The general overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has declared interest to contest next year’s presidential election.
Mr Bakare who made this known during a virtual programme on Saturday said he intends to vie for the office on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC) which he has a stake in.
“But by God’s grace, as we have been meeting together with friends and leaders in our nation in the past few years, it is looking much more like we will definitely be in the fore front of the battle for the salvation of our nation in 2023,” The Whistler quoted him as answering when asked if he will be running. “If you are asking me a direct question, a direct answer will be yes.”
“And if you are asking for what party? It was my privilege to move the motion for the emergence of APC, the motion for the merger between CPC, ACN and ANPP on February 6 2013. I have never been part of any other party apart from that and by God’s grace that will be the party that I will seek opportunity to serve and to lead my nation,” the cleric replied.
Mr Bakare who did not confirm or refute if he will choose Governor Nasir El-rufai of Kaduna State as his running mate extolled the governor.
“Will El-RUfai be your running mate? At this stage, you cannot jump into that, because you need to get the ticket first and the circumstances that will produce the ticket will definitely yield to who the running mate will be.
“El-rufai is one of the great leaders in our nation, who is facing a lot of storms today but at the same time has done quite well in his own way either as a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and now as a two term governor of Kaduna state. We must be the carriers of that ticket before we can settle on who will be the running mate,” he said.
