I Will Succeed Buhari As President – Bakare Insists

The Serving Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, on Sunday reiterated that he would succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in office.

The cleric said that was what he saw one year, seven months ago and the situation had not changed.

“I’ll probably be the first President preaching on Sunday,” Bakare told his congregation.

He, however, denounced social media reports linking his presidential ambition to the alleged scheme by the “cabal” in the Presidency to strip Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo of powers and render him irrelevant.

Bakare said it was mischievous for “cyberspace libertarians” to go and unearth the clip of his Sunday, February 18, 2018 sermon where he declared that he would be Nigeria’s 16th President, Buhari being 15th, and linked it to Osinbajo’s alleged current travails in the hands of the cabal.

“They need to understand that I am a one-man army; I don’t need to join anyone to do any evil and never will I; you will always know where I stand on issues. Those who pull others down in order to get up will never get up. We don’t play games here; we declare the word. And if there is any cabal of evil anywhere doing anything to suppress the people of this nation, God will frustrate the thoughts of the enemies; he will turn the wisdom of their horsemen back, in the mighty name of Jesus!” Bakare said.

Further dissociating himself from the alleged scheme against Osinbajo by the cabal, Bakare declared that “The VP, Osinbajo, will have the last laugh, – they think I’m stupid – except he has violated his oath.”

Bakare stressed that his ambition to succeed Buhari remained intact and it would happen without effort, bursting intermittently into a Yoruba song: “Ohun gbogbo t’Oluwa yio se fun mi, ko gba girigiri.” (Everything God has purposed to do for me does not require me to struggle).

He said, “(Some are saying) supposing it does not work; that is your opinion; when it works, I’ll invite you to the table. You think at this age I will deny things I said. It was mischief makers that took it from one year, seven months and then there was a publication in Tribune on Saturday and they circulated the thing on Sunday; even baba, Kabiesi Awujale said, ‘Ah, ah, the great pastor, you made this declaration and I don’t know anything about it?’ and I said, ‘Baba, it’s not true’. And he said, ‘But you said this on Sunday in your church!’ and I said, ‘Sunday, when?’”

Bakare said to those asking him on which political party he would run, he had been telling them “the one Joseph used when he came out of the prison.”

The cleric said the number 16 was significant for him, recalling that the staircase in his father’s house has 16 flights and a book he wrote in 1993 has 16 chapters.

“You think this is an overnight thing? Go to my father’s house and count all the steps; in that house there are 16 steps. And I say it to those who care to listen; when that time comes, get ready, I will reach my goal. I meant everything I said. It was deliberately so,” he declared.

In commemoration of Nigeria’s 59th independence anniversary, he said he would next Sunday make a nationwide broadcast during which he would audit Buhari’s government.