Pastor Tunde Bakare, a serving overseer of Citadel Global Community Church, has denied claims of a secret agreement with former President Muhammadu Buhari on power handover.
Gatekeepers News reports that Bakare, while speaking on Channels Television, said, “There was no written pact between us. He is late. I will never say anything unfair about him.”
Bakare, who was Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election, said the former president gave every aspirant a fair opportunity to contest for the APC presidential ticket. He revealed that Buhari had invited all presidential aspirants to a meeting at the villa, where he asked them to allow him to freely choose his preferred successor.
“He said, ‘I have allowed the governors to choose who will succeed them or to go for a second term if they are going for a second term. I am asking you today to allow me to also freely choose the person I desire to succeed me,'” Bakare recounted.
Other aspirants present at the meeting, including Yemi Osinbajo, Mohammed Badaru, and Ogbonnaya Onu, accepted Buhari’s request, according to Bakare.
Buhari passed away on Sunday at the age of 82 in a London clinic, sparking widespread tributes across Nigeria and globally.
