A popular Pentecostal pastor in Nigeria, Tunde Bakare, has spoken on his failed prophecy that he would succeed the then-President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Bakare, the founder of Citadel Global Community Church (formerly known as the Latter Rain Assembly), spoke when he appeared as a guest on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Monday.

Like Mr Buhari, who died in a London hospital on Sunday, the cleric is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

He was Mr Buhari’s running mate in 2011, when the latter unsuccessfully ran in that year’s presidential election under the platform of the now-defunct Congress for Progressive Change.

Mr Bakare had, in a video clip circulating on social media, claimed there was a divine arrangement for him to become Nigeria’s president at the end of Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure in 2023.

The video, reportedly recorded in 2018, began circulating in September 2019.

“Take it to the mountain top, if you have never heard it before, I am saying it to you this morning in the scheme of things, as far as politics of Nigeria is concerned, President Muhammadu Buhari is number 15, and I am number 16,” Mr Bakare said in the video, as he paced up and down a podium, which appeared to be in his church in Lagos.

“I have never said that to you before. I make it plain this morning, I let you know it this morning, nothing can change it in the name of Jesus. He (Buhari) is number 15, I am number 16,” he added.

PREMIUM TIMES reports that Mr Bakare contested in the 2022 APC presidential primaries which was won by Bola Tinubu, now Nigeria’s president.

At the TV show on Monday night, Seun Okinbaloye, the programme anchor, asked Mr Bakare why his prophecy on succeeding Mr Buhari did not come to pass.

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“That a man said so and so would happen and it didn’t happen does not make him either a criminal or a false prophet,” the pastor responded.

He argued that God can change his plans despite initially revealing it, citing a Biblical story of how God rescinded his decision to destroy Nineveh despite instructing Jonah to make the declaration in the area.

“So, whether I said (I am) the 16 or 17 and it didn’t come to pass, then let’s leave it with me and leave it to the one (God) who told me to take that (APC expression of interest) form and leave the rest to him,” he said.

Mr Bakare, however, said his plans on how to move Nigeria forward were not lost yet despite failing to succeed Mr Buhari.

“I thank God that all the desires and plans I have (for Nigeria), they’re still intact.

“When the opportunity presents itself, (though) I am not running after power or running after position, I’ll do my best to support anyone who’s there because Nigeria’s progress is at stake,” the cleric said.