Bakare Tasks Buhari on Strong Succession Plan
Founder, The Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to utilise his remaining years in office to provide strong leadership, strengthen national institutions and build a strong post-Buhari legacy political succession plan.
Bakare said these three tasks would enable Buhari to craft a legacy that would facilitate the emergence of Nigeria of our dreams and make history for himself in his service to the country.
He said: “Therefore, even as we build institutions of democratic governance, a key responsibility that history has bestowed on President Muhammadu Buhari at this turning point in our journey to nationhood is to institutionalise systems of accurate succession that will build and sustain the Nigeria we desire. This is a task that must be done.”
He urged Buhari to learn from the examples of two former world leaders in the persons of late Deng Xiaoping of China and late President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, who deliberately left political succession plans for their countries.
According to him, Xiaoping’s succession programme gave China a succession of leaders who piloted China’s economic transformation, including the current President, Xi Jinping and “without their foresight, we would not be running to China today to finance our short-sightedness.”
“We must also learn from Nelson Mandela who stepped aside after one term, but not without positioning the likes of Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa,” he added.
Bakare identified the provision of strong leadership as the “most pertinent objectives of nationbuilding and, like a laser beam, converging all the energies of state onto those critical areas.”
“It means results-oriented governance in which people, policies, programmes and processes are retained in government only to the extent that they contribute to productivity.
“It means now, more than ever, being not just the Commander-in-Chief but also the ‘Unifier-in-Chief’ of an increasingly fragmented and disillusioned populace; to offer hope, inspiration, compassion and pathways to new possibilities; to invoke the spirit of unity, faith, peace and progress codified in our Coat of Arms.
“Strong leadership also means accepting dissent and listening to contrarian views while making decisions in the best interest of the Nigerian people,” he said.