In a moment filled with love, joy, and heartfelt reflections, Pastor Tunde Bakare and his wife, Olayide Bakare, affectionately known as “Authentic Mrs. B,” celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on November 30, 2024. The milestone came just weeks after Bakare marked his 70th birthday, further cementing this year as one of remarkable achievements for the couple.
The event, attended by their children, grandchildren, friends, and associates. A viral video of their eldest daughter, Olubunmi Fabode, sharing a deeply personal testimony at a different event held to celebrate the popular pastor.
Fabode took the audience on an emotional journey, recounting a moment from her childhood when she was faced with the possibility of her parents separating. “When I was seven years old, my father came to the room and told me, ‘Your mother and I are going our separate ways. I am telling you this so you can decide who you want to live with,’” she recalled.
The news was a devastating blow for the young girl, but her concern went beyond her parents’ relationship. “I did not care so much about my mum and dad not living together,” she admitted. “But I thought, if they were separated, my siblings may choose either of our parents. And I knew that could not work because I absolutely love my siblings. They are the joy of my life.”
Determined to keep her family together, Fabode turned to prayer. “Something had to happen to interrupt that plan. I prayed, not because I was religious, but because I knew I had to,” she said.
Fabode’s account shed light on the challenges her parents faced, rooted in their contrasting and tumultuous upbringings. Pastor Tunde Bakare, one of 22 children born into a polygamous home, lost his father at the tender age of three. His wife, Olayide, grew up in Leicester, England, in a fragmented family environment that included foster care, her grandmother’s custody, and later her father and stepmother’s home.
“They each came from brokenness, dysfunction, and upheaval,” Fabode explained. “Somehow, they found each other and decided to try with nothing but their faith in God and the Bible as a guide to create something new that they had not experienced.”
The couple’s journey, according to Fabode, was far from easy. “Their marriage was not just a union; it was a battleground. A place where generational curses were confronted and wrestled to the ground,” she said.
Fabode credited her parents’ unwavering faith and determination as the forces that transformed their lives and gave their children a foundation of love and stability. “A dear aunty once told me something that stayed with me. She said the first generation of any marriage that emerges from a broken home always faces an extraordinary battle because the enemy is working to perpetrate darkness from one more generation,” she said.
Her parents, she emphasized, were the ones who decided to break the cycle. “Both of them stood in the gap and said, ‘This far and no further.’ It is because of this testament that we are celebrating here today.”
She also praised her father’s spiritual transformation. “He was a casual Christian before he got married. But when he saw generational curses, nobody taught him to pray—it came from inside,” she said.
Fabode highlighted her mother’s evolution into a nurturing and resilient woman. “She became the woman she is today—resilient, nurturing—by learning in this marriage. She didn’t have a model to follow,” she said.
Married in 1984, Pastor Tunde Bakare and Olayide have raised five children and built a legacy that is now celebrated as an inspiration to many. Fabode described her parents as role models who created an atmosphere of love in their home, ensuring their children never lacked anything.
“My parents’ marriage was a testament to the power of faith, resilience, and determination to do something new under God,” she said.
