BY AYO ESAN
THE Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, said on Sunday that Nigerian leaders could not afford to “keep sinful silence” while the youths “are being oppressed by a Nigerian state that is supposed to protect them.”
Bakare, who had said the Nigerian Armed Forces, stained the banner of nationhood, the Nigerian flag, with the blood of young protesters, in an October 25 State of the Nation address, also noted that targeting and arresting citizens on trumped-up charges, “deploying court probes as a tool of intimidation, and generally eroding our fragile peace, are deeply worrisome signs of regression.”
He said this in a special address titled, ‘The State of the Nigerian Youth’, delivered during the Church service at the Citadel on Sunday.
The pastor, who was President Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election under the Congress for Progressive Change, added that some recent actions of the Federal Government against the #EndSARS promoters must be reversed.
He said reversing them would be in the collective best interest of the nation in order to avoid further protests.
Bakare said, “Among such policy actions is the freezing of the accounts of young Nigerians who reportedly sponsored the protests.
“While I admit that, under our extant laws, banks may freeze an account upon an ex parte order granted to a law enforcement agency by a court of competent jurisdiction for the purpose of investigation, these provisions of our Law should not be used to intimidate Nigerian youth simply because they engaged in and promoted protests against the inactions of government.”
According to him, there is a need to channel the tremendous energy of the Nigerian youth towards building the Nigeria of our dreams, a nation of which generations yet unborn will be proud.
Bakare said, “I have chosen as a theme the evergreen words of Benjamin Disraeli: ‘The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity.’ This has become all the more necessary because of the backlash being meted out on some of the young Nigerians who participated in the #EndSARS protests.
“My mother, who I describe as the woman who saw the future, was a disciplinarian who groomed me into a respectful but audacious young man with big dreams. She infused into me an uncompromising sense of justice and an enormous dose of courage and confidence to back it up.
“That sense of justice was what inspired me as a student of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) to join other students in the Ali Must Go protests against a military government whose draconian policies made living conditions difficult for students…
“That same sense of justice was what gave me the boldness as a student leader in the University of Lagos to stand face-to-face with the then military head of state, General Olusegun Obasanjo…and to declare within earshot of the Nigerian head of state that:
“This government possesses power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight’ (paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jnr). I would later be told by an official of the SSS that it was that day in 1978 a file was opened with my name on it.
“I must say that such a sense of justice was what I saw in action as young Nigerians rallied the nation last month in peaceful protests against police brutality.
“As I reminisced on the unfortunate incident of the shooting of unarmed protesters by Nigerian soldiers, I recalled with solemnity how I almost lost my life in the Ali Must Go protests as armed policemen fired live bullets into a crowd of students protesting peacefully.
“Unfortunately, the bullet that narrowly missed me gunned down the young man who was beside me, Akintunde Ojo, after whom a library in UNILAG was subsequently named…it is painful that the younger generation has had to face the same beasts we fought in my generation. #EndSARS
“We cannot afford to keep sinful silence when the youth of our nation are being oppressed by a Nigerian state that is supposed to protect them.
“As our nation returns to the drawing board in the wake of the EndSARS protests, I have observed with keen interest the policy actions and positions taken by national and subnational governments to address the broader issues of youth development in Nigeria from the prompt disbandment of SARS, to the N75B Nigeria Youth Investment Fund (N-YIF) launched by the Federal Government, as well as the appointment of young Nigerians on panels of inquiry set up by various state governments.
“I commend these actions by the federal and state governments. They have, to an extent, been forced to self-reflect and align with the times.”
On the regulation or not of the social media, Pastor Bakare clarified his stand, saying, “I recall that my statements in this regard during an interview on Arise TV were misreported and misrepresented by those seeking occasion.
“Let me state, once again, that, although I have been a victim of misrepresentation and needless defamation of character on social media, I remain an advocate of freedom of expression.
“While I stand for the responsible use of social media, I will never subscribe to any attempt to deprive Nigerian youth of a space and context in which they have found a sense of self.”
