Lagos clergyman, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has vowed to continue his advocacy for good governance in the country, just as he revealed his encounter with men of the Lagos State Command of the State Security Service (SSS).
Speaking to newsmen in Lagos, yesterday, Bakare in a 15-page text titled, Sequel to Last Sunday’s Message: Time to Change Government Peacefully and Make Society Better, said that he would not heed the admonition to ‘tone down his sermons.’
He, however, vowed to ‘tone up’ his messages as a means of ensuring a more equitable and just Nigerian society, and insisted that the current leadership in the country lacked the wherewithal to ensure appreciable socio-economic and political progress.
“The messages I preach are only biased in favour of righteousness, Justice and Truth. To this, I plead guilty because there is nothing anyone can do against the truth, but the truth. If I am asked to tone down my message because of perceived partisanship, those asking me to do so have only succeeded in precipitating a tone up,” he said.
The former presidential candidate said he would continue to toe the same line because, “A corrupt, perverse, wasteful, directionless and clueless government is offensive to me and should be offensive to every intelligent patriot in this nation.”
Bakare, the convener of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) was a guest of the SSS at the service’s Lagos office last Monday over a controversial sermon he delivered to his church a day earlier titled, How to Change a Government Peacefully and Make Society Better.
While maintaining that the visit was done on his own volition as he was not arrested, he, however praised men of the SSS for the professional and courteous way in which he was treated in the one-hour encounter he had with them.
“Since the beginning of this year, especially after the Ojota Freedom Park Rally spearheaded by the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) and allies, there have been threats of arrest against my person and some of our key leaders from the highest quarters; and at least twice in November 2011 and on Monday, 23rd July, 2012, the State Director of SSS asked me to tone down my message because, in his words, I have become partisan.” Bakare said.
He stated that the contents of the sermon were not in any way injurious to the peace of the country but that they were crafted to conform to the limits of the rights granted him as a citizen to make his views on the state of the nation known at all times.
Quoting copiously from the Bible, Bakare, the vice-presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the last general election, said that his advocacy was not against President Goodluck Jonathan but based on the need to make life more meaningful for the people of the country.
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