Vice-President Kashim Shettima on Tuesday revealed that barely three months after President Bola Tinubu was sworn into office, certain people from Borno State visited the President and warned him to stop wearing traditional attire given to him by Shettima during the 2023 campaign, alleging the garments had been charmes and would lead to his death.
He said Tinubu not only rejected the claim, but responded by deliberately wearing the clothing for an entire week as a public rebuke to what he called a story that “did not add up.”
Shettima spoke while delivering his address at the public presentation of former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon’s autobiography, “My Life of Duty and Allegiance”, in Abuja on Tuesday, where he represented Tinubu.
Shettima used the incident to illustrate what he described as the dangerous spread of suspicion in Nigerian public life.
He also compared the rising spate of suspicion with the Sultan of Sokoto’s account of how Gowon would receive gallons of fura sent weekly from the Sultan’s family in Sokoto to Dodan Barracks in Lagos.
He noted that Gowon accepted the gesture without any suspicion, in a spirit of trust that he said has since been eroded.
The VP said, “His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto, had been narrating the story of the family of the Sultan sending gallons of fura every week to General Yakubu Gowon in Dodan Barracks, because of the trust and confidence General Gowon was willingly receiving it without any suspicion.
“But now the game is different. Suspicion smears our relationships, and it ought not to be. We are essentially one people tied to a common destiny,” the Sultan said.
Narrating his personal story involving Tinubu, Shettima recalled that in the lead-up to the 2023 presidential primaries, as the President canvassed support across the North, he sourced traditional Borno attire and a cap for Tinubu to wear at campaign events so the candidate could blend with the northern crowd.
He said positive feedback from Tinubu’s aides proved that the clothing fitted well, and Tinubu wore it repeatedly during the campaign.
However, the confrontation came just months after victory.
Shettima said he had travelled to Beijing in October 2023 to represent Tinubu at the 3rd Belt and Road Initiative Forum, held from October 16 to 18, one of his early high-profile foreign assignments as Vice-President.
When he returned from China, Tinubu summoned him and delivered a message from a group of people about the clothes.
He narrated, “When I came back from China, where I had represented him at the Belt and Road Initiative Conference, he said: ‘Sit down. Your people came to me and said I should stop wearing those dresses you gave me. They said I must have been charmed, and that I am going to die and he will become the president.’”
Shettima noted that Tinubu dismissed the accusation because it did not add up.
According to Shettima, he responded,
“Their story did not add up, because when you gave me those dresses, I was an aspirant. I wasn’t even the candidate. Neither were you the vice-presidential candidate.”
However, he said the President proceeded to wear the dresses for a week.
“For one week, to prove to them that he is not fetish, he wore those dresses.
“These are some of the gimmicks that are taking place in power circles in Nigeria nowadays.”
In his address, Shettima poured encomiums on Gowon, saying his life embodied the opposite of sectarian suspicion..
The event was attended by former President Goodluck Jonathan, who chaired the occasion, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume; Senate President Godswill Akpabio, represented by Senator Ireti Kingibe; the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III; the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem; and a galaxy of retired generals, including the son of late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha
