The anxiety in the camp of Vice President Kashim Shettima over his post-2027 future heightened on Sunday following the failure of the Northeast leaders of his ruling All Progressives Party (APC) failed to endorse him alongside President Bola Tinubu.
Since the last presidential election, Shettima has been considered by the President’s political camp as a liability after he failed to deliver his home state, Borno. There have been whispers about Tinubu tinkering with the idea of replacing Shettima in 20027 with one first-term governor from one Northwest State.
The Sunday meeting, which held at the Gombe township stadium ended in chaos after Comrade Mustapha Salihu, National Vice Chairman of the ruling in the North-East, failed to mention Shettima’s mame while endorsing President Bola Tinubu for a second term. VP Shettima is from the Northeast.
Present at the meeting was the APC acting national chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, fueling suspicion in political circles that the omission by Salihu was deliberately intended to send a clear message to Shettima that he wouldn’t run with Tinubu in 2027.
Shortly after Salihu addressed the meeting, endorsing Tinubu to emerge as an unopposed candidate of the APC while being silent about Shettima, confusion ensued with several party loyalists sympathetic to Shettima moving to assault him.
Apparently to salvage the situation,
the party’s deputy national chairman, Bukar Dalori, who, like the Vice President, is from the same Borno State, endorsed both Tinubu and Shettima for a second term.
When it go to Ganduje’s turn to address the meeting, he spent about ten minutes during which he, like the national vice chairman, endorsed only Tinubu, leaving out Shettima.
Ganduje’s endorsement of only Tinubu further enraged a section of the crowd. Tensions swelled, forcing the meeting to end abruptly. Security officers whisked Ganduje and Salihu out of the stadium.
The Authority reliably gathered that Sunday’s endorsement of an automatic ticket for President Tinubu by the top brass of the APC from the Vice President’s geopolitical zone, leaving out their son, may have completely dashed hopes by Shettima to run with Tinubu.
A few weeks ago, all 22 governors elected on the platform of the APC, right inside in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, unanimously endorsed Tinubu as the party’s sole presidential candidate for the 2027 general elections.
Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum, Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, announced the endorsement, which had in attendance Shettima, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, members of the National Assembly, as well as party leaders from across the country.
Five days before the APC governors’ endorsement, APC leaders from the Northwest zone endorsed Tinubu, making him the first president in Nigeria’s history to enjoy such support from his party.
