In a blunt expression of his disappointment, Tunde Bakare, pastor at Latter Rain Assembly, has criticized President Muhammadu Buhari for attending a wedding in Kano while 110 Dapchi girls are still being held in captivity by the Boko Haram.
Bakare, who was Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election, while addressing his church congregation on Sunday, expressed surprise that Buhari and 22 governors attended the wedding of Governor Umar Ganjude’s daughter and Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s son, on Saturday.
Bakare said the action of the leaders showed the insensitivity of the people in power. The following are excerpts from his comments:
“Forgive my ill-mannerism, but I could not comprehend why a governor will celebrate the wedding of his daughter, and another governor of his son, on the front pages of newspapers, flashing it before our eyes, when other peoples’ daughters are in captivity
“If any of them had lost a daughter in that captivity, would they celebrate that way? I know the Bible says rejoice with them that rejoice, but I do not know what the president of Nigeria was doing there.
“And somebody came to say, let me explain to you, it is Islamic tradition, before this time, about January, they had agreed, that he (Buhari) will be the one to give the bride away and (Bola) Tinubu will be the one to pay the dowry, and present the son, and they agreed long before now.
“I looked at him and said the president of Nigeria wanted to come to my daughter’s wedding, and I said to him, sir, don’t come. That is beneath your office. Face the work of the state and keep serving.
“And 22 governors showed up to mark register, when 110 daughters of citizens of your nation were captured by Boko Haram that you said you have already technically defeated?
“It just shows how insensitive our leaders are. We have gotten to a stage that our president has become a king and a monarch. That his son who rode his pleasurable bike that almost claimed his life, will be returning from an overseas trip, where he had received special healthcare that Nigerians cannot afford, that it took a whole minister of state to go and welcome him, because he has no job.”
Recalls that after several months of not making significant assessments of Buhari and Nigeria, in January 2018, he said:
“The current edifice of state has become a deathtrap. All around are cracks on the wall that originate from the structural foundations. Those cracks are dripping with blood and the stones in the wall are crying out.
The stones are crying out from Benue State and every part of the country where herdsmen have slaughtered the innocent in unspeakably barbaric attacks while the government failed to act until there were yet more bodies in morgues.
The stones are crying out in every state in the federation where workers’ salaries are unpaid and poverty prevails because states are nothing but institutional and constitutional vegetables on life support from Abuja.
The stones are crying out because young men and women are leaving the shores of a country so rich yet so poor and are enslaved, prostituted and murdered in other lands. By maintaining the status quo, Nigeria has once again become a land filled with crimes of blood.”
