Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Citadel Global Community Church has dismissed long-standing claims that the late former President Muhammadu Buhari was a religious fundamentalist, sharing a personal experience that contradicted public perception.
Speaking on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Monday, Bakare, who ran alongside Buhari in the 2011 presidential election under the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), said he initially believed the late leader was a religious hardliner—until he got to know him closely.
“I thought he was a religious fundamentalist until I came close,” Bakare said.
He then shared a surprising encounter during their campaign in Kaduna, which changed his perspective entirely.
“After the flag off of our campaign in Kaduna, we rode in the same car, we got home to his place and he staggered, the next word he spoke, God is my witness, was ‘Jesus Christ of Nazareth,’” Bakare recounted.
“And I said, ‘General, what is that?’ He said, ‘You do not have the monopoly of Jesus Christ, I’m thanking God,’”
Bakare noted that Buhari’s inner circle also revealed his openness to other faiths.
“He just said that, and then I found out that his bodyguards were all Christians. Not only that, his driver of 10 years asked me to pray with him and I said, ‘I don’t pray Islamic prayers,’ and he said, ‘I’m a Christian, sir.’”
The former president, who passed away in London on Sunday around 4:30 p.m. after a prolonged illness, will be laid to rest in Daura, Katsina State, on Tuesday at 2 p.m. The state funeral will be conducted by a Federal Government committee approved by President Bola Tinubu.
