Bakare Blames Arms Deal Mess On Recklessness Of CBN

Bakare Blames Arms Deal
Mess On Recklessness Of CBN
— Jan 11, 2016

Fiery preacher and pastor of Later Rain
Assembly, Tunde Bakare, yesterday put the
blame of the unfolding cases of alleged
corruption in the country's arms deal saga
at the door steps of Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN), saying the apex Bank was reckless
in the discharge of its duties to the country.
Bakare, who is one of the conveners of the
Save Nigeria Group, in a an annual state of
the nation broadcast held in his church
headquarters in Lagos, said the CBN is
currently causing the nation more harm than
good.
He said, "To the discerning, the CBN
currently contributes negatively to the
Nigerian state in more ways than one.
Firstly, the CBN has become a conduit for
politicians to drain the nation. Otherwise,
how can a letter of barely two paragraphs
addressed to the current CBN governor, Mr.
Godwin Emefiele, by the then national
security adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki
(rtd), become the Authority to Incur
Expenditure (AIE) leading to cash flow of
$47 million and several millions of euros?
"In decent climes, the CBN governor cannot
continue in office while the NSA is
accounting for his alleged misdeeds."
The clergyman man, who tasked the
President Muhammadu Buhari
administration on its promise of change to
Nigerians, said the change can only be
realized if the citizenry keys into the vision
of the government.
"The buzzword in our nation today is
"change". It was perhaps the key word and
message that brought President
Muhammadu Buhari to power as he
campaigned all over the country on APC's
platform.
"Now that the election is over, it is
incumbent upon us all, citizens and
government, to do all in our collective power
to ensure that we are not short-changed by
the change we so desired and voted for.
"We the people, and those we put in power
to serve our collective interests, must be
willing to die to our inglorious past. We
must expect and accept a clearly defined
pathway to what we collectively desire to
become. We must turn our backs on what
used to be if we are ever to become
something new. That is the secret to
successful change. To settle for less that
this is to short-change ourselves.
"Let me state clearly here that I firmly
believe that change is possible. And, much
more, I am fully persuaded that Nigeria can
and will change for the better.
"We need to change our governance
structure. The present system is severely
wasteful. Left as is, it will continue to
generate as well as perpetuate a syndicate
of scams and profligacy at all levels of
government
"We need to change our grundnorm by
creating a true federal system of government
while making the welfare and security of our
people the raison d'être of government. We
need to change our cash and carry judicial
and legislative systems.
"Thus, in order to obtain the new, we must
release a decaying system that has arrested
our development and growth as well as
created a very wide gulf between the
opportunistic elitist rich and unfortunate
poor among our citizens," he said.
On national security, Bakare noted that
though government is doing all within its
power to combat terrorism, the task would
have been easier if the country
decentralized its security system.
"Considering regional, geographical and
cultural peculiarities, why not allow zonal
coalitions of states to design and implement
regional security strategies in conjunction
with the federal government?
"Why have we bought into the deceptive
notion that the security of our nation will be
hampered if we introduce policing at federal,
regional, state and community levels?
He pointed to the successes recorded by the
use of the Civilian JTF in the fight against
Boko Haram as an instance.
"The earlier we remove the legal bottlenecks
in the way of achieving the maximisation of
our local resources in this regard, the better
our chances of defeating insurgents and
terrorists in record time," he said.

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