Tunde Bakare, the currently serving overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, has denied reports that he endorsed Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
On Friday, July 22, 2022, the church issued a statement to the media in which Bakare refuted statements credited to him by certain publications that he had endorsed the APC presidential candidate. The statement was issued to journalists.
Former presidential candidate running on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who also denied making derogatory comments about the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which is an umbrella organization for Christians in Nigeria.
The following is an excerpt from the statement that was released: “My attention has been drawn to the viral but concocted and ridiculous statements credited to me by some unscrupulous writers and bloggers.” I was quoted as saying, among other things, that the agitations by the Christian Association of Nigeria were ploys by the opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), to force a weak candidate on the APC. This was one of the things that was mentioned in the article.
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“It was alleged that I stated that CAN wanted to entice APC into fielding a candidate with limited qualifications. I was quoted as saying that Tinubu is my candidate, as if the poorly dispersed lies were not bad enough on their own. Isn’t this the same Tinubu about whom I made clear to everyone at the APC Presidential Convention that I would not be resigning in order to make way for him? He has emerged out of nowhere to become my candidate!
“I am a nation builder who will not in any way create real or imaginary division among the people of our great country, through the medium of political parties or religion,” the candidate said. “I am committed to fostering unity in our great nation.”
Bakare had blamed Christian leaders in Nigeria for spreading “a wrong notion of politics” in his reaction to the decision of the APC to run a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket last Sunday. He said this while responding to the decision of the APC to run a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.
In the meantime, the presence of some attendees attired in bishop’s cassock at the unveiling of the APC’s vice presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, last Wednesday continues to generate controversies as many Christians and Christian leaders insist the “bishops” were “fake.” Shettima was presented as the party’s candidate for vice president of Nigeria.
Videos of the controversial “bishops” continue to be popular among users of social media platforms.