By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor  & Charles Kumolu
Lawyer turned pastor and now politician, Pastor Tunde Bakare, is an engaging personality. Sharp words from  his mouth have proceeded from his pulpit to slay many on the pew of the Later Rain congregation which he pastors in Lagos.

The radical pastor who lately entered the political arena as the presidential running mate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari engaged selected journalists on the prospects of the party in this weekend’s election, the transformation of Buhari and why in his view Buhari is the man preserved by God for this hour.
Excerpts.

What challenges are facing the CPC in this contest?

If there is anything I can lay my finger on is the misconception and the misrepresentation of the man , Mohammadu Buhari. In all my interactions with stakeholders in Save Nigeria Group (SNG), the message I was getting was that Buhari was a person to avoid. And from the blues the man zeroed on me and called me to come and run with him. As I said from the blues, I don’t want you to misunderstand me that I never met him before, we met, in fact , I engaged all the political class, the key, key actors.

When I got so close , I saw the man totally different from the way he was being presented in the press , or by people. First it was a shocker to me, because I saw that the man is very humane, and he is simple. During the presentation of our party manifesto in Lagos last week, people saw me when I carried his iPad , he was actually reading his mails from the iPad , and that is the person you think is locked in analogue age.

I felt how do I alongside others show the real Muhammadu Buhari so that people can see him as a leader you can trust , and the person that is reserved and preserved by God , for this time and this season of Nigeria history. As regards challenges , every political party has its own hurdle to cross as a challenge.

Ours probably will be that we don’t have money bags in this party but we manage the resources we have. It might look little but we have put in minimal seed for maximum harvest.

How do you access the acceptance of the CPC in the Southwest?

Okay, if you say how our message have gained ground and how the people respond to us -it was tremendous. I can mention cities that we have been and states that we have been; Ondo State , Ekiti State , Oyo State , Ogun State , Lagos State. The only state we have not visited in terms of rally is Osun State but others have done tremendous work there but that does not mean we left Osun unattended. We have been to the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade who brought all the surrounding monarchs and chiefs to meet with us (just) like the Awujale of Ijebu-_Ode, Oba Sikiru Adetona did he brought all the monarchs to meet with us to receive our manifesto.

Politics is not just the art of the possible it is looking at the needs of the people. The purpose of government is the welfare of the people. What is dear to the people of South West is the issue of true federalism in Nigeria, it is very, very crucial to them. Education is key in the South West because to kill the educational sector is to kill an average South Westerner. If I can use that word like it is said in my home town, if you see a man with a rag and torn clothes on his back in his farm, his children are in school. But since the military intervention in our system our educational system has been almost been totally destroyed. Federalism is gone.

Specifically to answer your question on the Southwest, because we are not going to be President of Northwest or Southwest, or Vice President of Northwest or Southwest, we are going to be President and Vice_ President of Nigeria, that is what will touch the life of our people. For General Muhammadu Buhari his great concern is the need to secure this nation first.

The way we are going, things like kidnaping have become a cottage industry. So we need to secure this country first and then manage it effectively. We are not going to just make promises we can’t fulfill.

We also sat and looked at the time lines. That this thing you promised how viable? How can you get this done? When can you get it done? Who can we trust to get it done?

We will invest in the existing educational institutions and in addition to that create science and technology institutions with satellite campuses in all the different zones. We will invest in teachers’ training. And there is time line for the deliverables, so we looked at it that all these things we have promised, how can we get it done, when can we get it done? Who can we trust? We began to think of the change team that we will assemble, east, west, north and south of our country and from the Diaspora. Men who have integrity and track record of being proven, and able to handle the issues that face us today.

General Muhammadu Buhari was alleged to be partisan as a former head of state and chairman of Petroleum Task Force PTF especially in the siting of projects and that he is draconian. So, can he change?

Lets me start with the draconian or the issue of another military man in power. Number one, people change. I was privileged to read a book on Nelson Mandela. He was imprisoned when he was young, at 44 years old and he came out of prison when he was 71 years old, and he said he came out more matured, balanced, and that he looked at the same issues he looked at when he was 44 years differently, people change.

As a Christian and as a preacher, I know that every saint has a past, every sinner has a future. Moses who murdered became a deliverer, Saul who persecuted the church became a foremost apostle, people change as well. I am not justifying anybody.

Let’s take the long term sentences given to politicians, Decree 4 that sent journalists Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor to prison.

I was there at the Sheraton Hotel , at the Book Launch of a book by Femi Ogunsanwo who was my client when I was practicing and I was invited to be among those who will present the book, and Tunde Thomspson was there and I overheard him telling Yinka Odumakin (who is now spokesperson for Buhari Campaign Organization)that when you see General thank him for us that at least he didn’t do two things – he did not shut down The Guardian newspapers , and he did not send us parcel bomb. He said he sent them to jail compared to other things that Dele Giwa suffered and other Newspaper organizations that were shut down by another Head of State that wrecked those organizations and that compared to that one, that he did well!

Let us come to Metro line, I have seen General Muhammadu Buhari on it, and he said: “The decision was not done to target Lagos or the Yorubas, or to disrupt their infrastructure development” He said: “When we came to power, we didn’t even know how much Nigeria was owing, that the debt burden was so huge and that they involved external creditors (Chase Manhattan Bank) that will help us find out, how much Nigeria was owing. The amount of money that would be borrowed for Metro line would be additional burden of what they were trying to get rid, so we stopped it.”

They didn’t do that just to hurt the South West or Lagos State alone , but they stopped borrowing completely. It was not that when one project was stopped here that other projects continued elsewhere. It was not done to stop the Yoruba from progressing or that they sat down and took a decision to stop Lagos from having Metro line project.

Look at it from another angle. That administration lasted two years and there have been succeeding administrations why did they not fix the metro line project? The person who pioneered it served under General Sanni Abacha , why didn’t he bring it back?

Even now that Governor Babatunde Fashola is doing light rail why not return to metro line? Nigeria’s economy was totally battered by Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s administration and it was in trying to stop the mess that they decided to stop anything that had to do with external borrowing and when they did it Naira became stronger .

We will ensure that in our country that when it comes to public forms and documentation that we will remove things like state of origin , it will become state of residence so that every Nigerian must be free to reside in any part of the country.

We will go beyond that ; we will initiate constitutional amendment to reduce the power at the centre. We are going to look at issues that the state can handle. For goodness sake, what is federal government doing with secondary education? Why do we have a ministry of agriculture at the federal level? All these we are going to sort out.