Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, on Sunday accused former President Olusegun Obasanjo of steering Nigeria to the “path of corruption, prebendalism, primordial sentiments and administrative bullying.”
In a sermon delivered in his church, entitled, ‘Corruption and the Soul of Nigeria’, Bakare noted that Nigerians lost the chance to become a greater nation in 1999 when Obasanjo assumed office as civilian President.
The cleric alleged that Obasajo was one person who derailed Nigeria at a critical juncture in its life, saying, Nigerians, in 1999, were full of enthusiasm as they watched the military return to the barracks.
According to Bakare, Nigerians were excited because it was the dawn of a new beginning.
“We wanted a different and better country, one with a defined national character and with the possibility of creating a sense of self-pride we so badly needed after so many traumatising years under the military.
“It never happened. Obasanjo squandered that enthusiasm and returned the country to a path of corruption, prebendalism, primordial sentiments and administrative bullying.
“Today, the old man (‘Ebora Owu’) conveniently assumes the stance of a statesman. He goes up and down telling everybody Nigeria will go up in flames; that the man he planted in power has allowed corruption to go unchecked under his clueless watch.
“What he expediently forgets is his role in facilitating our arrival at the sticky junction we presently find ourselves,” Bakare lamented.
While bemoaning the level of corruption in the country, the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) Convener pointed out that the cankerworm has demolished the country’s cultural and symbolic capital such that whenever Nigeria is ranked alongside other countries, it always manages to retain its space, almost incontestably, at the nethermost rung of the ladder.
He wondered why Nigeria is always at the top of the list when negative factors were analysed and at the bottom when positive attributes were ranked.
“This is one of the biggest causes of concern: to say corruption is a bad thing in the life of a country would almost be trivialising a serious and complex problem.
“Our country has long been distorted by corruption and corruption has progressively eroded her strength and undermined her potentials; corruption asphyxiates initiative and all good ideas wilt and die under its crippling presence.
“Right now, Nigeria can be said to be far from having a properly defined national character that guides and mediates her overall behaviour.
“We seem to just exist, floating in a terrestrial space and hoping that if we continue to string things along anyhow, we will get there, somehow – wherever ‘there’ is located.
“This is one of the major problems I see with the whole national expression called Nigeria. We have continually failed to situate our national desires and aspiration within the scaffold of self-fashioning,” the cleric added.
Also at the weekend, former Governor of Oyo State, Rashidi Ladoja, castigated the party on which platform he rode to power in 2003, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), describing it as “a party of deceit and where taking of bribes is seen as a pride.”
Ladoja dumped PDP in January 2011 for the Accord Party (AP) under which banner he contested the last governorship election and came third, trailing both Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and PDP candidates, Abiola Ajimobi and Adebayo Alao-Akala, respectively.
But, the PDP had not given up on him, mounting pressure for his return to the party.
However, instead of yielding to the PDP pressure, Ladoja tongue lashed the party in Ajaawa in the Ogo-Oluwa Local Government area of the state where he received decampees from the Adebayo Alao-Akala and Arapaja/Jumoke Akinjide factions of the PDP as well as from the ACN at the weekend.
Ladoja mocked PDP, saying its name had been changed to “People Deceiving People.”
He said happenings in the local and national leadership of the party had shown the people that it would be unwise to pitch their tents with a deceitful party.