- How Buhari rejected OBJ’s proposal to support him in 2011
…‘When the time comes, No.15 must support No.16’
On Democracy Day, 2020, a team of The Point’s editors, led by the Editor-in-Chief, Yemi Kolapo; visited the Amazing Grace Villa of the General Overseer of The Citadel Global Community Church (formerly known as Latter Rain Assembly), Pastor Tunde Bakare, for an exclusive interview. The team, including Ayo Esan, Adeleke Adesanya, and BIODUN KUPOLUYI, Chief Executive Officer of THE POINT’s media partner, FlipTV, left the Villa with indellible memories. Pastor Bakare’s expose of events behind the political scenes can better be read than reported. Excerpts:
Nigeria is celebrating 21 years of democracy today. How would you assess the journey so far?
To be honest with you, there are so many things to thank God for. Many people call the military interregnum in Nigeria as the years of the locust. Some of them will not admit that they did their best; they were trying to curtail the corruption or corruptive tendencies of the then politicians. But if we compare what the politicians that they came to correct their excesses did, and what resources were at their disposal, to those military men who served and their resources today, we know who plagued the nation more. But as far as democracy is concerned, you can say we have civil rule because everything that makes democracy a democracy, is violated on a daily basis in our country. You can’t talk of democracy where there is no rule of law. It is primary, it is fundamental. Let’s say that our democracy is growing. We will get to a place where it will mature. When that day comes, three things will be clear to you. Number One, it will not be the rule of man, it will be the rule of law; Number Two, right will be might and might will not be right; and Number Three, the most important office in the nation will be the office of the citizens. That’s democracy!
President Muhammadu Buhari has been in charge of Nigeria’s affairs for five years. How would you assess his administration?
If you ask me to assess what the country has been under President Muhammadu Buhari, you will give me parameters for the comparison. Am I comparing him with those before him? Am I assessing him alone? I can only tell you that President Muhammadu Buhari tried three times after he put on the toga of a civilian. He tried in 2003, 2007 and 2011. He offered himself to Nigeria, and Nigerians either did not take him seriously or did not give him the opportunity to serve. At the fourth run, he succeeded, and the lamentation began because, as he was coming in, oil price was falling and he began to tell the nation that the administration before him had plundered the Treasury, and that administration before him also began to speak back because they were now in opposition. They said, after all, we left so much, why are you complaining? Is it not the duty of the Government to fix whatever is wrong? Are you a solution provider or are you giving us the lamentations of Jeremiah? So, it depends on what you want me to compare him with or what to judge his administration by. Do you have standards of governance here that you can say, oh, this is the portrait of a good government? These are the things expected. The purpose of government, according to our Constitution, whether written by us, or imposed on us, is the welfare and security of citizens. So, if we are going to look at that, we should be asking: how have we fared in terms of security? How have we fared in terms of welfare of the citizens? Security is gone, going south as you can see. But would you blame President Buhari alone for that? No. The systemic rot had been there all along. Where are the investments and budgetary allocations for military equipment over the years? Almost everyone who has presided over this nation, up to this time,w will have questions to answer in the days to come because you need to say: what happened to those investments? Where are the equipment that they budgeted for? How much did we budget for education? Where did it go? So, I cannot begin to isolate him, and say let us compare him… with who? With what? There are no standards here.
Almost everyone who has presided over this nation up to this time will have questions to answer in the days to come.
In 2015, President Buhari presented himself to Nigerians by promising three key things – that he would fight corruption to a standstill, ensure the security of lives and properties of Nigerians, and improve the economy. Looking at these three areas, how has the country fared under him?
It is only Pharoah, the king of Egypt, that would ask you to make bricks without giving you straw. When he (Buhari) was coming, we were very hopeful. I was, because, till tomorrow, I would tell you that I still believe he has one of the greatest opportunities to make a name for himself that will be transgenerational, even within the few years left; to have such a legacy, to be the father of a new Nigeria and not a modern Nigeria. When I was growing up, modern school was not regarded. When you leave primary school, you go to grammar school or secondary school. When you go to modern school, it is because you don’t have what it takes to go to a grammar school. You don’t need a modern Nigeria; you need a brand new Nigeria. And he has the opportunity of doing that. But let me limit myself to your question. He set three agendas for himself – that he would fight corruption to a standstill, that he would improve security, and that he would diversify the economy. Has he truly diversified the economy? Emphasis had shifted from oil that is going down to agriculture. We might dismiss it, but we are not yet where we can say we have food sufficiency or food security, and a lot of attention had been paid to it, even by the Central Bank of Nigeria that is more or less becoming the driving force behind investments in Agriculture. What we need to add to that is that we do not just produce maize, cocoa and the rest and ship abroad and the price of one chocolate bag will be more than a tonne of cocoa. Lazy nations produce but they don’t process. The bible calls it “a lazy man hunts but does not roast.” We have raw oil, we get crude oil, we ship abroad, and by the time it returns, we are paid some nuisances in our economy, what we call subsidy. And we subsidise everything until we are now poor, broke, busted and disgusted. So, diversification had taken place, it might not be as much as we expected, but that is fulfilled.
On security, you can only do your best. See, I would like to ask some pertinent questions within your question. Is Boko Haram an invention of man? Is Boko Haram sustained by people within our country or outside? Do they buy food to eat? Who is sustaining them? Because if the community where they operate will not sustain them, will become intelligent officers to report their activities, they will be dealt with in no time. I remember saying: thank God, I am not President Buhari, because during this lockdown, I would root out Boko Haram. We have an idea of where they are; we will go into the sky, thank God for Google search. We will locate where they are and I will tell everybody: stay in your house. When we were young, and they wanted to perform any sacrifice at Olumo Rock, they would say in Yoruba language (Egba Language): bi ewure e ba sonu, wa; bi aguntan e ba sonu, wa; bi omo e ba sonu, ma wa o. This means if your goat is missing, we have not stolen it, you can look for it; if your sheep is missing, we have not stolen it, look for it; but if your child is missing, don’t look for him. It’s your fault, keep them at home. So, under this lockdown, I will let everyone be locked indoors and I will swoop on the forest. But may be militarily, I am a bloody civilian; I hope soldiers also have blood.
So, he had done his best. Boko Haram did not start with him. We had thought that when he relocated the military base to the battle front, it would be better, but there are people benefitting from it, day and night. And until you root out those ones, you can’t deal with the enemy because the enemy within is more than the one outside. Everybody knows where Boko Haram is, but nobody wants to go there.
Has he fought corruption? May be to the best of his ability. After all, you now have a central account, and excess money or budgetary allocation are now returned, but you see, we are under the mistaken impression that corruption is stealing money from treasury. That’s stealing. When there was no treasury anywhere in the world, before God flooded the earth, He said there was corruption everywhere, and there was violence, and it grieved the heart of God. You see, we do not really know what corruption is. We are fighting the symptoms. It’s like cutting the leaves of a tree; and cutting some fruits where the taproot is still there. A nation that allocates more money to cutting grass, that allocates more money to travelling abroad, that allocates more money to all kinds of irrational expenses at the expense of the education of its citizens, and the health of its citizens, is already a corrupt society.
Like I said to someone recently, if I am in the seat of power, and you come to me to complain about your business, and I give you N500million, you will thank me for it, but you will never ask me: is this money yours? Or where did you get it? So don’t just look at corrupt leaders, look at the society that is corrupt, where the value system has gone down the drain; where people support themselves on the basis of it’s our turn.
Until the purpose of governance is to serve the interest of the people and those who are going there are not hungry crooks, who had borrowed money to go into politics and must pay back; until that changes, don’t expect our nation to come out of the doldrums we are in now. So, judge Buhari all that you want to judge him; he is still one of us, he is a Nigerian.
DON’T JUST LOOK AT CORRUPT LEADERS, LOOK AT THE SOCIETY THAT IS CORRUPT, WHERE THE VALUE SYSTEM HAS GONE DOWN THE DRAIN; WHERE PEOPLE LIVE ON THE BASIS OF ‘IT’S OUR TURN’.
Nigeria’s democracy is 21 years today, and agitation for separation is getting louder. Do you think we should allow those agitating to go? Also take your mind back to 2011, when you were President Buhari’s running mate. Would you say that most of the things you promised Nigerians reflect in what the current government is doing?
I didn’t go into politics to make a name for myself, neither do I think President Buhari went into politics to make a name for himself. He was already a former head of state. You can’t have more than Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR); he already had that. He was the only military leader who did not promote himself beyond the rank that he had before he got to power. I don’t think he went there to make money for himself or to make a name for himself. And by the grace of God, mine may be a little ant on top of a big elephant. But I have earned some name for myself also, and so, it is clear why I teamed up with him in 2011. It was clear from our manifesto back then, what we wanted to do for Nigeria. Number One agenda was the restructuring of Nigeria. Number Two, no citizen of this nation would ever fill a form and say ‘state of origin’ anymore; it would be ‘state of residence’. And the irreducible minimum that a citizen could hold us accountable for were all spelt out in that manifesto.
Now, let me come to your question on agitation; the agitations that people want to go. Where are they going? We should ask ourselves, are they relocating outside the geographical territory called Nigeria today? Are they relocating to Dahomey? Are they relocationg to Sao Tome? No, we will still be here. What you are asking for is: let’s have the type of arrangement that our founding fathers subscribed to before independence, which is, each region being self-supportive, self-propagating, self-governing. That is, the Federal Government would have its own responsibilities; the state governments would have their own responsibilities. It was not the money of the Federal Government that built Obafemi Awolowo University (then the University of Ife); it was not the money of the Federal Government that built Ahmadu Bello University; it was not the Federal Government’s money that built University of Nigeria, Nsukka, until Gen Murtala Mohammed and Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo came and said everything had been nationalised. They didn’t know what they were doing; they were military men that thought, by so doing, they would correct things. They just destroyed the nation.
From the day, in May 1966, that the late Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi said this nation would no longer be called the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but the Republic of Nigeria, that was the day Nigeria died. Let’s not fool ourselves. Gowon came and tried, and decimated us further into 12 states from four regions. The only entity that Nigerians agreed upon to become a region on its own was Mid-west. Others were proposed, like six; they don’t follow that. And you now just come, and you took the apple and divided it into 12; and with the whims and caprices of those who came after them, they kept on dividing it further. And the states created cannot even sustain themselves; everyone depends on the center. That was not what happened before independence. The regions were giving money to the center. Now, we are all baking cakes, we are all eating cakes, and now, the holiday is over, there is no money anywhere. You don’t know how broke you are until you divide the total indebtedness of Nigeria by the number of the citizens; you will know how much you owe. And even if you don’t pay, the generations coming will pay. You will be paying for debt cancellation.
Let me limit myself to your question. This agitation is not new and it will not stop until what is right is done. Do I want Nigeria to break? Into what? Look, how do you break? I grew up in Sokoto, came back to the South for the purpose of education; I have Fulani friends, I have Fulani relations, I know Yorubas, I know Igbos. The church I pastor, the next man to me is an Igbo man, he’s been there for more than 30 years. Do I suddenly turn against him? He married a Yoruba woman from Ijebu-Igbo, and we call them Ijebu Igbo. Do I suddenly turn against them? Do we want to confuse our children? We are better together but not under an oppressive arrangement that we have now, that one section will dominate the rest of the nation. No! That agitation will continue until what is right is done.
On whether what is happening now is the same thing we expected to do when we ran together, it is not the same team that is playing. Team together, everyone achieves more. Together, everyone achieves a miracle. If you have a solid team of thinkers and solid team of those who concentrate on deliverables to the people, we probably will get a better result. A tree does not make a forest. Mr President cannot do it all by himself. So, it is not just judgment on the President and the entire package, but those who are there also are Nigerians. And I am not saying they are not brilliant, but it seems that we have been rudderless for a while, and my prayer is that with the appointment of the new Chief of Staff, a man I respect, whose accomplishment is known to all, he will be able to bring something to the table with his intellect and exposure. I congratulate Mr. President for choosing such a person, who can represent us well in the international community, and who also has his roots in the traditional institution. There are some who do not deserve to be in that government for a second, right now, because if you look at things, you will ask: what are they really doing there? So, it will take a right team to deliver right results. A destructive means cannot bring about a constructive end. It takes constructive means to produce a constructive end. Check those who are there alongside the President. Are they focused on the same agenda? Now, you find inside fighting over frivolities, and you ask, what are they doing? Is it Were competition? (Were is an indigenous Yoruba music).
The resolutions of the 2014 National Conference are still in the shelf. Do you think they should be revisited?
I had the privilege of hosting the new Chief of Staff here, and I said to him, sir, you were part of the 2014 National Conference. I had written private memos on the legacy of the constitution and I had presented them. Not only Nigerians, even those who participated in that conference will hold you accountable. Listen to me, it is not everything we discuss in the privacy of our deliberations that we will throw out there. But restructuring has become an agenda whose time has come, and there is no Army as formidable and powerful as an idea, whose time has come. Whether you want to restructure Nigeria or not, you make your order in Abuja, Ogun State said ‘we cannot comply with that, we have to spread it’, then restructuring has begun. You can’t have what it takes, in terms of human resources, and even material resources, to combat an unseen, tiny, invisible COVID19. So, oro ti di oro ki olomu da omu iya e gbe ( the issue has become that of every child sticking to his mother’s breast milk). You can’t come to my mother to breast-feed, you should go to your mother, except if your mother is dead and my mother wants to help you. So, it is an idea whose time has come. It is a moving train.
You may not see it; God is reorganising what man said is not possible. I want strong states and a strong centre, and the way to do it is for each region to look for what is within its own resources and begin to maximise the potentials under their soil. There is no state in this country without a mineral resource. But we have never bothered to tap into them or to even explore the possibilities of transforming them into wealth and making them become wealth creation just like agriculture should not be a means of life; it should be a wealth creation thing. Right now, we have hung our hoes and cutlasses and we say we are hungry. Of course, you will continue to be hungry because you are not making efforts to feed yourself.
So, now that we are getting to that place, we will come to understand that there was no pipeline to take groundnut from Kaduna to the South, and there was no pipeline to take cocoa to the north. Each region then used what it had to develop its own land and its own people, and it was meagre resources, compared to what came from oil. It was from those resources that we built those things that we called first in Africa. It is inconceivable that Nigerian western region had television before many European countries. So, the principles and the books are still there. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel; just go back to what we agreed upon at the beginning. But the problem we have is that covenant breakers took over our heritage and they shifted the landmarks. We want the landmarks back. Very simple! I will not lend support to anyone or anything that will try to sustain what is going on now because it will not last.
WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER BUT NOT UNDER AN OPPRESSIVE ARRANGEMENT THAT WE HAVE NOW, THAT ONE SECTION WILL DOMINATE THE REST OF THE NATION
People believe that you are close to the President, which should be an advantage for you. But it appears, now, that you are distancing yourself from him. How true is that? Also, people believe you should come in to run for President. What is your take on this?
I have never distanced myself from the President, not once. Before the lockdown, I was seeing him at an average of once a month, at my expense. And I have never gone there, cap in hand, asking for any favours. It is that this nation should do the right thing such that Mr. President would leave a tangible legacy that cannot be erased.
Does he listen?
He is not deaf. You can check for a video: “The Buhari I know” on Youtube. I did that in 2014 before he came in in 2015. President Buhari does not only listen, he has a good heart to do the right things for Nigerians. But there are forces beyond the control of any human being, which you won’t know until you step into that office. You’re human. Look at it, you are my sister, he is my brother. The other two sitting are from another place, and you come in, ‘Egbon’, this thing is not right, let us do it this way. And you give reasons, profound, and I say ‘wow, thank you. And she comes in, and says: what did he say to you? He is a deceiver. He is only looking after himself; he is not looking after the nation. These are the ways to do it. He is a human being. By the time you all bombard him with three, ten thoughts, it is natural that he would say, which one do we do now? And he says, okay, over to you, Federal Executive Council. And you get to FEC, and everybody is keeping mum on what is right or not; nobody wants to say anything because they are looking at body language.
So, I can tell you from my interaction with him that there was nothing I had brought to him that he did not thank me for. One of those things that I said to him was that, when you ran, you were GMB, General Muhammadu Buhari; but when you won the election, you have changed. He said ‘in what way?’ Let me pause there and tell you something. President Buhari wanted to come to my daughter’s wedding and I said no, you can’t come; I just wanted you to know. He said why couldn’t he come? When your wife turned 50, I was there; when you turned 60, I was there. How does it affect me now? I said no, condition has made crayfish to bend. If you are coming now, they will block the road for you to pass, and everybody will curse me and curse my daughter, stay in Abuja. Eventually, he asked the Vice President to represent him. The VP does not have a lot of convoy, and he came. Now, I said you have changed Mr. President, and he said why, I said you are no longer GMB, you have become PMB. He said yes, President Muhammadu Buhari, and I said no. You are now Private Mail Bag. You have turned me to a PO box. Everybody that wants something from you, I’ll help. And most of them are coming for what they can get, appointment, not what will move the nation forward, and he said, I trust you to process those things and let me know the important ones. That’s the kind of relationship I have with Mr President. I don’t go there to sweet-talk him. And he also opens up to tell me what the issues are. But a tree does not make a forest. Even if he makes the order, somebody will implement it. A lot is wrong. I want you to try something. Test what I am about to tell you. Write an official letter to any ministry in Nigeria, and if you get a reply directed to you within a week, please come to me, I will have to know what voodoo you used, except you go there physically. The nation is not working.
Do I have an ambition to become the President of Nigeria? None whatsoever. I have a vision. There is a big difference between ambition and vision. The companion of vision is peace; the companion of ambition is anxiety. I have no anxiety; I’m not pursuing anything, but I know that I have a role to play in the days to come. And as I have jokingly said, he is number 15, I am number 16. If you doubt me, go to my father’s house and count the number of steps there. I have taken him there before. There are 16 steps. So, I have supported number 15; when the time comes, I expect number 15 to support number 16.
GO AND WRITE IT DOWN; 2023 WILL BE DETERMINED BEFORE 2023. AFTER COVID-19, YOU WILL KNOW WHERE THE NATION IS GOING
Are you speaking in parables?
Wait and see. It is not parable.
What would you do differently when you get there?
When it is our turn. You see, I was a student union leader. I contested for the presidency of the union at the University of Lagos. Ego was a candidate that did not disclose his intention, and he came to me and said: I would like to sell your ideas to the Igbo community so that we can all support you because we see that you are really going to steer this right. And he said what is your agenda? I gave him secondary agenda. The following day, he went to town, and pasted it on posters and printed it with the support of some of the administrative staff. I told him, you think I am a fool. Then I brought the real agenda out. The agenda called Number 16 is ready. When it is time, you will know.
People have said that you would have emerged the running mate for President Buhari in 2015, but it did not happen, owing to some power play. A number of people mentioned APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as one of the key people involved in the power play. What really happened?
It was not Tinubu’s making. They put so much load on that man. Anything that goes wrong in Lagos, it is Tinubu. Look, after Tinubu, there has been BRF, who spent eight years. There has been Ambode, who spent four years. So, at least, 12 years after he left. So, if the man, as they claim, is still controlling the Treasury of Lagos State, somebody is opening the door to him. So, you can’t blame him and put every load on him.
Let me say it this way, nobody forced me out or tricked me out of being his running mate. I volunteered. I went to him, and I said to him, when he said he would never contest election anymore, I said your time to win has come, but we must do the merger before the election. Because by the way God had set up Nigeria, in his own wisdom, no region can win on its own without the support and input of the others. If it is Shagari, you must go to the East; if it is Buhari, the Southwest, and anytime you see Northwest and Southwest joining hands together, election result is already determined. But how can we have four legacy parties and only one of the four will produce the presidential candidate and the vice? It’s not done! It is called live and let live. And I said, look, I am going to pull out. Then he asked me a question. He said, so you are not going to be part of APC? I was the one who moved the motion for the merger at Eagle Square, for the two parties to come together in public. And I said, ‘I am stepping down.’ I will not join the party immediately so they don’t think I’m looking for anything; I will work from behind the scene. Then he said, and if they ask you the party you belong to, what would you say? I said APC, Daura branch. At that time, I had never even stepped on Daura soil. It was much later that I went there. I have been in Daura only once in my life, and he had been in Abeokuta several times. He knew me to my father’s house, to my mother’s house.
I sat with Asiwaju Tinubu himself on Novermber 4, 2014, in the presence of former Governor of Osun State, who is now the Minister of Interior, Aregbesola. And I said, there are four things that I am pursuing in my life, only four things left. Number One, I would like to survive my mother. Number Two, I would like to survive my mother in good health because if I die before her, she would run crazy. Number Three, I have five children, I do not want any of them to predecease me. I am trusting God that they will be there to do me honour when I go. And Number Four, I want to enter into God’s kingdom. Which one do you have the keys to? Can you guarantee me life or health to survive my mother, or to preserve my children from dying before me, or to get me entrance into what Muslims call Al-Jannah? He said no, when you first made that statement, I thought, what arrogance! But I’ve seen now that what you are saying is real. I said, again, there is nothing you have that I desire, so there is no need for competition between us. Let’s cooperate. So, I said, in the present set up, what do you want? I can give it to you. He said I have told them this and that. And I said I know at the meeting, you said this and that, I set it up. Asiwaju has my respect, tremendous respect. Why? He fought Obasanjo to a standstill for PDP not to take Lagos. And it was through his influence in Lagos we were able to take all those states back. Let’s not rubbish everybody. How much money can he spend on himself? How much good health does he enjoy today because of the Nigerian situation, politics in Nigeria? Give credit where it is due. Asiwaju did not orchestrate anything. And, by the way, you want to hear it? Are you ready?
I CALLED ASIWAJU BOLA TINUBU. HE WAS IN ABUJA, AND HE RESPONDED. HE SAID THE GREATEST GRASSROOTS MOBILISER IN THE SOUTHWEST WOULD BE THE RUNNING MATE. I SAID I NEEDED A NAME; THAT WAS A LONG DESCRIPTION. SO BY THE TIME WE WEIGHED IT, HE WAS TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF
Is he contesting in 2023?
Not even that. He is a citizen, just as I’m a citizen. But go and write it down; 2023 will be determined before 2023. After COVID, you will know where the nation is going. So, leave that alone.
In 2010, I was in Spain when my phone rang that they would like us to suggest a vice presidential candidate for President Muhammadu Buhari, and I called Jimi Agbaje. I said Jimi, get ready, we’re going to Abuja, I’m going to give you to them, and he became the running mate at the beginning. Certain things happened that they dropped him. When they dropped Jimi Agbaje, I went to Pastor Adeboye to give me Oby Ezekwesili, because I had spoken to Oby. There is a file there called Arrowheads. It is made up of Nigerian names that will shock you that were meeting in my house – Oby Ezekwesili, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nuhu Ribadu, Nasir El-Rufai, Fola Adeola, Jimi Agbaje, Hon. Wale Osun, Jimi Lawal, and so on. We were looking for the opportunity to get one state and demonstrate what good governance was all about. And I told that group called Arrowheads two things that made me become their Chairman. Donald Duke was also there. I said Number One, I would not seek elective office; and Number Two, I would not join any political party; so that if there was a misunderstanding, there would be someone to actually come in. That was it. I can show you the file there. So, when we went to Pastor Adeboye, he said Oby couldn’t fit in for reasons that he advanced. He said Buhari would need a very strong Christian. He sat with us, we were five people in the room; I still remember those who were with me when we went to see him at the camp. He said the day Buhari was overthrown was one of the saddest days of his life because he was bringing order back into this country. And now, if he was ever going to win, he would need a strong Christian because of the toga of fundamentalism they put on his neck. An emphasis on a STRONG Christian, I’m quoting him. Where were we going to get that? We came back to our Arrowheads meeting and said we had done our best, we would leave the rest and wait for God.
As I was seeing Nasir El-Rufai off, he said, Egbon, 24 hours is too long a time in politics. Let’s not do anything until we register for election on Saturday and we can all take off to go and rest, because we had laboured, day and night, to ensure that the right people come into power.
That Saturday, January 15, I had gone out to register, at 12 noon, my phone rang. President Buhari called and said, look, I have searched and I have done everything I know how to do, if you don’t mind, I want you to come and be my running mate. And I said sir, thanks but no thanks, because I have a group that I am leading and I have given them my word and I’m not the one to break my word. He said why don’t you pray about it and get back to me in six hours? The first person I called, before God and man, in the presence of Jimi Agbaje and Yinka Odumakin, was Asiwaju Tinubu. I said ‘we have a deal.’ Give me someone who is a Christian and I will take him to Buhari and say this is the person we are presenting. He lamented and said wow, my respect for you goes to high heavens. We are talking behind the scenes and he has not brought this to us. I said ‘he has offered it to me and I can give it to anybody I want, and I would go and present the person to him.’ He (Asiwaju) never returned to me.
When that failed, I sent for Niyi Adebayo, he is alive, he is a minister now. He came to my house, and I said please, come and be the running mate, you are already a Christian, you will fit into this bill. He said except Asiwaju says so. I now sent Engr. Ife Oyedele to go to the present Vice President to ask him to please come so I could present him to Buhari, in 2011. I’ve written all this in a book, I’ll give it to you before you go. “The 2019 Presidential Election: My Story for Posterity”.
So, I am not looking for power, no. I just want to contribute my quota, and at the right time, if you read your bible well, Adonaija wanted to be king, and he put all the structures there, all the chariots, and they called ‘long live the king’, and some people went behind the scenes, they asked Bathsheba to go and see the king. The king said, no, that prince called Solomon, the only prince that he did not invite to his party, is the one that will be king. So, you wait and see what will happen, I won’t say more than that.
This happened in 2011. So, how come you eventually became President Buhari’s running mate?
Many people would not know this. The first time the destiny of President Buhari and I kissed was in 1984, October 1, 1984. I had worked with Gani Faweyinmi for years, Rotimi Williams for a period; to learn the rudiments of my profession before I would set up. My boss, the last one, was part of the Lodge. The day I got to know, I went to confront him. The day he promised to give me a car loan was the day he terminated my appointment for confronting him. I carried my load and I went home. I was sad because it was a few months to my wedding. In the evening, I went to church, same Pastor Adeboye. I went to see him and said I lost my job, he said praise God. I said praise what? Two months to my wedding? He said you wrote me a note that you hated all the announcements going on in church about money, money, money, that God should bless you, and those announcements would stop. He said how much do you earn in a month that you will be able to give N100,000 at a time? My salary then was N710 a month. Even if I would work every month to get N710, I would not get N1 million in 100 years. So, he said go and start your own. I said you are a mathematician, not a lawyer. I can’t start because there is private practice decree. You must have served five years under seniors before you can start your own, and I wasn’t five years yet. He said go and start, so I decided to pray, and I was led to start on October 1, 1984. I said ‘this is jail, straight, if I’m caught.’ But on October 1, 1984, Muhammadu Buhari said, “Fellow country men and women, private practice decree abolished.” That was the first day our destinies kissed. I prayed my heart out for him. We never met.
How did I meet President Buhari? It was Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, who, in 2007, was contesting for Governorship of Lagos State, on the platform of ANPP (All Nigeria Peoples Party) and they were visiting churches. Tokunbo Afikuyomi’s father was a Baptist, and I was a Baptist youth pastor in 1980. He had attended some of the things I was doing while in Church, so he brought him (Buhari) to me. As we sat in that place, about 16 people followed him. I still remember the faces very well. I said General, can we step into my office? I said as we were talking there, I could see that you would not win this election, but if you keep on trying, you wll win one day.
And he tried to reach out to me thereafter, once or twice, when his sister died. There’s a long story behind us. There are three things between President Buhari and I that cannot be coincidence. He told me himself.
I will come back to that if you remind me. I didn’t bother to go and see him after that. Do you know who was a bridge between President Buhari and I? Tinubu. How? The present Minister of information, Lai Mohammed, had invited some of our outreaches, we call it the Dialogue of the Nobles. I have an NGO, ICRD, International Centre for Reconstruction and Development, focused on how to rebuild Nigeria. We’re not an opposition platform; we propose things for government to move on. So, we had invited him. I just got a text, it was from him. He said he wanted to see me, and that it was very urgent. I said come to my home, and he came. He said Asiwaju wants you to talk to Buhari to come and contest on the platform of AC (before it became ACN). I said ‘you can count on me for that.’ So, I called Jimi Agbaje, Yinka Odumakin and Nasir El-Rufai. I said we were going to General, this is the future. Jimi Agbaje had been one person who had been standing there and saying the only person to deal with in moving Nigeria forward was Muhammadu Buhari. And when Tinubu sent Alhaji Lai Mohammed to me, I said this is the deal. I had his number, so I called him and said I would be coming to discuss an important matter with him. He said ‘I’ll be going to Daura but I’ll wait for you.’ When we met and deliberated on it, he said, wait a minute, we must ask for who the running mate would be. So I called Lai Mohammed and said who would be the running mate? He said only Tinubu could tell. So, I called Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. He was in Abuja, and he responded. He said the greatest grassroots mobiliser in the Southwest would be the running mate. I said I needed a name; that was a long description. So by the time we weighed it, he was talking about himself. But I said no, nobody should find you, at this stage of our nation, with the insensitivity of proposing a Muslim/Muslim ticket. Not that it is wrong… If two Muslims are the most competent, let them have it. But we are not there now. This is unlike Babagana Kingibe and Abiola or Buhari and Idiagbon. We have passed that stage. We are too sensitive right now. That day will come where merit and merit only; and excellence and excellence only will determine, not gender, not religion. We are not there yet. So, I called General and said I was no longer coming, and he didn’t get back to ask me why I didn’t come until he called me to be his running mate. I went to Pastor Adeboye, after we spoke. Pastor Adeboye said the day you stood before me and I said strong Christian with capital S-T-R-O-N-G, you were the one I was talking about. You must go, whether you win or lose, and stand there with him. I said Oh, God! I called the group, the Arrowheads, they said ‘you have been pushing and positioning us. Now, it is your turn, we will back you up, you must go.’ Only my friend, Fola Adeola, objected and said you gave us your word. And I said I did, but look at the situation I am. As God would catch him too, AC asked him to come and run with Nuhu Ribadu, and he called me on phone and said it appears we Egba people are the ones they are looking for. And the two of us became running mates. We are still good friends till today. We have disagreed to agree and agreed to disagree on principle. So we decided to visit President Buhari and I said General Buhari, why did you call me to be your running mate? He said three things: you were born in the South and raised in the North. You know both sides. Number Two, you are a former Muslim who became a Christian and a pastor. You know both religions. Number Three, I checked out your integrity, there is no dot. So, I thought I could run with you.
The answers were satisfying to my friends but I paused. And he said Yar’Adua died in office. Supposing I die, I want someone who will hold Nigeria together and I think you can do it. It was at that stage that Jimi Lawal stood up and took his cap and said sir, take it, I will compel him to run with you. I looked at him and said, are you the one who is going to run or me? And I said, sir, can we move in? I would like to ask you a further question. I said everyone that ever deputised for you is dead. Idiagbon is gone (after you left power). You are still here. Okadigbo, your running mate, is dead, died before the next election. Ume-Ezeoke that you ran with in 2007 is dead. Now, I am not prepared to die. What is killing them? And he said he had never thought of it like that. I said, well, I have thought it through and this is what I came up with: you have something in you, call it Ori (head) as the Yorubas would say, that those who betray you will pay for it. You can rest assured that if I accept (because I had not accepted then), I will not betray you. And I will leave you to try to betray me and know the type of head I carry too. We left it at that.
We went to Nasir El-Rufai’s house to have some meal and Nasir said Egbon, you must just accept. He calls me Egbon mi atata (my beloved elder brother). I said, yes, I would accept if you leave PDP to join me. I cried that day; he left us, he went aside, and that was the day he left PDP to join APC. People don’t know the price paid. They just think you jump and say you are having fun. You see, pastoring a church and nation building are related, but they are like two flavours of coffee and two flavours of drink. One is hotter than the other. They gave me the form to fill, I did not fill it, I kept it in my pocket and we were meeting, I was looking for ways out.
I called my daughter, she was in America, and I said President Buhari wanted me to run with him. She said you didn’t see it coming? I saw it. How did he show up at mom’s 50th birthday? We didn’t invite him. Everything you do, he shows up; he has been looking at you for a long time. I said ha. I called my wife, they woke her up, it was early in the morning. She said why are you disturbing my sleep? I said President Buhari said I should be his running mate. She said yes, you must find an answer for him. If yes, tell him the answer, if no, tell him the answer, and she said goodbye, I’m going back to bed. I said ha.
There was only one person I knew would tell me directly, not a pastor, but my mother. She passed on at the age of 108. At that time, she was about 102; she was born in 1909. I said Mama, eemo wo ilu o (trouble has entered the city). I said they asked me to come and play politics. All I expected that day was hen, God forbid! Ikoko kan soso ti alagbara fi gbori, ko gbodo fi sole (A warrior’s only source of power must not be exposed). That was my mother for you. If she didn’t want you to do anything, she would say ‘you are the only one I have, you’re not going there.’ But she had the strength to persuade me. She said nibo? (where?) I said it was in Abuja. She said ‘if it is Abuja, accept. But if it is Ogun State, don’t accept. There is death there for you. If it is Abuja, accept it, I saw it six months ago.’ I became weak; I said what is this Lord?
So, General Buhari stepped down as the chairman of the campaign organisation and I became the chairman of the campaign organisation, signatory to the account, to determine which way we would go. People don’t know President Buhari at all; they don’t. There was no decision made that was not concensus. He never said it must be this. Even if he had his own opinion, he would present it. That was the manner he dealt with things. I think there is too deep mutual respect between us to violate that. The night before I filled the form, there were three hefty human beings in Transcorp building. I was in Presidential Suite, on the 10th floor; President Obasanjo was in Presidential Suite, 9th floor; and General Buhari was in Presidential Suite, 7th floor.
I knew President Buhari was there, but I didn’t know Obasanjo was in the building. President Obasanjo sent for Nasir El-Rufai to come, and he said he had contacted Dangote, Mike Adenuga, and that he had called IBB (Gen. Ibrahim Babangida), that they were ready to support Buhari as the hope of the future, provided he could drop Tunde Bakare as his running mate. He said they were proposing Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Ngozi had also landed in Nigeria, although we were in the Arrowheads together, he did not tell us. I had offered him that position; I called Ngozi too, to be running mate.
He got that message and came to me the following morning. He said this was what happened last night. I said praise God, let’s go to President Buhari. He was having breakfast; I got to his suite on the 7th floor. I said finish your food; he said, no, it must be important that you’re here. He left his food and we entered his bedroom. I said, sir, we have a breakthrough. Last night, Nasir El-Rufai met with President Obasanjo, in this hotel, unknown to you and I; and he said if you could drop me and choose Ngozi Iweala, Mike Adenuga, Dangote etc would support you. Then I said, here is the form, I’ve not filled it, so we will not need to scratch any name.
I said there were five reasons Ngozi Iweala would be better than me as a candidate. She is a woman, gender is balanced; she is a Christian, faith is balanced; she is Delta-Igbo, South South, South East, balanced; She is a former Minister of Finance, former Minister of External Affairs, experience, which I don’t have; and finally World Bank exposure. For these five reasons, I recommend her, and she is part of Arrowheads. And he looked at me and said, did President Obasanjo speak to you? I said no. So, with what Nasir told you now, you have formulated five things immediately? I said he just told me this morning. He said okay, let me turn to Nasir. He told Nasir: since you were the person who saw him, what do you think he is up to? Nasir said, ‘I cannot say, but let us try it first, and we will find out as we go on.’ He looked at me and said Pastor Bakare, I told you I had prayed my own way before I chose you. If you don’t want, you can return the form. I don’t want Ngozi, it is you I want. And Nasir El-Rufai, in that room, said, Egbon, you have to fill the form. That was the closing date of that form; and I filled and signed. El-Rufai countersigned, and my name was announced for the world to hear. I said oh God, I tried my best to avoid this, what do I do? I was so tired; I went to sleep. Shola Adesoye in Abuja now came, and they woke me up from sleep and I went to see him and told him that I had put my hand in the plough, and there was no turning back. I wish they had chosen someone else, but if I must drink this cup, I would drink it with dignity. As I was seeing him off to the lift, for the first time, I heard in my spirit, ‘this is the path I mapped out for you, walk in it’. And we went in and came back. By the grace of God, nothing hurt us. My interest is in a nation that works, not PDP, not APC, not political powers; a nation that works in my lifetime so that we can give a better country to my children and grand children, that’s all.
PRESIDENT OBASANJO SENT FOR NASIR EL-RUFAI TO COME, AND HE SAID HE HAD CONTACTED DANGOTE, MIKE ADENUGA, AND THAT HE HAD CALLED IBB (GEN. IBRAHIM BABANGIDA), THAT THEY WERE READY TO SUPPORT BUHARI AS THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE, PROVIDED…
You said we should remind you about the three things between you and President Buhari. We almost forgot to ask…
Yes, I know. I was waiting to see whether you are good journalists. Three things. One, he is the last son of his father, and I am the last son of my father. Two, of his father’s many children, there are only two left, at least as we speak; and, of my father’s many children, we are also only two left. Three, his father had 23 children, so he was number 23. He beat me in that one, my father had 22 children. I now said to him: I have beaten you in one area also. I was a Muslim, I have become a Christian. You are a Muslim, when are you becoming a Christian? He laughed.
