SSS accused me of partisanship – Bakare

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.

Bakare added, “Partisanship also means one-sided or biased. The message I preach are only biased in favour of righteousness, justice and truth.

“To this, I plead guilty because there is nothing anyone can do against the truth, but for the truth. If I’m being asked to tone down my message because of perceived partisanship, those asking me to do so have only succeeded in precipitating a tone up.”   

The lawyer, who was the vice-presidential candidate for the Congress for Progressive Change in  the 2011 presidential  election, said he was not against the person of President Goodluck Jonathan but against bad governance and corruption.