Convener, Save Nigeria Group, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has asked President Goodluck Jonathan to resign.
Bakare made the call while delivering a speech at the Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos, on Sunday.
Speaking on the theme,
‘How to Change Government Peacefully and Make Society Better’, Bakare
told the President that resignation was not “a sign of weakness but a
sign of patriotic truthfulness”.
The Serving Overseer of
Latter Rain and vice-presidential candidate for Congress for Democratic
Change in the 2011 presidential election, said Jonathan should not wait
to be impeached or disgraced out of office.
Bakare said, “Mr.
President should not wait for the conclusions in the court of law and
the court of public opinion for the rape and atrocities committed
against the Appropriation Act 2011 in respect of the subsidy scandal – a
ghost that still haunts his administration and will not rest until the
truth is made known and justice is served.
“The admission of
extra-budgetary spending of over N2tn without appropriation is another
impeachable time bomb that can explode any time. It would be a total
disgrace if resignation comes after that explosion.”
The cleric added, “If
change, positive change, will ever come to our clime, it will not be
engineered by those who are benefitting without conscience from the
present cesspool of corrosive corruption.
“It will only come from a
new breed without greed and a radical opposition to corruption. True
genuine change can only come from those not infected by the present
corruption malaise.”
He predicted that the next general elections would be better, adding that they might come earlier than expected.
Bakare said, “He
(Jonathan) deserves our sympathy, our prayers and whatever else we can
honourably and legally do to make sure he gets back to his home-base
safely.
“Perhaps a few
suggestions may change the course of our rapid descent into the abyss
since free and fair and credibe election is currently alien to our
polity. In all honesty, I perceive very strongly that our next general
election will be better, though it may come earlier than expected.”
He said for a successful general elections in 2015, corruption, violence and insecurity must be addressed.
Bakare said, “Without
doubt, if corruption remains king, violence its deputy and insecurity
the treasurer of the ill-fated status quo in the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, we might as well write the epitaph today: ‘Here lie the remains
of a potentially great country whose ruin came because leadership did
not give a damn.”
He said the scandalous
management of national resources, the unbriddled stealing of public
funds and the exposure of level of corruption in every arm of government
called for a change of guards.
“Mr. President may be doing his best but
the impact is not felt anywhere except in the bank accounts of oil
vultures, his corrupt political allies and corporate cowboys.”
