The Serving General Overseer, the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has urged Nigerians to support presidential candidates with genuine intention to restructure Nigeria.

He made the appeal in a state of the nation broadcast titled: ‘The Road to 2019: Quo Vadis, Nigeria.’

Bakare implored the electorate to demand allegiance from the candidates, as a precondition for supporting them in 2019.

The cleric said: “The mission is the idea around which the men and women of the moment must galvanise towards the birth of a new nation.

“It is more than a manifesto; it is the developmental model founded upon a great vision that must propel our nation to prominence. I am convinced that for Nigeria, the idea whose time has come, is the restructuring of our nation.”

Bakare said restructuring must be the overarching mission around which the social, economic and political development agenda is constructed.

He stressed that it must be the wheels on which Nigeria is propelled for strategic relevance.

Citing the diverse responses by various aspirants in the 2019 poll, he said: “There are those who once championed restructuring, but have now restructured their opinions because they have become part of the system.

“They have forgotten that the position they currently occupy is not permanent. There are those now promising restructuring who did nothing in that regard while they were in the system.

According to him, such politicians face the tall order of convincing the Nigerian people that restructuring is not a mere tool for their inordinate political ambitions.

The cleric added that there are also those incumbents who are diametrically opposed to restructuring because they cannot imagine a Nigeria that is not dependent on petrodollars.

“I do not have a moment to spare for such skeptics. Their political extinction is inevitable, because there is no force strong enough to stop an idea whose time has come.

“Instead, let me spare a moment for those who genuinely desire to know how to restructure; for those influential Nigerians, together with whom we must join forces to wrest our nation from the self-serving political class,” he said.

Bakare solicited 16 pragmatic steps, which the next president must consider in restructuring the country.

On his future political plans, he said though he is not contesting with his name on the ballot box: “I declare to you that I am running. I am running for a united Nigeria that will birth the New Nigeria.

“I am running to begin to stir conversations around the seven-point agenda. I am running to lead Nigerians in a movement to demand the adoption of the pragmatic steps towards restructuring Nigeria.”
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