How I became Buhari’s running mate in 2011 – Tunde Bakare

THE General Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church (CGCC), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has disclosed how he was picked by Muhammad Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) to be his running mate in the 2011 general elections.

Bakare, who went down memory lane, noted that he had initially suggested Nigerians of southern extraction who are great achievers in their chosen careers to Buhari, the then presidential candidate of CPC, before he was picked but they couldn’t broker a deal.

The former Vice Presidential candidate of CPC named people like Oby Ezekwesili, Jimi Agbaje, Niyi Adebayo and even the current Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo as those he recommended to Buhari as running mate.

The convener of ‘Save Nigeria Group’ (SNG) disclosed this in an interview with Vanguard Newspaper.

He, however, stressed that Buhari would later tell him that he made up his mind to choose him as his running mate when he met him during one of his interventions in National matter  as convener of SNG.

“The day that I led a march in Abuja, Professor Wole Soyinka, stood to my right, Femi Falana to my left, with my two daughters behind me, President Buhari was coming from the other end in an SUV, with three others, and they were going to the Senate.

“They jointly signed a letter that the Senate should follow the Constitution. He saw me and said is that not Pastor Tunde Bakare?

“President Buhari later said it was that day he made up his mind that I will be his running mate. At SNG, we engaged the political class. We had engaged former President Goodluck Jonathan.

“We had engaged Atiku Abubakar. We engaged him (Buhari) also and told him ‘you lost elections in 2003, 2007, and you are about to lose in 2011 because there was no balance of terror’ and I didn’t mean violence.

“We said to him that ‘you don’t really have that inroad to the South-West. The way Nigeria is structured, you cannot win the presidential election except there is a handshake between the North and the South’.” Bakare said.

The lawyer turned cleric said he was in Spain when Buhari called to give him the task of getting a running mate for him.

“I was in Spain when the call came that I should get them a vice-presidential candidate. I was so excited and I gave them Jimi Agbaje.

“I took him to Abuja to meet with them and they met a couple of times, but something happened, they dropped him. They called me again and I went to Pastor Adeboye to give me Oby Ezekwesili.

“I called her to run with President Buhari, she refused. But Pastor Adeboye told me he (Buhari) would need a strong Christian to be his running mate.

“I said to him that Oby was strong too. He said no, adding that she must not leave certainty for uncertainty. She was working at the World Bank then.

“So, I sent for the current Minister of Trade and Industry, Niyi Adebayo, that I will like him to take this opportunity.

“Before this time, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, had sent Lai Mohammed to me that I should persuade Buhari to run on the platform of Action Congress, AC, before it became Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.

“But when we went to meet Buhari we asked who will be his running mate, he said the greatest grassroots mobiliser in the South-West.

“I said I can’t broker a Muslim-Muslim ticket, so we left that. I sent Ife Oyedele to go to the current Vice-President. I asked him to tell Osinbajo that he should run with Buhari in 2011.

“When all that failed, those I assembled to work with me as arrowheads, Donald Duke, El-Rufai, Oby Ezekwesili, Jimi Lawal, Fola Adeola, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, were determined to bring good governance to our nation, not just activism.

“We were meeting regularly but we ended the meeting because we had no candidate. On January 15, 2011, at 12 noon, my phone rang, it was President Buhari.

“He said, Pastor, I have prayed the way I know how to pray, and I want you to pray also. I want you to be my running mate. I said to him, ‘thank you but no thanks because I had given my words to those arrowheads, those I mentioned, that I will never seek an elective office or join a political party’.

“He said I should pray about it and call him in seven hours, but I didn’t call him. I called Pastor Adeboye and informed him. He said that was it and that he already said Buhari needs a strong Christian.

He said I am the man and I must go there. I consulted and agreed on the last day to become his running mate. Of course, we didn’t win the election.”