Nigeria: Politics, Prophecy and Perceptions of Tunde Bakare

Perceptions or propaganda

The Nigerian public space sometimes affords the opportunity to postulate, proselytise, propagate, preach, prophesy, pronounce, predict, pander or pillory.

That list is hardly exhaustive as people who believe they have a voice find easy platforms, lecterns, pulpits, organs and media to make their strong views known.

There is the truth out there and there are shades of the truth, people can subscribe to speak the truth but the whole truth in a society as diverse and multifarious as Nigeria cannot be in the exclusive possession of singular persons, communities, regions, states or particular interests no matter how altruistic, honest and laudable their aims might be.

We must however grant everyone the opportunity to relay and convey their version of the truth and those who hear must exercise the greatest and utmost meticulous means to assess, challenge, verify, discuss and ascertain with all objective resource the sum and product of all these versions to arrive at the truth, debunk the fallacies, contemn the lies and in all expressions of disagreement strive to avoid disagreeableness.

As we stand in Nigeria

This afternoon, I came upon a sermon delivered by Pastor Tunde Bakare who recently was the presidential running mate of Retired General Mohammadu Buhari of the CPC, which in the Presidential elections of April the 16^th literally swept the majority in the North but hardly made an impact in the South.

I am of the conviction that the CPC was never a party that had the requisite national representative cachet to take the spoils from both their poor showings in all the elections apart from the presidential one, which meant even if they did pull the miracle of winning the race to head the executive arm of government, it would have been impossible for them to implement their agenda with a minuscule number of representatives in the legislature.

In fact, I would have expected the Machiavellian nature of Nigerian politics to have inspired the legislature to make the impeachment of the CPC stalwarts their one and only aim until they put a ruling party stooge in charge, but that is speculation.

The backstories are many

Now, Pastor Bakare is a passionate man, he is most probably a very religious man and as a preacher he can put together a very compelling case that would rank with the legal prowess of Perry Mason or some other amazing legal luminary however in a court the case is heard for both the appellant and the defendant with sometimes the use of expert witnesses, the moderation of a judge and the attentiveness of a jury before a decision is arrived at.

I will contend that despite the many facts, truths, analogies, allegories, inferences, proverbs and riddles, we have only heard a side of a bigger story which appears on deeper scrutiny to be a proxy feud between families intent on laying claim to some crown of leadership of a community.

There are many backstories to the claims being made and it is important that beyond the sensationalist headlines that newspapers will gravitate to in the quest for grandiose speculation and vile vituperations it behoves all that are fair and just to listen to the good 1:45 hours of this message.

To enter the discourse

It is probably best reviewed in Internet Explorer where you can adjust the slider, in Google Chrome, you are forced to listen to the whole lot and using Mozilla Firefox you will need to have the Apple Quicktime plugin installed.

An open mind is required and you probably want to take notes, the last thing you want to do is jump to conclusions or make assertions that were not volubly and directly made by the speaker.

The admissible evidence

It started from Feyi Fawehinmi’s status on Facebook where over a 100 comments and exchanges have clashed with passion. Depending on his security settings you might be able to view the exchanges, have to login in to Facebook or become his friend on Facebook.

Bakare: A bastard can’t be Yoruba leader: The National Compass Newspaper scores a tabloid style news scoop courting controversy with some excerpts of the sermon.

The sermon – It’s time to speak – Tunde Bakare, best reviewed in Internet Explorer or through Mozilla Firefox on systems where Apple QuickTime is installed.