"SSS accused me of partisanship...I won't tone down my messages" - Pastor Tunde Bakare

Convener, Save Nigeria Group, Pastor Tunde Bakare, says the State Security Service accused him of partisanship when he was invited by the service last Monday.

Bakare was invited by the SSS over his message penultimate Sunday, entitled, ‘How to Change Government Peacefully and Make Society Better’. The Serving Overseer of Latter Rain Assembly said at a press conference in Lagos on Sunday the Director of SSS told him that he had become partisan.

Bakare said, "The state Director of SSS asked me to tone down my message, because in his words, I had become partisan. I countered his argument by saying that my message has not changed since the days of the military"


"A corrupt, perverse, wasteful, directionless and clueless government is offensive to me and should be offensive to every intelligent patriot in this nation. I asked him if he considered my activities and that of SNG in 2010 controversial and partisan when we marched the streets of Abuja and Lagos to protest the impunity being meted out to then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan in the dying days of President Musa Yar’Adua. He did not answer me."

"Now is the time to answer him and the likes of him who think partisanship is a spiritual sin or crime that must not be committed by clergymen." He said a partisan person meant someone who actively supports a party, cause or principle, stressing that people who do not stand for something, would fall for anything.

Additionally, Pastor Tunde Bakare, on Sunday, in Lagos, warned security operatives in the country against being used as instruments of intimidation, especially against prophets so as not to face damnation.

He also stated that he was not having anything against the person of President Goodluck Jonathan but against bad governance, misappropriation of state funds, embezzlement of public funds and spending money like water without appropriation.

In his message, Bakare said that since the beginning of this year, there had been threats against him and some key members of the Save Nigeria Group, (SNG) from the highest quarters, adding that last Monday, he was invited by the Lagos State director of the State Security Service (SSS), and advised to tone down his messages because of his alleged partisanship.

He said, “whenever you ask the prophet to tone down his messages, his God will respond on his behalf. The answer to tone down is tone up.

“Secret service agents, men of the armed forces and the police, hear the word of the Lord. Be careful how you carry out your assignments against genuine servants of God by the label — Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor or Teacher.

“Be careful not to obey the last order, especially if the last order is evil or against natural justice. You cannot obey such without bringing damnation upon your own head.”

Denying the claim that he was arrested and released the cleric said he was only invited for a chat that lasted for 60 minutes and was advised to tone down his messages, noting his influence and the unprecedented crowd recorded at Gani Fawehinmi Park, during the January 2011 fuel subsidy removal protest.

Pastor Bakare said: “I countered their argument by saying that my messages have not changed since the days of the military. A corrupt, perverse, wasteful directionless and clueless government is offensive to me and should be offensive to every intelligent patriot in this country.”
 
Quoting copiously from Ecclesiastes 8: 11-13, the cleric described the ongoing trial of the alleged oil thieves as window dressing, doubting the sincerity of the present administration.

“We have been lied to as a nation and there is no sincerity in this government’s words or actions,” he declared.