Latter Rain Assembly's Pastor Tunde Bakare declares that he will run for president in 2023

LATTER Rain Assembly founder Pastor Tunde Bakare has thrown his hat into the ring ahead of the 2023 presidential elections saying he plans to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in four years when his tenure ends.

In 2011, Pastor Bakare was President Buhari's running mate when he ran for president on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). In 2014, the CPC merged with several other parties to form the All Progressives Congress and President Buhari then went on to win the presidential elections the following year.

With President Buhari having won a second term in the just concluded elections, he is due to leave office in 2023 and under Nigeria's informal rotational arrangement, the next president is due to come from the south of the country. Speaking yesterday shortly after casting his vote in the governorship and state house of assembly elections in Lagos, Pastor Bakare declared that he will be a candidate in 2023.

Pastor Bakare said: “I am going to throw my hat into the fray and I am just waiting for President Buhari to finish his tenure in 2023.  We cannot continue this way because we have something to offer this country and we will by the grace of God."

Adding that he was desirous of making Nigeria one of the greatest countries in the world, Pastor Bakare said he looked forward to a future where every Nigerian's vote would count. He urged Nigerians not to allow themselves to be deceived by stomach infrastructure when the needed infrastructure in their communities had decayed.

Pastor Bakare added that he would continue to pray for the day when every Nigerian would come out and make their votes count. This is the second time Pastor Bakare has confirmed he has his eyes on Aso Rock as he predicted in an interview on January 3 in Calgary, Canada, that he would succeed President Buhari as Nigeria’s 16th leader.