- Pastor Tunde Bakare said it is insensitive of the Nigerian government to ask farmers to cohabit peacefully with people destroying their farms
- He urged the Nigerian government to clamp down on violent herdsmen before the crisis becomes a full blown act of terrorism
- He added that the federal government in insensitive to the plight of farmers by asking for land to build cattle colonies
Pastor Tunde Bakare has blasted the federal government of Nigeria for what he called the insensitive way it's handling the herdsmen crisis in the nation.
Bakare, in an interview on Politics Today, a programme on Channels TV, said that the Muhammadu Buhari's administration should have clamped down on violent herders rather than asking the farmers to give part of their lands for cattle colonies.
He said: "With all the powers at the disposal of the federal government, to allow Nigerians to be killing each other this way is unfortunate.
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"Some of this could be avoided. You are now preaching peaceful coexistence to farmers to fold their hands and watch the people who are coming to take their lands.
"I watched the video of how Falae's farm was burnt to the ground by the criminal and heartless people."
"I have seen Fulani herdsmen before. I grew up in the north, we play with them, they play with us, all these ones carrying AK47, who gave them the guns. Who licensed it for them?"
Asked what he would do different about the herdsmen if he was in the government, Bakare said: "I will clamp down on them. Are there no forest in Sambisa where you can have ranches? I can understand if you say let's create ranches to build our economy but the word colony is so unfortunate and absolutely insensitive. Who are you colonising?"
Reacting to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo's controversial letter asking President Buhari not to contest again in 2019, Bakare said he agreed with the former president that the present government has failed.
The preacher added that any right thinking Nigerian would agree with Obasanjo's letter that the present administration has failed.
He said: "By any way you look at it, this is not the government we all hoped for. This is not what we thought the government that promised us change in the beginning, this is not how we thought they would perform woefully."
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NAIJ.com previously reported that Pastor Bakare has denied reports that he wanted to run for Nigeria's presidential seat in 2019.
In tweets of his sermon on Sunday, January 14 at his Latter Rain Assembly in Ogba area of Lagos state, the pastor said his message from God was misinterpreted.
According to his tweets, at no point did he say he would run in 2019 or declared open a presidential campaign as was inferred in the reports of his Monday, January 1, 2018 sermon.
2019 reelection bid: Should President Buhari heed Obasanjo's advice? - on NAIJ.com TV
Source: Naija.ng