The founder of The Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari asked him to be his running mate in 2011 because he wanted a Vice President who could hold the nation together in the event of his death while in power.
Bakare made the disclosure in a message to his congregation at the church headquarters in Ogba, Lagos State.
Buhari had contested the 2011 Presidential election with Bakare as his running mate, on the platform of the then Congress for Progressives Change, CPC.
The former Presidential running mate revealed that all that transpired during that period had been documented in his book: ‘Strategic Intervention in Governance.’
According to Bakare,“After I was called and I went to Abuja, and I sat with Mr President or General Buhari then, I said why me? ‘I’m not a politician’, ‘I do not belong to any political party’, ‘I am not carrying card of any party, why me’?
“He gave me all the reasons, they are written in the book; Strategic Intervention in Governance. He gave three reasons, but the one that made everyone around me that day to dove their hats was when he said: I am not as young as you think, and even Yar’Adua that is younger is dead.
“In case I die, I know you can hold the nation together. That was when Jim (he didn’t give his surname) removed his cap and said egbon, you must agree.”
Speaking further, the clergyman said he sat with Buhari and asked, “Sir, I need to understand something before I do anything. Every running mate of yours, including the one that was even your deputy in the military, is dead.
“Ume-Ezeoke is dead, Okadigbo is dead, Idiagbon is dead, I am not about to die?”
He quoted the President as saying, “Pastor, you must be very funny, I have never even thought about it.
“I knew he had nothing to do with their deaths, but that man carries a dimension of grace that if you deal with him, and betray him, you pay with your life.
“So I said to him, hear me now, ‘I will never betray you, I leave it to you to betray me if you wish to do so’… I’m not kidding you, you don’t know what transpired, for you, it was just campaign.
“Loyalty is a two-way traffic, if you cannot do that with God, forget, you cannot do it with men, you’d betray the cause, somewhere along the line, when things get tough, when they are not as easy as you expect them to be.
“God builds your confidence if you heed to his agreement.”
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