THE serving overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare, has disclaimed his reported endorsement of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In a statement the church issued to journalists yesterday, Friday July 22, 2022, Bakare refuted statements credited to him by some publications that he had endorsed the APC presidential candidate.
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The former presidential aspirant on the platform of the APC also denied making uncomplimentary statements about the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella organisation of Christians in Nigeria.
The statement read, “My attention has been drawn to the viral but concocted and ridiculous statements credited to me by some unscrupulous writers and bloggers. Amongst other things, I was quoted to have said that the agitations by the Christian Association of Nigeria, (CAN) were ploys by the opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to force a weak candidate on the APC. I was alleged to have said that CAN wanted to lure APC into presenting a weak candidate.
“As if the poorly strewn lies were not enough, I was quoted as saying that Tinubu is my candidate. Isn’t this the same Tinubu that I announced to all and sundry at the APC Presidential Convention that I was not stepping down for? He has suddenly become my candidate!
“I am a nation builder who will not in any way create real or imaginary division among the people of our great country, through the medium of political parties or religion.”
Bakare had last Sunday, while reacting to the decision of the APC to run a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket, blamed Christian leaders in Nigeria for propagating “a wrong notion of politics.”
Meanwhile, the presence of some attendees, last Wednesday, attired in bishop’s cassock at the unveiling of the APC’s vice-presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, a Muslim like Tinubu, continues to generate controversies as some critics maintain the “bishops” were “fake.”
Footages of the alleged fake bishops are still trending on the social media.
Sinafi Omanga is a multimedia journalist and researcher with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. He has a keen interest in humanitarian reporting, social justice, and environment.
Twitter handle:
@OmangaSinafi
Email:
somanga@icirnigeria.org