Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution is the country’s “glorified death certificate,” which President Muhammadu Buhari must “tear down,” the Senior Pastor of the Citadel Global Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare has said.
Bakare, who was Buhari’s VP candidate in 2011, made the declaration on Sunday at a Church service in what he called a ‘State of the nation’ address at his church headquarters in Lagos.
“I am fully persuaded that the 1999 constitution is nothing more than a glorified death certificate,” the outspoken cleric said.
“Mr President, stop passing the buck to the National Assembly…Tear down this inhibitive concoction of a constitution. Tear it down so that we can build a nation,” he pleaded with President Buhari.
Bakare linked Nigeria’s socio-economic and political challenges to what he described as a faulty political foundation, which came after the military intervened in the nation’s polity through coup d’états.
The current ethnic, religious, and secessionist agitations in the South East, West, and North were indications that Nigeria is in need of restructuring, Bakare asserted.
There are agitations now over which part of the country should come from, but Bakare said that was not of utmost importance.
Bakare said that those who are insisting on the 2023 elections before restructuring, “are putting the cart before the horse.”
According to him, unless Buhari restructured the country before leaving office, “history will recall that you failed”.
