Senior Pastor, Citadel Global Community Church, Lagos, Tunde Bakare, has described the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a political party that delights in meting out suffering and anti-people policies on Nigerians.

In a state of the nation broadcast at the church’s premises on Sunday, he regretted that the APC has now become a platform for politicians who have neither conviction nor ideology and who hop from party to party seeking power at all costs.

Bakare made the assertions while rueing the hardship Nigerians had been plunged into by the APC-led government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Specifically, he was evaluating the policies the Tinubu administration had sought to implement since assuming power and the palliatives suggested to cushion the harsh effects of the policies on Nigerians.

“When I consider the vision and founding spirit that birthed the APC, I cannot but conclude that the APC is losing the plot. The APC was established as a progressive party with clear motivations to establish true nationhood, eliminate corruption, oversee governance structure reforms, eradicate poverty, and facilitate economic growth.

“However, like its predecessor, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the APC has now become a platform for politicians who have neither conviction nor ideology and who hop from party to party seeking power at all costs. The suffering meted out to the Nigerian people as a result of anti-people policies is not what the APC once stood for,” he said.

Bakare, who confirmed that he was there when the APC was formed and the extent of his involvement is well-documented, noted that the APC stood for progressivism.

He said: “Progressivism is characterised by substantial public investments in social sectors such as education and healthcare, and it achieves inclusiveness and social mobility by deploying political power to provide an irreducible minimum standard of living for citizens; progressivism prioritises equity, justice and inclusiveness in access to opportunities. While it facilitates a private sector-led economy, its economic growth policies are hinged on empowering the people by redistributing opportunities on the bases of fairness and equity. Progressivism is not built on trickle-down economics; instead, it is grassroots-oriented, invests in local opportunities, and builds the economy from the bottom up.”

Bakare observed that as progressivism eradicates currency arbitrage, it would not leave the currency to float without a guarantee of domestic production, the cushioning effect of social investments, and a readiness to intervene where necessary to strengthen the local currency.

“As progressivism eliminates a corruption-ridden subsidy regime, it would not hesitate to boost or underwrite access to factors of production such as energy, infrastructure, and human resource in an atmosphere of transparency and accountability. A progressive approach to the subsidy conundrum would have been characterised by a phased removal of subsidy, buffered by transparent investments in local refining capacity and social welfare, while the corrupt individuals and corporations that have bled the nation are compelled to return their loots. Whereas progressivism cooperates with the international community in compliance with international economic and trade law, it would not allow the economy to drift in the ocean of one-size-fits-all recommendations by neoliberal foreign interests,” Bakare added.

The cleric sounded a note of warning to the ruling party, stating that it hopes to survive as a political party in a political landscape that is becoming highly competitive, it must revisit its foundations and “reinvent itself into a new party that is an Alternative, Parallel, and Contrast (APC) to what the current party has become.”

While admitting that President Tinubu has tried to stabilise a rocking boat by announcing some interventions, Bakare noted that he cannot build a strong economy on reactionary and shifting policies.

He advised the President and his team to return to the drawing board to drive a coordinated economic programme based on the original progressive ideology of the APC.