Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, told his congregation that he warned against the “Emilokan” kind of politics.
Lifestyle Nigeria reports that Bakare said this during a State of the Nation broadcast at the church in Ikeja, Lagos.
Emilokan, is a Yoruba saying which means ‘It’s my turn,’ became very popular when it was used by President Bola Tinubu during his 2023 pre-election campaign.
Bakare said ’emilokan’ was a tendency of authoritarianism.
During his speech themed ‘Vice, Virtue & Time: Three Things That Never Stand Still,’ the cleric said, “I’m reminded of the warning that I sounded to Nigerians in January 2023 in my address titled, ‘Bridging the gap between politics and governance.’
“I warned that the politics of entitlement; the ’emilokan’ type of politics would breed an imperium presidency, one that would slide towards dictatorship and would be intolerant of dissent.”
Bakare’s comments were regarding the arrest, detention and prosecution of the suspended Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, as well as the detention of the former boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa, by the Department of State Services.
The DSS arrested Emefiele in June, which according to the spokesperson of the security agency, Peter Afunanya, “was on the strength of suspected fresh criminal infractions/information, one of which forms the basis for his current prosecution.”