Clerics tackle Tunde Bakare on Balewa’s alleged curse on Igbo

The Christian Association of Igbo Ministers (CAIM) has debunked Serving Overseer of The Citadel Global Community Church, formerly known as the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare’s story that Igbo were cursed by the first Prime Minister of Nigeria, the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.

The group claimed that Bakare during his recent sermon narrated how the 1966 coupists removed Balewa’s religious turban, forced him, a teetotaler and a Muslim, to drink wine, poured some on his head and shot him. Consequently, the dying Balewa cursed the Igbo, asserting that they would never rule Nigeria forever.

The Igbo clerics described Bakare’s version of the 1966 military coup as weird, spurious, sinister and mischievous, noting that it was a rehash of timeworn, stereotyped conspiracy theory of the 1966 Igbo coup, ostensibly carried to entrench Igbo hegemonic subjugation.

In a statement signed by the group’s President, Apostle Solomon Chukwuemeka Okorie, and Secretary, Rev. Francis Ujunwa Simeon, the group maintained that by adding false, gory details of Balewa’s death, which was unheard of, Bakare is set on mischief against the Igbo nation.

The group claimed that Bakare was a minor when the event happened and wondered how he fabricated such odious red herring at this stage of Nigeria’s history.

The statement reads in part: “None of the eyewitness accounts, nor the memoirs of military officers involved in the coup and counter-coup of 1966 ever mentioned that Balewa cursed the Igbo. Why should Pastor Bakare, who was obviously a minor at that time, fabricate this odious red herring at this stage of Nigeria’s history?”

Posing some questions for Bakare to answer, the group added: “Even if he heard it from the grapevine, did he verify it from eyewitnesses before amplifying it in the public domain. If sued in a competent court of law, can Pastor Bakare summon an eyewitness or present an audio-visual record to corroborate his weird tale? Why should a man of Bakare’s standing, a pastor and lawyer, broadcast such an imaginary and inciting story in the public domain?”

The group, therefore, urged Northern compatriots and Nigerians, as well as the international community, to ignore Bakare’s weird and fictitious narrative. (The Guardian)