Former running-mate of President Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011 and founder of the Latter Rain Assembly Pastor Tunde Bakare stated this in an interview with an Abuja-based magazine, THE INTERVIEW.
The pastor revealed that at a point, the former president offered to give him “something”, which he refused and opted for simply a pen.
“Finally, when the opportunity came and he (Jonathan) said, ‘I will like to give you something’. I [then] said ‘I like pens: so if you must give me anything, let it be a pen, so that I can show it to my people and say ‘the president gave me a pen,’” he disclosed.
He said one day, after a meeting with Mr. Jonathan, a former minister in charge of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe, rushed to offer him $50,000 for “transport”, an offer the pastor said he turned down.
“When we were leaving, Orubebe ran after me and offered me $50,000 for my transport. I said, ‘Haba, take your money, I am not for sale’. We said goodbye to him and the rest is history,” Mr. Bakare said.
Giving details of his meeting with the former president, Mr. Bakare said, “When he (Jonathan) became president, I said to him, ‘the things we marched and protested against, you are now perpetrating them – the same impunity’”.
“I gave him four points in writing. Before we left Lagos, I gave a copy to Pastor Adeboye and another to General Alani Akinrinade. I said, ‘we are going to say goodbye to this man’ because if a man cannot keep his own side of the bargain, because if you got here by the grace of God and not because of any pedigree and, within 10 years, had become the president of Nigeria.
“God has brought you into the kingdom for such a time as this, so you cannot begin to commit the same impunity,” he said.
Mr. Bakare said in another meeting with the former president, he (Jonathan) told him that he needed someone to tell him the truth.
“He reached out to me later and said, ‘look, let’s put that behind us; Nigeria’s situation is critical.’”
“Before I went, I called General Buhari and said ‘this man invited me, I don’t know what for.’ When I got there, he said he needed someone who could tell him the truth always. I said, ‘if that is what you want, you have me at your side,’” he said.
Mr. Bakare therefore challenged religious leaders to declare what Mr. Jonathan gave him, saying the clergy did not tell the former president the truth because they benefitted from him.
“However, you see, Christian leaders benefitted tremendously from his administration in terms of licences and waivers. The thing is, when you allow those in power to get you into any compromise, speaking to them will be very difficult.
“I don’t know if any of those allegations were true, but I have seen enough to begin to think that they were not able to use our overwhelming influence. If you have benefitted from evil, you cannot talk about it, nor criticize it. Let everyone declare what he has received,” Mr. Bakare said in the magazine interview.
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