By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
Vice President Kashim Shettima is in the spotlight for the wrong reason. His principal, President Bola Tinubu, despite the avalanche of endorsements for a second term he has received, publicly acknowledged and accepted, is not breathing a word about pairing with him for the 2027 presidential election. The President has refused to make a categorical statement as to whether he will re-nominate Shettima, former governor of Borno State, as running mate for the 2027 presidential election, thus retaining the Muslim-Muslim ticket that blighted his candidacy and campaigns in 2023 or run with a northern Christian politician from Bauchi State as being hotly rumoured.
Expectedly, the President’s silence has given room to varied permutations and conjectures about Shettima’s 2027 fate. However, the preponderant view is that just as he (Tinubu) serially dispensed with deputies during his eight-year reign as Lagos State governor, the President is not disposed to running with Shettima in 2027.
The Vice President’s uncertain 2027 fate came to the fore a fortnight ago during the North-East All Progressives Congress (APC) stakeholders’ meeting in Gombe, where an event that was designed to endorse Tinubu’s second term degenerated into fisticuffs and disorder.
Emotions and tensions rose following Mustapha Salihu’s omission of the VP’s name in his speech endorsing Tinubu for a second term. Salihu is the APC’s National Vice Chairman (North-East). No sooner had he endorsed the President’s second term without mentioning Shettima than chaos erupted with enraged party stalwarts sympathetic to Shettima chanting “Shettima! Shettima!!”
Matters came to a head when some of the furious party supporters got on the stage and hurled a chair at Salihu. Another enraged party member aimed a plastic bucket at him, prompting Salihu to flee the venue, shielded by security agents.
As if he borrowed a leaf from Salihu, the APC National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, in his closing remarks, also failed to outrightly mention Shettima’s name, thus reigniting further upheaval with renewed chants of “No Shettima, no APC in North-East”.
In what political analysts have described as uncomforting words for the Vice President, Salihu and presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, last week, insisted that Tinubu alone has the sole prerogative to decide who he will run with in 2027.
Salihu said: “There is no such thing as a joint ticket during party primaries, only the presidential candidate emerges, and it is entirely his prerogative to choose a running mate — after he becomes the flagbearer. Even though the party and stakeholders may be consulted, constitutionally, it is solely the candidate’s right.”
On the harrowing Gombe incident, the APC Vice National Chairman claimed that he was to praise Vice President Shettima in the last paragraph of his speech before the fracas forced him out of the venue: “The last paragraph of my speech before the fracas was dedicated to eulogising Kashim Shettima. I said he is our son and that we in the North-East stand solidly behind him,” Salihu added.
Weighing in on the controversy over Shettima and Tinubu’s rumoured moves to drop him as running mate in 2027, the Presidency through Onanuga, reiterated Salihu’s position: “In a presidential system, the candidate emerges first and then selects a running mate. That’s what happened under Buhari—he was nominated first and later picked his running mate. You don’t do both at once.
“Once INEC releases the timetable, the party convention will hold, and if the President is nominated again, he will choose his running mate”, Onanuga said.
However, Dr. Sam Amadi, a former Executive Chairman and CEO of Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and now director, Abuja School of Social Political Thought, opines that Tinubu’s alleged intention to replace Shettima reflects his inability to work with deputies. Reacting to the Gombe incident, Dr. Amadi said: “President Tinubu has clearly shown that he finds it difficult to work with deputies. As governor of Lagos, he had the distinction of having three deputies, each of whom was thrown out in a very chaotic and unpalatable process, and their careers got largely derailed. Now we are dealing with something bigger than Lagos, and APC minders are right that when you are at the level of picking a candidate, you can only choose one candidate. But, again, conventionally, the language and communication of endorsement is very clear. The omission of Vice President Shettima’s name at the APC North-East summit is an indication of a certain language control arising from the reality of politics.”
Meanwhile, a top APC source told Daily Sun, “Mr. President will beautifully navigate through the storms of the controversy over Shettima. He has not said he won’t run with Shettima in 2027 and he has not also said he will run with him. People are just making permutations and drawing conclusions but I can tell you that, whoever Asiwaju decides to pair with in 2027, the ticket will be a winning ticket and he will win overwhelmingly. With or without Shettima, the APC will retain the presidency in 2027.”
The optimism shared by the APC chieftain probably stems from Tinubu’s uncanny ability to navigate through difficult political terrains and emerge triumphant.
Though Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket, caused national uproar, unsettled the country’s delicate ethno-religious balance and overshadowed his electioneering campaigns, it turned out the winning formulae for him and the APC.
Based on religious sentiment, a plethora of Northern Muslim groups and clerics campaigned for the ticket pro-bono in mosques and at other religious gatherings. For example, one of such groups is the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN). Its President, the late Sheikh AbdurRasheed Hadiyyatullah, while bemoaning the current economic difficulties in the country said: “The Sharia Council helped the Muslim-Muslim ticket to be successful. We campaigned and supported this government until it came to power…We are not making any progress. The reason for the Muslim-Muslim ticket was to progress, triumph, succeed and to have a good government but we didn’t have anything.”
However, some political analysts believe that the political factors that necessitated Tinubu to opt for same faith in 2023 do not exist anymore, hence, the president’s alleged seemingly lack of interest in retaining Shettima.
But there are some analysts who also posit that replacing Shettima with a Christian running mate could spell doom for the APC, as such ticket may not likely appeal to an average northern Muslim voter.
Dr. Nelson Ahiaerue, a political scientist, noted that “firstly, it is apparent that the Northern religious and political establishment is committed to seeing the back of the president in 2027 and enthroning a president of a Northern Muslim extraction, and therefore, may not be placated with a Muslim Southern/Muslim Northern ticket in the mould of Tinubu- Shettima.
Secondly, having seemingly succeeded in rallying the South behind him, it will amount to insensitivity and betrayal of trust to run on a Muslim-Muslim ticket again.
Thirdly, Tinubu appears to be working on the theory of an Atiku candidacy with a Southern Christian running mate in which case the predominantly Christian voters in the South and parts of the North- Central would rather vote for a Southern Muslim with a Northern Christian running mate than a Northern Muslim with a Southern Muslim running mate.”
Meanwhile, Multiple Aso Rock and APC sources suggest that former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara from Bauchi State, and a former governor of Benue State and the current Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) are being considered as Shettima’s replacement. Another unnamed APC bigwig from the predominantly Christian Southern Kaduna is also in the mix.
Loyalists of the president, Daily Sun has been made to understand, are confident that what is in the offing is former President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2011 presidential election winning formula and will guarantee Tinubu an easy victory over Atiku or any other strong Northern Muslim candidate that may be running against him.
Daily Sun recalls that in the 2011 Presidential election, the South, voting as a bloc, together with the overwhelming votes of Northern Minority Christian communities and parts of the North-Central zone, often referred to as Middle Belt, delivered the presidency to Jonathan, defeating his rival, former President Buhari who ran on the platform of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and won massively in the core Northern Muslim states in the North-East and North-West.
Donald Daylop, a former House of Assembly aspirant in Plateau State is of the view that “a Northern Christian running mate to Tinubu will greatly excite Northern Christians as they will see such a person as one of their own and a potential Vice President representing their interest in Aso Rock the same way, hardline Muslims regarded Buhari as their representative in the seat of government.
“Don’t forget that since 1975 when former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon was overthrown, no Northern Christian has occupied the first or second highest offices in the land, so, if Asiwaju picks a Christian running mate, it will be a masterstroke, a sure winning ticket.”
On their part, loyalists of Shettima believe that only God and Tinubu can decide the vice president’s fate. One of them said “Kashim Shettima is one man who trusts God to do all things. And he also believes the president likes him. Each time we raise some of the things we hear and read, he simply says ‘Wallahi, the president is a good man and holds me in the highest esteem. Several attempts to create a wedge between the two of us did not yield any result.’ So, it is normal for some persons to see Shettima as a threat based on their political calculations and will want to try to contain and castrate him. In 2023, they plotted against him, President Tinubu still picked him. It is God that gives power. His appointment is not negotiable. It is God’s wish that he is the vice president today. So, the issue of whether he would be running mate in 2027 is left to God and President Tinubu to decide. We trust in God. We rest our hearts in His plan, even when nothing makes sense. It’s walking into the unknown, not because we see a way, but because we know He does. We have surrendered the matter to God, we will do our ow part, and leave the rest to God who never fails. See, when you place your trust in God, He will be there for you,” the source added.