Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church in Lagos, Pastor Tunde Bakare, says President Muhammadu Buhari has failed Nigerians who had high expectations of him when they elected him in 2015.
Bakare spoke on Tuesday in an Instagram Live Chat with the Publisher of Ovation International magazine, Dele Momodu.
The cleric was Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election when both of them contested on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change.
But they lost to former President Goodluck Jonathan and Namadi Sambo of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Buhari re-contested with Yemi Osinbajo as his running mate in 2015 and won on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, which had “change” as its slogan.
Bakare, however, said on Tuesday that “Rather than getting the change, it appears that we have been short-changed.”
Asked whether the Buhari he used to know had changed or not, the cleric said he did not think his former political ally had changed.
But he noted that Nigerians had now become disinterested in fighting for the country they want as they did during the military era.
According to Bakare, “It is still the same President Buhari. In the midst of many competing interests and challenges, we all respond to things differently but as far as I know, the President is still himself, he is till Muhammadu Buhari.
“You can say power changes people, but has power changed him, but is he making the best of the situation and the circumstance he has found himself in? You will be the one to answer that question.
“As far as I know, and I have said it before, the expectations of Nigerians, including the gentleman interviewing me and everyone who rose up at that time to say we need a breath of fresh air by bringing President Buhari, I think whatever it is, the expectations have not been met and so, therefore there is a feeling of disappointment everywhere.”
But he expressed hope that things can still get better before 2023.
“I don’t pray that this will continue till 2023. If this continues till 2023, we are in a big problem,” Bakare said.