The Interview Editors
Call him a pastor or call him a politician, Pastor Tunde Bakare is a man of many callings. He is a trailblazer, setting the pace for a new breed of religious leaders who are considered competent enough to be invited to the table of the nation’s rulers and builders – which is another calling he is well-qualified for, as the voice of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) and as running mate to then-Candidate Muhammadu Buhari in the 2011 presidential poll. The very fiery preacher spoke to The Interview.
Nigerians associate you with Christianity, as a pastor and preacher that you are, while others associate you with politics, especially because you were a candidate during the 2011 presidential election. Are you a preacher or a politician?
I’m, first and foremost, a Nigerian, a Christian, a child of God; therefore, one ready to do his master’s bidding. Where He sends me to preach, I will, and if He asks me to step into the terrain of politics, I will. Without stretching scriptures, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I want to remind you that my Lord and saviour, Jesus, is a king, a prophet, a high priest, yet he was called a carpenter. I remember Major General Umaru’s tribute for my 60th birthday. He said, “You are a man of many callings: you were called to the bar; you were called into ministry; you were called into politics….” So, I think that will be a wise answer to give you at this stage.
The church and the state have been historically and complementally ambivalent; do you believe, as a religious leader, that you can effectively represent God and represent the people at the same time?
A study of the Bible will show you that those in government are also God’s ministers. Romans 13 says “…those who collect taxes are God’s ministers attending to these matters; therefore, honour God and honour the king’’. Let me take you back to the Old Testament because you have said I am a preacher first and foremost. In Isaiah 33, the Bible tells us that God is our judge, is our law-giver and is our king. All the three arms of government are infused in Him. Government is God’s creation, not man’s: ‘Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. The government shall be upon his shoulder.’
The government shall be upon his shoulder – not the child, but the son. So, if you have immature people, babies, “…woe unto you, oh men, when your king is a child, and blessed are you when your kings are sons of nobles.” So, in God, there is no distinction, and this is why Muslims have an advantage; they don’t try to separate both. We want to be holier than the Pope. That reminds me – the Pope is a head of state.
You used to be a Muslim, correct?
I was born into a Muslim home. I was a Muslim, because I got that from my upbringing. On September 24, 1974, the Lord saved my soul and I became a Christian; since that day until now. I read the Qur’an from cover to cover, graduated from Qur’anic school in 1967. I was being trained to take over part of my grandfather’s role as a Chief Imam, but in the wisdom of God He brought me into what I am doing now; and most of my family – with the exception of a few – are, today, Christians.
In your role as a prophetic minister and as someone active in the realm of politics, do you ever worry that you might leave your congregation confused?
Truth be told, even the prophets themselves had to figure out what they were saying. For example, Isaiah said, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” We might ask, “Who are the us? My wife is not pregnant!” Remember, God asked him to walk naked for three years.
So, when you begin to say things that don’t make sense, you are likely to leave people confused. But God is not the author of confusion. So, those who are true disciples will press him. I’ll give you a clear example. In June 1993, God gave me a prophetic word: “SDP (Social Democratic Party, now defunct) will fail; NRC (National Republican Convention, now defunct) will lose, be cut up and swallowed up; the military will fall.” I got home that day, after the prophecy, just about a week or two to the elections (and) my wife had cooked dinner, set the table and she said, “GB (she sometimes uses my initials to refer to me), I don’t interfere with your work, but don’t you think there was a slip of tongue today…you said SDP will fail, NRC will lose. They are two political parties, are you not creating confusion?” I said, “It is what you blow into a pipe that it brings out: that was what the spirit of God told me; I’m not going to change it.”
When they went for elections and then they all came to church, I said, “I never said you will not vote, but you will never hear the result of the election because SDP will fail, NRC will lose….” I wish investigative journalists would dig to look into this because the tapes are still there. The following Sunday I repeated the prophecy, and by the third Sunday I said, “Thus says the lord, by Wednesday the election will be cancelled.” By that Wednesday, General Ibrahim Babangida (the military head of state) said, “We are not only in government, we are also in power…” and he subsequently annulled the election.
MKO Abiola wrote to me after things got out of hand and he asked, “What is God saying now?” I told him, “You may have to ask him…” John 6 says, ’Many of the disciples departed from him and walked with him no more.’ Remember, you can get people confused but God is not the author of confusion. The prophetic has a way of doing that.
You spoke about the ‘tender plant from the side of the north.’ Is Buhari the fulfillment of that prophecy or are we to expect another?
If, in 1999, I had said, “Obasanjo is not your messiah,” and Buhari is rising some 16 years or more after, and you are trying to fit him into prophecy, then we’ll want to be careful! Maybe he is (a messiah), maybe he is not! Whoever he is, what he will do has already been stipulated. After President Buhari won the election, we had a private conversation and I said: “You just won the election, but you are not president until you are sworn in. Let’s just pray that we will have a smooth transition. Let’s calm down and trust God, because there are many forces competing to frustrate the process. But we know God will frustrate the tokens of liars.”
I don’t want to do the job of fitting an individual into prophecy. When God specifically mentions names, it’s different, “A son is coming by the name of Josiah…” That was two hundred and fifty years before he was born. God can be specific, and at other times he will leave it in such form and when the time comes he will say, “This is that which was prophesied.”
Prophets are blessed with only three major things; not wealth, and they do not gravitate easily towards power, either. They speak the invisible, they hear the inaudible and they touch the intangible.
When you were invited to be the running mate of General Buhari in 2011 on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), there were reports that you had to be pressed before you accepted. Now, in this instance, if you were called to be a part of the present government, will you consider it again?
I’ve already put into writing what happened in 2011 and it is chapter 15 of my book, Strategic Direction in Governance, and I called that chapter, “The 2011 Presidential Election: My Story”. Truth be told, many things preceded that day, but I was not expecting a call from (then-Candidate)Buhari to be his running mate. My response was spontaneous: “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Were you shocked?
I was not shocked.
Were you happy?
I was not happy. I actually cried. My daughter exposed that in a later interview with a national daily.
Why did you cry?
I cried because that was a lot of trouble. My daughter said to me, “Dad, I thought you should have seen this coming.” He (Buhari) said I should pray about it and get back to him in six hours. After six hours, I did not call, though I promised to get back to him. One of the first people I called was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. I said to Tinubu, “Give me someone to take to him.”I called Tinubu because, earlier, Alhaji Lai Mohammed had sent me a text and visited my home to help persuade General Buhari to run on their platform (the now-defunct Action Congress of Nigeria). I was to go see General Buhari in Kaduna and lined up two persons to go with me, Jimi Agbaje and Yinka Odumakin. We were all in the Save Nigeria Group then. A day before embarking on the trip, I said, “If I am nominated to be the running mate, what do I say?” They were not forthcoming with an answer.
When I spoke with Tinubu, he said: “The greatest mobilizer in the South-West will be his running mate.” I paused, wondering what Christians would think when they heard that. After then, I called to cancel the Kaduna trip and I never spoke to him again until he now called me, months after, to be his running mate. Tinubu looked at me and said: “My respect for you has soared for telling me this, because even Buhari has not told me.” I took the bull by the horns and invited my college mate, the former governor of Ekiti State, Niyi Adebayo. I said, “You are a Christian and you are part of this, so…?” He said, “Let me take you to Buhari.” I called my mother, who is 106 now (she was 102 in 2011) and she said: “I saw it six months ago. Go, but if it is…, don’t touch it.” So, I decided to go to Abuja to ask Gen Buhari why he chose me.
Is that the root of your seeming ambivalent relationship with Asiwaju Tinubu and Rotimi Amaechi?
I wouldn’t call it that. I am not competing with them at all; there is no basis for that. I think, if I am not exaggerating, he (Tinubu) holds me in very high esteem. I delivered a message entitled “2015: The Power of a Prophet.” You need to play the tape and hear the things I said about Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I likened him to Jephtah in the Bible who was roundly written off but became the rallying point when a leader was needed. I asked all who had something against him, “Where were you when he was fighting Obasanjo and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to a standstill? Where were you when he drove the PDP from the South-West?” In that message, I said: “I doff my hat for his courage.” Now, that does not necessarily mean that when things happen you will be the beneficiary. God may have other plans for you and give you sons greater than you are, just as Isaac was greater than Abraham and Jacob was greater than Isaac. Yet, none of them could have been where they were without the father of faith and friend of God, Abraham.
We’ll ask you the question again; if the offer is made…
You know, there is such chemistry between General Buhari and I; like attracts like. I was close to the man, so whether I am offered anything or not, I will work within and without to ensure that, by God’s grace, he succeeds.
Does this chemistry extend to the APC or just the president?
If you like me, you’ll like my dog. Don’t forget, I made a motion for the merger of what we now call the APC today in Eagle Square, an open place, during the final meeting of the CPC’s Board of Trustees (BOT). There is a lot of emotion about the APC. I pray it continues to succeed and never go the way the PDP went.
Are you a card-carrying member of the APC?
My membership is in Daura. The General is from Daura, which is his constituency. If you trace my roots, it will lead you there. So, I am APC Daura.
What do you think of Goodluck Jonathan?
My issue with him was that he was never trained for it (being President). At best, he dealt with some botanical things and was working comfortably; then he became deputy governor, acting governor in the governor’s absence, and then governor. He moved on to become vice president, acting president and then president. Like every Oliver Twist, he wanted more, naturally. My issue with him was not one of competence or the lack of it; my issue with him was his refusal to keep to his side of the bargain. I saw two visions back-to-back; I won’t go into details now. Time will tell. I summoned the first meeting of civil society organizations on December 7, 2010, and the second on January 2, 2011, based on this. It was clear to me that Nigeria was about to go down the drain, based on what they called “power backing”. We went to Abuja to march, and back to Lagos again before returning to Abuja. I never met him (Jonathan). When he became the president, I said to him, “The things we marched and protested against, you are now perpetrating them – the same impunity.” I gave him four points in writing. Before we left Lagos, I gave a copy to Pastor Adeboye and another to General Alani Akinrinade.
I said, “We are going to say goodbye to this man”, because if a man cannot keep his own side of a bargain, because if you got here by the grace of God and not because of any pedigree and, within 10 years, had become the president of Nigeria, God has brought you into the kingdom for such a time as this, so you cannot begin to commit the same impunity. When we were leaving, Orubebe ran after me and offered me $50,000 for my transport. I said, “Haba, take your money, I am not for sale.” We said goodbye to him and the rest is history.
He (former President Jonathan) reached out to me later and said, “Look, let’s put that behind us; Nigeria’s situation is critical.” Before I went, I called General Buhari and said: “This man invited me, I don’t know what for.” When I got there, he said he needed someone who could tell him the truth always. I said, “If that is what you want, you have me at your side.”
It was reported that even when a certain influential Christian leader called President Jonathan in his bedroom, he would pick the call. That gave most people the impression that Christian leaders had an overwhelming influence on his presidency. Do you think this was true, given that you were particularly close to him at some point?
It would not be fair for me to judge a servant of God. First, I was never privy to their conversations, so I wouldn’t know whether they told him the truth and he chose not to follow it. To be honest with you, we have no problems in the Body of Christ itself. I’ll give a few reasons: when Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s tsunami hit the banks, the ones who were driven out –either wrongfully or rightfully – or convicted were false leaders and pastors in the church. One would almost conclude that our salt had seemingly lost its flavour.
As for the calls to his bedroom, the little I know about the president of Nigeria is that unless the call is put though to him, you cannot reach him. I can tell you – or show it to you – that I have President Jonathan’s number, but I’ve never called him. I’d rather call his ADC (aide de camp) or any other of his officers and relay a message to him. What they say to him, I don’t know.
However, you see, Christian leaders benefitted tremendously from his administration (Jonathan’s) in terms of licences and waivers. The thing is, when you allow those in power to get you into any compromise, speaking truth to them will be very difficult. I don’t know if any of those allegations were true, but I’ve seen enough to begin to think that they were not able to use our overwhelming influence. If you have benefitted from evil, you cannot talk about it, nor criticize it. Let everyone declare what he has received. I can tell you what I received. I took two people there one day and he invited us to dinner. I had a bad sore throat that day, so I took a pass regarding the dinner. Another day, I took a couple there and I took a cup of tea. I told you about the $50,000 which I refused, but that was Orubebe. He sent me a cow for Christmas – which I gave the staff to kill – and a hamper through our pastor in Abuja, but I told him to keep it.
Finally, when the opportunity came and he said, “I’ll like to give you something,” I said, “I like pens; so if you must give me anything, let it be a pen, so that I can show it to my people and say ‘the president gave me a pen.’”
You once described the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) as “an association of ‘penterascals’”. Do you still hold that view?
Not just the PFN alone, but Pentecostals generally. We (members of the PFN) are maturing; things are improving now and certain things are changing. We must be careful not to bring reproach to the name of the Lord. I used the word “penterascals” because I noticed as many as five or six churches on the same street, yet nothing to show for it. The day I made the statement, I was walking along Allen Avenue and noticed a church (I won’t mention the name) with a banner telling the public, “You can come here; we’ll stop the service to watch the match and then continue.” And I said, “Oh, my God.” That was why I called them “penterascals.”
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). At one point, you were in that church and was poised to be second-in-command. Do you think you lost out in any way, that you could have been where Osinbajo is today?
Known to God are all his works from eternity. What I am saying to myself is very simple: when I trail-blazed the path as a pastor in politics, it attracted all sorts of comments and slurs. Many asked, “What’s a pastor doing there?” I told them that Joseph served Pharaoh, not the Pope, and Daniel served Nebuchadnezzar, not the Archbishop of Canterbury. If we are going to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, we must maintain contact without contamination.
I trail-blazed that space and, to be honest, I do not know how much support he got from that church. If he got so much support, it would have been overwhelming. The difference between the votes won by Jonathan and Buhari in the South-West is about 500,000, in favour of Buhari. I don’t know (how much support the church offered him), but the point is, if it is not yours, it is not and if it is not time, it is not. I do not have any personal ill-feelings.
How much slack do you plan to cut the government – one or six months – before you begin to make your calls?
Let me tell you something you don’t know about me: if a government is responsible and maintains an open door to those who care about the wellbeing of the nation, I’ll talk to them privately before you hear anything. You hardly hear me criticize Fashola. However, behind the scenes, we’ve thrashed out many issues and the results are only seen in public. I’m not a social critic or commentator; that is not my office. By God’s grace, I have General Buhari’s ears. It’s a door he opened to me himself and he’s not a pushover or a man who has no ideas of his own. He is a firm leader and those who have access to him will tell you he has good listening ears, which compare facts before decisions are made. As long as that is there, there is no point taking a microphone and yapping at everybody; it is easier to be critical than to be correct.
If President Buhari goes beyond the irreducible minimum, which you’ve prescribed for Nigerians, would you be vocal about it?
I know his antecedents; he won’t. I say this because I know his greatest passion to be social justice.
What three fatal mistakes will you advise him to be wary of?
I’ll tell him in private.
After all Nigerians have been through, do you think we are set to experience real change?
I trust God for that. I trust God to give him (President Buhari) wisdom to choose the right kind of people – men of character, competence, capability and those who really know what to do. It is not rocket science, you know.
But there have been allegations in the news of certain journalists being stopped from speaking or covering the president’s events…?
This is the inside story: as a result of security concerns, it was decided that the media people would not go to the Presidential Living Room, but would be ushered into the Banquet Hall in threes. According to reports I received, these people you refer to jumped the line and they were told, “It’s not your turn, besides we have issues with you to be sorted out.” All that has been sorted anyway. General Buhari is a converted democrat and you’ll be surprised at the way he’ll use the press this time. He wants all things out there in the open, and also thanks in large part to the FOI thing. More than that, journalists should do their jobs properly.
You have spoken quite passionately about the need to get the right kind of people in the right positions. Lee Kuan Yew (former Prime Minister of Singapore) said you cannot have a clean government from corrupt election funding
No single person can say, “I funded this election.” I contributed and so did the next man. We must get to the place where we honour those who have helped us succeed by saying, “Gentlemen and ladies, this banquet is in your honour, but business starts tomorrow.” Good enough, it won’t be business as usual, and if you make too much noise about what you did during the campaign, there will always be a way of dealing with such people.I can’t take credit away from people who deserve them, but if you say someone enriched himself corruptly and used the money to fund the election, given the type of person General Buhari is, he’ll soon find out.
There is a reason I say that Latter Rain Assembly may never be a rich church. You can’t give me a gift, which will embarrass me. I’ll give you two examples: I was seated in the office and a man came, bringing a N142,000 tithe. I wondered where he got the money and he said: “Sir, I sold my house in FESTAC and this is the tithe from the sale.” There are several instances. Now, it is clear that not all those who gave were bad. Honest people gave too. Also, the election process in Nigeria is still prohibitively expensive. That is why you don’t have good people contesting elections. But then we must know that, sometimes, you have to make provisions, which you do not benefit from.
Shobi was a very rich man, but the Bible did not disclose the source of his wealth. He sustained David after Absalom drove him from the throne. Just like David acknowledged, there are people who must be recommended, but that decision must be left to the discretion of the leader, who is streamlining things, because the government – this government in particular – must collapse so many ministries and make them nimble. If this can be done it will not be business as usual. It is also possible that these people you talk about were trying to be part of the change; you know bad people try to become good also. People change, so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.
So, you’re implying change can cut across people and not just the administration…
If they do not change, circumstances will force them to change.
As positive as you wish to remain while prophesying about Nigeria, what is it that scares you the most about her?
When I see people use ethnicity and religion to debar or victimize others, it is scary. It is not good for us. I was a Muslim who became a Christian and, though many members of my family are still Muslims, first and foremost, I treat them as human beings, with respect and dignity. When I see others who use religion and ethnicity to divide and conquer or rule our nation, it frightens me. It pushes us towards disintegration. When I see the extreme display of wealth in the midst of poverty, with millions and millions of jobless youths, knowing that an idle brain is the devil’s workshop, it frightens me.
We’ve probably not had the equivalence of the Arab Spring in Nigeria because we are still our brothers’ keepers. If my children go to the neighbour’s place, whatever is being eaten at my neighbour’s table will be offered to them; but during the subsidy protests, I saw something that frightened me. Someone lifted a plaque somewhere in Abuja and in Lagos saying, “One day, the poor will have nothing to eat but the rich.” That is quite frightening, considering that the number of the poor is increasing. When such a crisis will erupt, even the innocent will suffer. In my hometown, my people say, “The poor man cannot sleep because he is hungry and the rich man cannot sleep because the poor man is awake.” These are the things that frighten me about our nation. But with good people in government and a good government which begins to prioritize the security, welfare and education of the people – without enriching itself – people will begin to be patient with such a government and when you say, “Fasten your seat-belt,” they do that.
When members of a government say, “We will take no salaries for two years,” and they buy their own stationery, fund their fares and do other things from their personal pockets, people will begin to respect that government. I have served this nation in certain respects and I’ve taken no dime for my effort (s)—I’ve never been paid for it by any government and if I’m asked to serve, that’ll be one of the conditions. [I’ll say] “keep your money, let’s take care of the needs of the people first.”
You recently celebrated your 60th birthday anniversary; are there areas of your life where you’ve thought of slowing down?
Yes, producing children. My last son, who is 23, recently graduated from Macken University in Georgia. When I told Kabiyesi, the Awujale, he said, “Show your youngest son,” and I said, “No, no more show, I’m done.” My commitments are not so many. With the God-given 24 hours, both for the rich and the poor, God has given me wisdom to allocate time properly. The key to breakthrough is time, because you must know how to manage your time. It waits for no one.
Do you place importance on leisure? When you are with your children, do you go swimming or do some other things?
With my children, swimming used to be it, but they are now grown and that is out of the question. My daughter clocked 28recently and I said to her, “How are we celebrating?” and I got a good answer:”Someone is taking me out.” I said, “Have a wonderful time.” My first daughter just returned, after shopping for her wedding in America. But if you look behind, you’ll see my swimming pool there. I swim, I read and I eat suya with my friends.
What books have you thoroughly enjoyed and have been impactful?
The Basket of Flowers. There is no way I’m telling you what it is about; get a copy and find out. The Curious Lady proves that physicists don’t lie and that adversity is the true test of friendship. Adversity brings out the best in you and prosperity will do the exact opposite. The true meaning of the statement, “power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely,” is lost on many. It simply means that power brings out the corruption in you and absolute power brings out all the corruption in you.
I’m an avid reader. My wife said, “If you don’t read, at the least, a book a week, I’ll call the ambulance.” That’s part of the problem of leadership in Nigeria; they do not read or study. A leader who wants to remain on the cutting edge must read to know what’s going on in the world. The 21st century illiterates are not those who did not go to school; they are those who refuse to learn or (refuse to) keep on learning.
Are there any event or events that have shaped your life, either negatively or positively?
I think, from childhood, I have been a rebel, but one with a cause. When I was in secondary school, one of the girls became pregnant and was expelled from school. The rumour mill said one of the teachers was responsible, so I led a revolt and the teacher was also asked to go. I paid dearly for that, because his friend, who was also in the school, dealt harshly with me.
Also, I fell out with my parents when I was still a Muslim. A man was brought into the house to do some things for us to eat, but I said I wasn’t going to. My parent said, “I won’t pay your fees.” I went to my bag, took some coins and went to look for these kalokalo men. That was the first and last day I gambled in my life. I had so much coins that I could not count. My parent walked in and saw them and asked, “Where did you get all that?” I told her.
There are other things, as well. I can’t stand injustice, for one. I nearly lost my life sometime back, in Ogoniland. When they said “you dare not”, I said “why not?” but when it nearly cost me my life, I began to listen to others.
My mother, outside God Almighty and Jesus and the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, is the greatest influence in my life. My next book will be Lessons My Mother Taught Me. My father died when I was two-plus years old and I never saw him, but the lessons my mother taught me about honesty shaped my life.
I was in primary school. When my mother came to the school and said to follow her home, my class teacher said, “OK, quickly, go on.” When we crossed a brook, my mother began to beat me. She said: “I asked you to leave my bed and you stole one of the shillings I kept.” When I said I didn’t take any money, she gave me some more beating. When we got home, she said, “See, I put 10 shillings here, but I found nine.” I said: “Mama, I didn’t even see the money or lift the pillow.” She screamed that I was lying.
While I was getting the beating, I kept moving around and, somehow, the missing shilling fell from some part of the sheet of the bed and she saw it. Rather than say sorry, my mother said, “If you did not steal and I beat you this way, the day you steal….”
I thought that was it, until secondary school. Mr. Idowu and a colleague of his were our French teachers; they had gone to study French in Paris and when the exams drew closer, he said, “The last test you did will be where the exams will be focused on.” We were told to get up and state our scores. Everyone, even those who didn’t write the test, were getting up and saying “eight, nine, eight, nine” and I was surprised because I knew all of them, so I got up and said “7 and a half, and the teacher said, “Bring your paper.” When I got to him, he saw that I got six and he started beating me. Surprised, I started pointing to others, saying, “He said…” and teacher said, “I don’t want to hear. You are a bad thief.” All those things taught me to stay on the straight-and-narrow way.
Across the room is a portrait of the late Chief ObafemiAwolowo, whom you appear so passionate about. Do you think he was the last authentic leader of the Yoruba or do you think – as some do – that AsiwajuBola Tinubu has been able to cross one major river, which he couldn’t and, therefore, deserves to take his place?
What major river did he [Tinubu] cross?
He was the major engineer of the merger that helped to bring the Yoruba together…
And you think it was only Bola Tinubu who made that possible? I see. Which one came first, the chicken or the egg?
I’m not sure the answer to that question has been decided upon…
Well, the answer is in the Bible. You are a preacher yourself. You see, God first created birds of the air and not eggs. The birds laid the eggs. If you see the picture of patriots and Nigerian leaders here, they are all a collapse of his. The people who are attempting to wear his glasses do not have his vision; they attempt to wear his cap but do not have his brain; they attempt to wear his shoes but do not walk his ways. Show me the empire that Awolowo built with public funds. To a Yoruba man, there is no concept greater than Omoluabi.
If you get to my father’s grave in a hut he built in 1922, which is now a museum, there is an inscription: “bibirekoshefowora” (meaning “you cannot buy a good pedigree or familial background”). I am not trying to take the shine off Tinubu’s efforts; he has laboured, but he is not in the same class with Awolowo. Regardless of how many rivers he crosses, he is still Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Awolowo is Awolowo. I have seen some paintings and pictures out there of Mahatma Gandhi, Awolowo and others and I just laugh and wonder why people can’t be themselves. When God needed a Mahatma Gandhi, he created one. So he did when he wanted an Awolowo. He created a T.D. Jakes when he wanted one
A young man once went to T.D. Jakes and said, “Pray for me that God will bless me and make me like you.” T.D. Jakes asked him, ‘Are you sure?” He said, “Yes” and T.D. Jakes said, “Let us pray. May you be homeless, go through hardship…” and the young man jumped up and said, “no, no, no, no…” and T.D. Jakes said, “That’s what produces (results).”You need to see books he (Awolowo) wrote and how they are still relevant today. Years after he left the scene, he is still the numerouno Yoruba leader. Eagles don’t flock. You see one at a time.
