Snow (@iam_foleymessi) April 26, 2021

Bakare is not new to controversy

The clergy made the headlines in 2019 after he boldly claimed in a viral video to his teeming congregation that he had heard from God that he would be the one to succeed President Buhari in office.

The cleric said that was what he saw one year, seven months before he made the declarations, noting that the situation had not changed.

“I’ll probably be the first president preaching on Sunday,” Bakare told his congregation.

“I will succeed Buhari as President of Nigeria, and nothing can change it. I am number 16, Buhari is number 15. I never said it to you before. I am saying it now, and nothing can change it.

“In the name of Jesus, he (Buhari) is number 15. I am number 16. To this end was I born and for this purpose came I into the world. I have prepared you for this for more than 30 years”.

Bakare stressed that his ambition to succeed Buhari remained intact, and it would happen without effort, bursting intermittently into a Yoruba song: “Ohun gbogbo t’Oluwa yiu se fun mi, ko gba girigiri.” (Everything God has purposed to do for me does not require me to struggle).

Bakare said to those asking him on which political party he would run, and he had been telling them “the one Joseph used when he came out of the prison.”

The cleric said the number 16 was significant for him, recalling that the staircase in his father’s house has 16 flights, and a book he wrote in 1993 has 16 chapters.

“You think this is an overnight thing? Go to my father’s house and count all the steps; in that house, there are 16 steps. And I say it to those who care to listen; when that time comes, get ready, I will reach my goal. I meant everything I said. It was deliberately so,” he declared.

In a ‘prophecy’ ahead of the 1999 elections, he had said of then-candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, former President Olusegun Obasanjo that “he (Obasanjo) was not your messiah, he is king Agag and the prophetic axe will come upon his head before May 29, 1999.”

But the opposite was the case. Obasanjo did not only win; he governed for eight years. And more than 20 years after, the man is still alive.