Ezekwesili Rejected Offer To Run With Buhari – Bakare

By Chuks Ekpeneru

It has emerged that the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye at one time tried to get Dr. Oby Ezekwesili to run as a running mate to President Muhammadu Buhari but that she turned down the offer.

Senior Pastor of the Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare, who disclosed this said that Buhari himself also wanted a grassroots mobiliser like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu but that the context of a Muslim-Muslim ticket was rejected by him, Bakare.

Other options made to get Buhari a strong running mate included Jimi Agbaje who was turned down and Otunba Niyi Adebayo.

Bakare spoke on the occasion of his 66^th birthday as he narrated how he ended up with the blessing of Pastor Adeboye as Buhari’s 2011 running mate on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC at the last minute.

He said:

“I came into Ministry and one of those who had attended my Sunday School in Baptist Church where I gave my life to Christ, Tokunbo Afikuyomi, was the governorship candidate of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Lagos State in 2007 and he brought Buhari who was the then presidential candidate of ANPP to my office. He said Buhari was meeting with pastors so that they will not put toga of Islamic fundamentalist on his head. I excused him and took him to my inner office and said to him that the Spirit of God impressed it on me that you won’t win the presidency in 2007 but if you keep on trying, you will win. He left and our path didn’t cross anymore.

“God showed me a revelation that led to the Save Nigeria Group. The day that I led a march in Abuja, Professor Wole Soyinka stood to my right, Femi Falana to my left, with my two daughters behind me, President Buhari was coming from the other end in an SUV, with three others and they were going to the Senate. They jointly signed a letter that the Senate should follow the Constitution. He saw me and said is that not Pastor Tunde Bakare?

“President Buhari later said it was that day it ministered to him that I will be his running mate; I knew nothing of sort happened that day.

“At SNG, we had engaged the political class, we had engaged former President Goodluck Jonathan, Atiku Abubakar and we said, you lost the election in 2003, in 2007, and you are about to lose 2011 because there was no balance of terror and I don’t mean violence. We said to him that you don’t really have that inroad to the South West. The way Nigeria is structured, you cannot win the presidential election except there is a handshake between the north and the south, it won’t happen.

“I was in Spain when the call came that I should get them a vice-presidential candidate. I was so excited and I gave them Jimi Agbaje. I took him to Abuja to meet with them and they met a couple of times, but something happened, they dropped him. They called me again, I went to Pastor Adeboye to give me Oby Ezekwesili and I called her to run with President Buhari but she refused. But Pastor Adeboye told me he (Buhari) would need a strong Christian to be his running mate. I said to him that Oby is strong too; he said no, that she must not leave certainty for uncertainty because she was working at the World Bank then.

“So, I sent for the current Minister of Trade and Industry, Niyi Adebayo, that I will like him to take this opportunity. Before this time, Bola Tinubu had sent Lai Mohammed to me that I should persuade Buhari to run on the platform of Action Congress before it became Action Congress of Nigeria. But while we went to meet Buhari, we asked who will be his running mate, he said the greatest grassroots mobiliser in the south-west. I said I can’t broker a Muslim-Muslim ticket, so we left that.

“I sent Ife Oyedele to go to the current vice-president that he should come and run with Buhari in 2011. When all that failed, those I assembled to work with me as arrowheads, Donald Duke, El-Rufai, Oby Ezekwesili, Jimi Lawal, Fola Adeola, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, we are determined to bring good governance to our nation, not just activism. We were meeting regularly but we ended the meeting because we had no candidate.

“On January 15, 2011, at 12 noon, my phone rang, it was President Muhammadu Buhari. He said, Pastor, I had prayed the way I know how to pray, and I want you to pray also, I want you to be my running mate. I said to him, thank you but no thanks because I had given my words to those arrowheads, those I mentioned, that I will never seek an elective office or join a political party. He said I should pray about it and call me back in seven hours, I didn’t call him.

“I called Pastor Adeboye and informed him, he said that was it and that he already said Buhari needs a strong Christian and that I am the man and I must go there. I consulted across the board and I signed on at the last day to become his running mate. Of course, we didn’t win the election.”

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