General Overseer of Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare has come out hard on the Central Governor of Nigeria,Godwin Emefiele over his alleged role in the disbursement of funds meant for procurement of arm by the last administration.
In his state of the nation broadcast titled “Roadmap To Successful Change,”delivered yesterday,Bakare condemned the alleged role played by Emefiele, insisting that noting that the CBN governor was as guilty as others, including Dasuki who has so far being accused of benefiting from the sleaze.
According to him: “To the discerning, the CBN currently contributes negatively to the Nigerian state in more ways than one. Firstly,the CBN has become a conduit for politicians to drain the nation.
“Otherwise, how can a letter of barely two paragraphs addressed to the current CBN governor,Mr.Godwin Emefiele, by the then National Security Adviser (NSA), Col.Sambo Dasuki,become the authority to incur expenditure, leading to cash flow of $47 million and several millions of Euros?
“In decent climes,the CBN governor cannot continue in office while the NSA is accounting for his alleged misdeeds,” he added.
Bakare who commended the President for his resolve in fighting corruption, however urged the government to address the lopsidedness in the structure called Nigeria, arguing that unless this was done,nothing tangible may be achieved.
Speaking further on the matter,bakare advised the government against jettisoning the report of the national conference, as its implementations would go a long way to address many issues plaguing the nation both economically, structurally and otherwise. He warned the new administration against reducing the document to a party affair, saying that it was one report accepted by many Nigerians of various divide.
Empasising on the mantra of change upon which the administration was elected into office, Bakare pointed out government has a lot it must do to effect the desired change, but that they can only be actualised by changing the nation’s governance structure which today appears wasteful, just as there is need for a proper reorientation of the citizenry as well as the leadership.
He highlighted some of the policies and strategies so far adopted, describing them as commendable. He explained that government needs to do more by ensuring that power is devolved in the states such that each of them is allowed to develop at their own pace.
Reacting to the continued silence of the Save Nigeria Group to the removal of fuel subsidy which sparked protest four years ago, Bakare insisted that it was wrong to conclude that the protest was to stop fuel subsidy alone, as was rather to challenge the corruption that defined the subsidy regime, stressing that the SNG “did not mobilize the people of this country merely to protest the removal of the fuel subsidy, but to challenge the corruption that defined the fuel subsidy regime.
“Even at that time, we recognized the unsustainability of the subsidy regime but maintained that corrupt politicians,in collusion with private interests,had plundered the national treasury through fictitious fuel subsidy claims and were merely hiking the fuel price to mobilize funds to cover up the negative effects of their actions on the economy.”
While calling for transparency in the process and effective communication of the fuel subsidy issue to concerned stakeholders, Bakare advocated for subsidy replacement which he believes allows for the adoption of targeted palliatives that would ensure that the benefits of such interventions get to the ordinary man.
