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DIALOGUE WITH NIGERIA BY AKIN OSUNTOKUN Pastor Tunde Bakare is in a near impossible situation-that of balancing his personal relationship with Major General Muhammadu Buhari with the obligation of his bully pulpit as a liberation theologian and social critic. He was caught in the Buhari web when their paths crossed in the 2011 presidential election where he paired with then candidate Buhari on the platform of the defunct Congress for Peoples Change (CPC). He caught national attention lately with his biblically themed ‘let my people go’ sermon at the Citadel church. Bakare had prescribed to Buhari the adoption of the restructuring agenda as a systemic policy response to the imploding political crisis plaguing the nation. Buhari’s response was typical and predictable-‘we don’t know what the advocates mean by restructuring’. The Pastor then reminded him of the masterplan on restructuring he presented to him in his first week in office as president. To educate the president, Bakare projected the utility of restructuring (restoration of federalism employing the 1960 and 1963 constitutions as guide and precedent) with the narrative of the regionalism enabled achievements of the leadership of Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and Nnamdi Azikiwe in the Western, Northern and Eastern regions. As recalled by Chief Afe Babalola, “the West was doing well under the old constitution, East was doing well under the old constitution, North was doing well under the old constitution”.