Following Vice President Kashim Shetima veiled attack on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for declaring emergency rule in Rivers state, close watchers of Aso Rock, Nigeria’s Presidency say the relationship between the president and his vice may have finally broken down.
On Thursday, during a book launch in Abuja, the nation’s capital Vice President Shetima took a jibe at the president for removing Governor Siminalye Fubara and other elected state officials from office, indirectly telling the president that his action was unconstitutional.
According to Shetima, the former President Goodluck Jonathan had in 2014 tried to remove him from office as the Governor of Borno state, but was advised against taking such action by the National Assembly and Bello Adoke, the Attorney General of the Federation and Mister of Justice at the time.
According to him, the former president would have removed him and some northern state governors from office because of the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging some parts of the region, if not for Adoke and Aminu Tambual, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives who told him point black that the president had no power to remove an elected governor
Shetima: “Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was floating the idea of removing this Borno governor (pointing at himself), and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, had the courage to tell the president: You don’t have the power to remove an elected councillor.
“The president was still unconvinced, he mooted the idea at the Federal Executive Council, Mr Mohammed Adoke told the president: You do not have the power to remove a sitting governor,” the vice-president said. “They sought the opinion of another SAN in the cabinet, Kabiru Turaki, who also said: I am of the candid opinion of my senior colleagues. That was how the matter was laid to rest.
“I want to thank you for the courage to forgive those who have offended you. In the last four years of the Jonathan government, I was the public enemy number one,” Shetima stated.
Meanwhile, Shetima’s remark , according to watchers of the Nigerian Presidency may have further exposed the deep-seated animosity between him and President Tinubu, who according to sources may have decided to dump Shetima as his running mate in 2027.
President Tinubu is set for re-election in two years time, but those close to Nigeria’s seat of power said he’s now disposed to picking another running mate to vie with him.
Even though the president has yet to publicly make his intention known, a recent meeting of the ruling All Progerssives Party, APC, in Yobe state where Shetima was not endorsed alongside President Tinubu for the 2027 presidential election, by the party’s stakeholders, close watchers of politics in the country said spoke volume of the worsening animosity between the two former allies.
Speaking recently, the 2023 Labour Party Vice Presidential candidate Datti Baba-Ahmed hinted that President Tinubu may have decided to end his relationship with his vice.
Baba-Ahmed said Tinubu had even tried enough putting up with shetima who he accused of been treacherous.
According to Baba-Ahmed, “On Shettima, I don’t blame Tinubu. Because whoever knows what Shettima did and does, will not allow him last this long,” Baba-Ahmed said.
“The airwaves cannot carry it. And I know I’m speaking on TV.
“I know Tinubu has tried for keeping Shettima this long. Even the consideration that he should be dropped, I think Tinubu has tried.
“It is a pregnant statement. I wish I could say more.
“What people do for power is unbelievable.”
On March 8, 2025 President Tinubu in a controversial manner suspended Governor Fubara and all the members of the state House of Assembly from office, citing the rising insecurity in the oil bearing state.
Meanwhile, there’s hope that Governor Fubara and other elected officials may be reinstated following the ongoing fence mending between the suspended governor and Nyesom Wike, the two gladiators at the centre of the political crisis in the troubled state.
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