Pastor Tunde Bakare, the Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, has stated that the results of the 2023 elections proved that Nigerians are tired of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Bakare, who ran in the All Progressives Congress’s 2022 presidential primary, stated this on Sunday at a State of the Nation Broadcast in a church in Ikeja, Lagos.
During his address, titled ‘Vice, Virtue, and Time: Three Things That Never Stand Still,’ the cleric and politician said that the APC he helped to build had strayed from its founding values.
“At this point, I must also issue a warning to the APC,” the priest stated. I was present when the APC was created, and my role is widely recorded. As a shareholder and, more importantly, as a country builder, I feel bound to express unequivocally that this is not the All Progressives Congress we envisioned. The outcome of the last elections showed that Nigerians are fed up with what the APC has become.”
He said that the fact that the All Progressives Congress received fewer votes in the 2023 presidential election than it did in 2015 and 2019 indicated an erosion of the party’s support base.
“Without the divisions within the People’s Democratic Party and the emergence of the Labour Party’s Obidient movement, which split the PDP’s traditional support base, the All Progressives Congress would have convincingly lost the 2023 elections.” “The party’s victory, as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, is currently being challenged in court,” Bakare noted.
INEC proclaimed President Bola Tinubu the victor of the February 2023 presidential election after he received 8,794,726 votes, defeating his nearest challenger, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, who received 6,984,520 votes. Obi of the Labour Party finished third with 6,101,533 votes. The PDP and the LP are still contesting the election results at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal.
According to Bakare, the APC has now become a forum for politicians “without ideology” who have shifted from one party to the next in order to gain power at any cost.
“The APC stood for progressivism, characterized by substantial positive investment in social sectors such as education and healthcare, and it achieved inclusiveness and social mobility,” he added, adding that this has changed over time in light of the current economic hardship experienced by many Nigerians as a result of the government’s “anti-people policies.”
