The General Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare has condemned the denial of Christian persecution in Nigeria.
Speaking during a State of the Nation Address at the Citadel Global Community Church on Sunday, Bakare stated that the country’s worsening insecurity has exposed deep structural wounds long ignored by successive governments.
According to him, the continued killings across Benue, Plateau, Southern Kaduna and other Middle Belt states were a “shame on the Nigerian state.”
“To deny that Christians have been targeted in many Middle Belt communities is to turn the truth on its head,” he said.
He criticised the National Assembly for remaining silent on the insecurity crisis until the United States Congress debated the issue, accusing lawmakers of prioritising 2027 politicking and defections over national security.
He also berated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs failing to galvanise diplomatic goodwill to support Nigeria’s war against terror.
He said, “It is a shame on the Nigerian government that these communities would resort to calling on the American government to help because their own government has failed them woefully.
“It is a shame on our National Assembly that it took the United States Congress, not the representatives elected by Nigerians, to convene a hearing on the lived experiences of citizens suffering under insecurity, while those in Abuja were busy with politicking, posturing for political relevance, defecting from one political party to another in their desperate manoeuvres to secure their seats ahead of the 2027 elections.
“It is indeed a shame that Nigeria’s foreign affairs architecture failed all the while to mobilise Nigeria’s dwindling diplomatic goodwill to secure international support for the war on terror, only to respond with excuses when that goodwill reached its lowest ebb.”
Bakare added that tensions in the South-East, exacerbated by the detention and trial of separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu, showed that Nigeria had not healed from the 1967-1970 Civil War.
He urged President Bola Tinubu to apologise to victims of banditry in the country.
© 2025 Naijaonpoint, a division of NOP Media Inc. Contact us via [email protected]