Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church Pastor Tunde Bakare warned that Nigeria’s development would remain elusive unless leaders addressed institutional weaknesses and ensured continuity in governance.
Bakare spoke in Lagos on Sunday at the public presentation of his three-volume work, Strategic Intervention in Governance. The books document his interventions in Nigeria’s political and governance affairs over nearly two decades.
He stated that the country’s recurring crises could not be resolved merely by changing individuals in government. Sustainable nation-building, he argued, required leaders capable of confronting difficult problems and creating institutions that could preserve progress beyond their tenure.
“Nation-building is impossible without leadership continuity. Vision without succession eventually dies,” Bakare said.
The three-volume publication brings together 104 speeches delivered between 2008 and 2025 across five presidential administrations. It covers Bakare’s interventions on governance, constitutional reform, corruption, leadership, public accountability and national development.
Elder Olabode Adekanye reviewed the work and described it as “the voice that challenged a nation.” He said the collection should be read not merely as an archive of speeches but as a sustained argument about the responsibilities of leadership and citizenship.
Adekanye noted that the books challenged Nigerians to move beyond diagnosing the country’s problems to taking responsibility for solving them.
The first volume covers speeches from 2008 to 2015 and centres on the legitimacy of political authority. The second volume, spanning 2015 to 2018, examines institutional failure and the relationship between leadership and citizenship. The third volume, covering 2019 to 2025, shifts towards institution-building.
The review highlighted the establishment of the Citadel School of Government and its partnership with the University of Lagos Business School as examples of Bakare’s move from identifying problems to building structures that could help solve them.
Bakare, who served as running mate to the late President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2011 presidential election, said the book was intended to provide ideas for addressing Nigeria’s problems rather than merely attacking those responsible for them.
He called for greater compassion among leaders and urged young Nigerians to take responsibility for creating opportunities even when institutions failed to provide pathways. He added that the future of Nigeria depended on citizens willing to make sacrifices for the country.
Former Ogun State Governor Segun Osoba, who chaired the event, described Bakare as a “tough character” motivated by concern for Nigeria rather than personal interest.
“When you see Bakare fighting for the nation, it is not for self,” Osoba said. He added that Bakare’s book was not just to criticise but to proffer solutions to the nation’s challenges.
