2019: Incumbency power won’t help Buhari — Bakare
Presiding Overseer of Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare says President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress cannot rely on the power of incumbency to win the 2019 general elections.
He noted that the power of incumbency had been broken before, hence the need for Buhari to tell Ngerians what his achievements, challenges and plans for improvement.
Bakare, a former running mate to Buhari when he contested under the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011, was addressing newsmen yesterday shortly after his independence anniversary state of the nation broadcast he addressed at the Church’s headquarters in Lagos.
He said: “The APC cannot rely on incumbency because that power has been broken before. They must rely on performance and be able to communicate to the nation exactly what they have achieved, the challenges they face and how they hope to improve on what they have done right now.”
“I wish President Buhari all the very best. He has the power of incumbency and he is going to do his best to win this election. And Atiku is not going to take no for answer, but the grass will not suffer when they become forces against themselves.
“And if care is not taken, Nigerians are being pushed to the wall to say anything, but Buhari. But he still has enough times in his hands to make amends so that the contest will be on policies, programmes and agenda rather than sentiments.”
Bakare, who, however, said Buhari had enough opportunities to make amends and win the hearts of many Nigerians, warned him to avoid a situation where the 2019 elections would be anything, but him as it happened to former President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 polls.
He said despite five previous general elections and the acclaimed progress made by previous governments, many Nigerians still languished in poverty and seeming hopelessness.
He said since the beginning of what he tagged Nigeria’s “electocracy”, the strategy of the political class had consistently been to “spend three years impoverishing the people and cornering our common patrimony ahead of the next election cycle.”
He condemned the recently concluded Osun election which he described as a sham, saying it was a pointer “to the ignoble intentions of this political class ahead of 2019. What a sham, and what a shame”.
Bakare, who unfolded 16 pragmatic steps towards restructuring of the country, said he would ‘run’ in 2019, not for election, but to galvanize other Nigerians to implement those pragmatic steps.
According to him, it is high time Nigerians rejected “a defective system” that stifles their potentials; throws up the worst leaders and breeds defectors.