As the 2019 general elections draw near in the country, key players are beating political drums for electorates to dance to their caprices. The battle is fierce. And the battlegrounds are rife for electioneering campaigns.
In the political circle, career politicians are set for consultations while the political office seekers are working 24 hours to fulfil their mission. Their main article of stock broking business is lobbying.
The ecclesiastical circle is no less a temple for politicking in some climes. Were it not so, two Nigerian reverend gentlemen reputed to be hearing from God and being at all times to hearken to His voice by converting their priestly calling to political service would not have told the electorates their readiness to join the fray.
Though other men of God may also hear from God and may want to test the political waters, Rev. Chris Okotie of the Household of God Church and Pastor Tunde Bakare, the serving Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly, have openly declared their intentions to run for president in the 2019 elections.
Okotie revealed that ‘’A few days ago, the Lord asked me to write a letter to the chairman of the APC and the chairman of PDP, asking them not to field any presidential and that they should adopt me as their consensus candidate.’’
According to him, he has written to both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to not field any candidate in the election and come together to adopt him instead.
Okotie, who ran for president three times – 2003, 2007 and 2001 – told his congregation during his church service on Sunday that he’s re-emerged from his political hibernation.
He had run for FRESH party that was deregistered by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, but the party won a court victory against its proscription that same year.
FRESH, which is an acronym for Faith, Responsibility, Equality, Security and Hope, according to the flamboyant clergyman, can salvage the country from its present situation
‘’In sincere humility and deference to our democratic institutions, I appeal to the APC and PDP to subscribe to this ideal by adopting me as a consensus presidential candidate at the next elections.
‘’I ask the APC and PDP, respectfully, within the confines of conventional propriety, to temporise and observe a peaceful hiatus in the commonality of the Nigerian brotherhood, and embrace me as a consensus remedial facilitator,’’ he pleaded.
Okotie declared ‘’I have re-emerged from my political hibernation to contest the office of President in the forthcoming elections. I am fully persuaded that Nigeria needs a man who is credible, dependable and trustworthy.
‘’A God-fearing man who is embroidered with compassion and love for (this) country. A man who will be readily accepted as a symbol of national unity, who can bring genuine reconciliation and guarantee peace and tranquillity in our nation.
‘’A man who is completely insulated from the variegated conflicts that mark the antecedents of our major political actors. A man who can apply the principle of malice towards none and charity for all; who can invoke a pan-Nigerian philosophy to reject the partisan provincialism of finger pointing at this time when Nigeria is threatened by existential adversaries.
‘’A man with the requisite intellectual capacity and moral perpendicularity. I believe that the benevolent grace of God has telescoped these virtues into my person, to prepare for such a time as this.
‘’Nigeria is in dire need of restructuring. Our federalism is simply terminological inexactitude. It is a realistic piece of fakery. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is obsolete, retrogressive and subversive to the Nigerian cause.
‘’It can no longer subsist as a legal protocol to guarantee the peaceful coexistence of autonomous ethnicities. No extant or subsisting government can right these aberrations, for obvious reasons of parochial party considerations and entrenched partisan rivalries within the polity.’’
On the other hand, Bakare said God told him to run for the office of the President. The cleric, who was the running mate to President Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, in the 2011 presidential election said this during the New Year service at his church.
Addressing members of his congregation that God told him not to abandon his political career, Bakare said God did not reveal to him when the appointed time to run for the presidency would be.
Bakare, who is also convener of the Save Nigeria Group, SNG, said: “This twelfth one is a difficult one for me. It may draw excitement or condemnation. I have tried my best to keep it (to myself) but the Holy Spirit will not allow me to do so.’’
