By Gideon Njoku
The immediate past Political Adviser to President Bola Tinubu, office of the Vice President, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has expressed reservations over the President’s silence on the fate of Vice President Kashim Shettima in the 2027 Presidential Election.
Will President Tinubu run again with Shettima or not? This has been the question in the past couple of months. And rumours have been rife about Shettima’s fate in 2027. The speculation is that Tinubu would drop Shettima for either another Muslim running mate (the name of former Governor of Kano State and Presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso has been constant), or a Christian running mate (the name of former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara) has been cropping up).
Recently at an APC Zonal convention in Gombe, there was a physical fight when Tinubu was endorsed without any mention of Shettima’s name. The Governor of Shettima’s Borno State, Professor Babagana Zulum, led the protest.
Neither Tinubu nor Shettima has made any statement on that. And, tension has bern gradually brewing even though the Presidential Election is about two years away.
In the opinion of Baba-Ahmed, it is President Tinubu that has allowed the tension to keep building by not addressing the issue and decisively put a stop to it.
Speaking Wednesday on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Baba-Ahmed wondered why the President has not personally addressed the delicate issue, dismiss it as baseless, if indeed it is, and put a stop to the tension.
His words: “I would be very curious to find out what it is that makes all these stories about dropping him (VP Shettima). I think somewhere along line, to be honest, the President should have done something a long time ago.”
He expected the President to have made affirmed confidence in Shettima, and by doing so, put a stop to the speculations.
Baba-Ahmed: “If all these stories about dropping the Vice President for somebody else, another Northern Vice president, may be a Christian, may be from somewhere else – have absolutely no iota of truth, it would have taken just one thing (to stop it): the President directly and personally saying: ‘Stop this nonsense. I have confidence in my Vice President. I work well with him. I am happy with him, and I want this nonsense about me dropping him now, or in the future to stop.’
“I will take a decision on who my running mate is in 2027 when we get there. In the meantime, we have work to do. But he didn’t say that. His people didn’t say that.
“It is worrying. Let me just say it is worrying. If what I have said is exactly what the President thinks, he should have said it. If he doesn’t say it the way I have, he should have found a way. But it should come from him. It should be direct, and it must be emphatic.”
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