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Pastor, God's mouthpiece, community advocate, a philanthropist, a worshipper of Jehovah, a prodigy - such are the words and phrases that can at least best describe the noble Pastor Tunde Bakare.
Pastor, God's mouthpiece, community advocate, a philanthropist, a worshipper of Jehovah, a prodigy - such are the words and phrases that can at least best describe the noble Pastor Tunde Bakare.
Born at about 11:00 hours on the 11th day of the 11th Month of the year 1954 into a Moslem family at Iporo Sodeke in Abeokuta, an ancient city in the western part of the nation of Nigeria, his earthly father (who he did not grow up to live with) was Late Pa Sanni Adekunle (Arewa, Anibijuwon) Bakare.
Pa Bakare was a man of the people in his days. A store keeper, a saw miller and eventually Obi (kola nut) merchant - a trade that made him very wealthy. The one who bore this gift to our generation is Madam Abigail Eebudola Bakare. A trader in local textile fabrics by profession,
Mama is a disciplinarian and a generous woman to humanity who later dropped her Islamic religion of so many years to become a Christian through the exemplary lifestyle and the victorious Christian experience of her son who never verbally preached to her once. Pastor B is eternally grateful today for her stern discipline.
Somehow, nature has a way of passing traits down generations and this probably explains why Pastor Bakare who was a business man at one stage of his life is a disciplined man and magnanimous in giving to the less privilege.
Getting footage for a sound educational background was very tortuous for him. As a young man who had lost his father early in life and in an environment of polygamous creativity and relational rivalry having a sponsor was an Herculean task so much so that his transition from elementary to secondary was delayed for a couple of years despite his brilliance.
There is a pathetic case of a proposed sponsor who was a willing relation but lost his life in an accident the penultimate season of school resumption. Paradoxically, many years later God used Pastor as God-father to the man's daughter whom he never knew as she was conceived but not born at the death of the man.
By God's faithfulness he attended Lisabi Grammar School -a school that had produced other eminent Nigerians like the Late Dr. Adeoye Lambo. He also spent a year at Zumratul Islamiyya Grammar School where he had to re-sit for mathematics -a subject he didn't quite flow with. He thereafter gained admission into the University of Lagos to read Law. His L.L.B (Hons.) degree in Law is another proof of his absolute focus as he had earlier rejected an offer of admission into another University to study another course.
Gbolahan Babatunde Bakare had always been a rebel with a just course and with emphasis. On a pointblank posture he dropped the 'Suna' -Sindiku and performed for himself a baptismal ceremony dubbed 'show forth His glory' - "Gbolahan". And what a declaration! What a prophetic proclamation to suggest the spirit upon him even at that elementary school age.
A resoluteness and forthrightness to latch on to what is good and what is God. God working in the background and his resolve saw him achieving his desire to become a lawyer. Through painstaking experiences of doing menial jobs, passing a night in a dog's, (Tokyo) pen, another night at a Petrol filling station, several nights with old newspapers as bed, combining day employment, evening classes with night candle burning, he succeeded in his A-level examinations within 9 months of study. He tirelessly procured a custom-made destiny crafted and created by the heavenly Father -the custodian of his vision from babyhood.
To reiterate the guidance of God over his life, it is needful to mention his challenge of in-ability to walk early as a growing child. A condition God used to spare his life in the midst of epidemic death unleashed by wicked men among his peers then. This and other things delayed his circumcision until he was 10 years.
The night of his circumcision is a night to remember. God manifested in his dream and showed him a microcosm of his life by an indelible vision from which he woke up in a pool of his own blood. Subsequently every 10 years of his life has been strategic and worthy of note.
Born 1954,
1964 - God showed up in his dream to show him a
glimpse of his future.
September 1974 - He met the Lord and yielded his life to Christ Jesus, an event that took place in a Baptist Church where he had gone to take photograph of a friend being baptized. This fateful day, the pillar of light he had seen in his vision 10 years earlier was replayed inside this church. It was so dramatic he could not hold back.
Thus he became a Christian in 1974.
1984 - Another 10 year period, by the decree of heaven, all contrary government decrees being revoked, he started his private law firm - El-Shaddai chambers - Legal Practitioners and that same year he got married to Mrs. Olayide Bakare (The authentic Mrs. B as she's fondly called by GB himself), a marriage that has produced 5 wonderful generals -Oluwabunmi, Oluwafisayo, Oluwasegun, Oluwaseyi and Oluwarotimi.
1993/'94 - The Lord pushed him into deeper waters of national assignment by a word of prophecy -very unpopular word then, but later accepted by all as an interjection by God in the annals of our national history
2004 - The year of stepping higher into bigger and greater assignments. Though marked the year of retirement from a phase of His ministry which he had pursued for over fifteen years, but not stepping aside, not stepping out, nor stepping under.