Renowned preacher and politician, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has revealed that he is facing intense political pressure to defect from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and join the emerging African Democratic Congress (ADC) coalition — but insists he will not betray the political family he helped build.
Speaking on Saturday at the inaugural Citadel School of Governance Dialogue Series, the founder of the Citadel Global Community Church said he has received persistent appeals from influential figures, including a former southwest governor and a past minister, to lend his voice and influence to the ADC.
“There has been a lot of pressure on me from who is who to join ADC. They come to my home. Even while I was abroad, the hierarchy of that party kept calling, saying they needed my voice,” Bakare disclosed.
He added that even a younger political ally, who had benefitted from appointments under the APC government, urged him to consider joining the opposition. But Bakare stood firm.
“I am not going to take part in ADC. The last time I knew about ADC was about a plane that crashed. I wish them well, because we need a robust opposition,” he said. “But you don’t birth a child called APC and then try to kill it yourself. We are not going to have another Awolowo–Akintola crisis in the south-west.”
Turning to national politics, Bakare described President Bola Tinubu’s rise to power as divinely ordained, stressing that no one could have attained such a position without divine approval.
“If God wants to remove ‘emilokan,’ He knows how to do it. You can’t get the kind of thing Tinubu has brought without God’s support,” he affirmed.
Bakare, who once contested against Tinubu for the APC presidential ticket in 2023, previously served as running mate to Muhammadu Buhari in the 2011 elections under the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) — one of the legacy parties that merged to form the APC in 2013.