Shettima is surplus to requirements but…

IF there is something to credit Tinubu’s media for in recent time, it is rapid response, especially to political or governance issues seen as detrimental to his re-election or ones that can be pawed into the winning column as electoral capital. So for his media machine to be radio-silent on Shettima’s future for almost a week after the Gombe sore thumb, is the clearest indication the Kanuri fellow is likely cooked.

Even the way the presidency sounded off on the controversy in a reported exclusive conversation with Daily Trust last Friday, came across as siding with Never-Kashimers that the VP would not be of use to the 2027 project.

Despite Tinubu’s poor record of maintaining “second calabash” from his time as Lagos governor, resulting in three deputies in eight years, truth is, in the build-up to 2023, Shettima was not even a regional, let alone a national asset to the APC ticket. Even in his Borno, his governor-successor Babagana Zulum, whom I learnt from informed persons, is now fast becoming a hate figure in the state where he was once adored, due to wrong-headed politics of exclusion on the basis of race and religion, polled better in VP consideration by the vetting/endorsing public.

After Tinubu picked the APC ticket, one of his top surrogates had a sit-down with select journalists in Lagos including yours truly. Though he claimed coming around was to run names of potential running mates by the gatekeepers, it was more of feeling public pulse about Shettima/the imminent Muslim/Muslim ticket and trying to use the media to disabuse public perception of the unprecedented baggage his inclusion was going to add to a ticket already bogged by a very-flawed candidate. When it became obvious it would be Shettima, I relayed a story from Oyo State when he led a party peace mission during Ajimobi’s administration, which painted some viciousness around his person. The surrogate countered my concern with “the Vice President is as powerful as the President wants him to be”, before delving into some stories about Obasanjo, Atiku and Wande Abimbola, that I was hearing for the first time at the Ikeja meeting. Not for once during the meeting did the surrogate mention Shettima as the biggest electoral asset to the ticket, either in the North East or Borno, further fuelling the speculation that Asiwaju, for whatever reason(s) or personal stuff between the duo yet made public, had likely long settled on the former Borno governor for the joint ticket even before landing the top spot on it.

ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE: West Africa’s intra-regional trade remains stuck at 10% — Tinubu

It was learnt that even among the exponents of Muslim/Muslim ticket, Shettima was not their first or second choice but he was the choice of the candidate and the rest is history, though the then-running mate had cried out at a point during the campaign that North wasn’t rallying behind him because he isn’t Fulani.

The general election however proved the case of the No-Shettima crowd as he led the campaign to bruising defeat in all the states of the North East, save his Borno, despite his status as the son-of-the-zone. Tinubu, who until the Shettima addition, projected public liberalism as a Southern Muslim almost had his life-long ambition scuttled, losing critical Northern minority votes to Labour’s Obi in core North, particularly North East and North West, where the majority, particularly the Fulani Muslims went majorly for their own; Atiku Abubakar. Instructively, Tinubu’s Muslim/Muslim ticket won just three states of Borno, Jigawa and Zamfara out of the 11 states of North East and North West, losing the remaining eight to a fellow Muslim from the North who ran a joint ticket with a Southern Christian in Okowa of Delta.

It took the North Central delivering four states and conceding only two to heavy favourite; Labour Party, to save Tinubu and his Muslim/Muslim ticket, despite three of the states in the zone, now beleaguered by Fulani terrorists, being majority Christian. Tinubu literally hobbled to Aso Rock and now, he needs to keep the seat in a rapidly-shifting political landscape and the hand-wringing Shettima supporters from Borno, led by Zulum, appear not to be reading the unfurling electoral map well, in their pushback against the unhidden move to ease the VP off the re-election ticket

North-East joins the South East and the North Central as the three geo-zones yet to produce president in the running republic which is in its 26th year. Though the zone is a bit privileged than the other two, having produced two No 2, in Atiku and Shettima, it would take Tinubu and APC signing express agreement to cede the topmost ticket to it in 2031 for the zone not to repeat its widespread 2023 support for its own with the closest reach to Villa’s top job. That current “first” son of the soil is Atiku.

Now running what is likely his final stretch, though he boasted of continual presidency run as long as his bones could carry him, Atiku and North East are understandably desperate. Tinubu orbit appears to have reasonably conceded Atiku is sweeping his North East again, whether as PDP candidate or coalition flagbearer. So, why retaining the “second” son of the zone in a number two slot that could be very consequential to the president’s re-election bid. Whether in a repeat of the 2023 lineup of frontrunners or Atiku and Obi joining forces like their 2019 run against Buhari, Tinubu and APC won’t win North East despite the three-a-piece governorship seats, shared with PDP. As long as Atiku runs for president, he will always be a potential president and for the remaining four states in the zone, it is going to be why settling for less in a ticket where one of us from Borno is number two, when another of us from Adamawa could be number one. In all considerations, Atiku will still carry North East in 2027 except he isn’t on the ballot which is very unlikely. The dispassionate question then is, of what relevance is Shettima on Tinubu’s ticket delivering one state which the governor can also deliver, in a whole geo-zone, which is supposed to be his backyard.

With the Southern solidarity Tinubu has built in coalition response to the threat of Northern political industry to make him a one-term president, how can the Shettima corner expect that there would be no trade-aways in a political season with a yawning transfer window. If Tinubu chose to retain Shettima on his ticket, it would be for other reasons not directly connected to vote harvest in the North, or more specifically, in the North East.

The question is, can the president afford the luxury?

If Atiku and Obi cemented the one-term agreement for the older of the two to take the first shot in 2027, North East and South East are effectively off Asiwaju’s winning column. Both zones are yet to taste Villa’s top seat save for when Obasanjo as president dramatically forced Atiku to sit on it in front of camera during a FEC meeting before the dam broke between them and the combo has a fighting chance of dethroning the incumbent and providing the South East in particular, a viable pathway to the top job in 2031 with Obi as the sitting vice president. With these realities, everything would be poured into it by voters in the two zones, and not even all the governors being in APC would give the president victory there.

Despite the hunger in the land, South West won’t desert its own, though Lagos “renegades” are still threatening a second electoral affliction for the president. Obi as Atiku’s running mate won’t run over Lagos this time though his Igbo stock will still stick with him. Obi as “second calabash” will also open up South South to the president, which he now has real chance to win big.

That leaves North Central and North West for Atiku to scramble with his former friend if he eventually leads the coalition and there is a thinking that only Kano can mitigate Tinubu’s projected repeat runner-up status to Atiku in North West, where the power-shift-to-South sentiment of 2023, will no longer count. Now, the largest voting bloc in the last election cycle wants power back after producing two presidents of the running republic. Powerful political elements from the zone are reportedly re-aligning and one name keeps coming up as the one to rescue Mr. President from defeat bigger than 2023’s; Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Those seeking to draft him are still for Muslim/Muslim ticket but the Kano strongman is being tipped to replace Shettima. A hawkish fellow in political, religious and ethnic matters, RMK’s inclusion in Tinubu’s re-election ticket is likely to bring back the fear of domination that drove northern minorities and Christians to Obi in 2023. The risk is Tinubu’s, to take.

For the North Central, particularly the Christian-dominated states which are facing existential threat from Fulani terrorists, the stakes couldn’t be higher. It is understandable why they desperately seek at least a “leg” in the Villa but having the number two seat doesn’t automatically guarantee their survival, though their 2023 “investment” gives them a bold claim to Shettima’s seat which they are now baying for with minimal restraint.

Oluyemi Oluleke Osinbajo was a foremost Christian leader before he joined the Buhari ticket that shocked Goodluck Jonathan and PDP in 2015. Despite a resume astoundingly rich in legal and academic accomplishments, the main criterion that got him the number two seat, was race and religion. During his eight years in the presidency, fellow Christians, including his own RCCG pastors, were slaughtered in their thousands by the kinsmen of his principal as he watched helplessly. The cold reality of the presidential system is that it is designed to accommodate one power centre; the president.

From the perspective of President Tinubu, the ultimate aim is to win re-election and shame naysayers and he has likely come to the evidence-backed decision that Shettima has become what Namadi Sambo was to Jonathan’s failed re-election bid of 2015. A not-too-dark horse from North West is reportedly in view. A liberal Muslim whose national profile isn’t loud but reportedly conducts his politics like the Biblical Nicodemus. Fulani and a blue blood, but lots of doubt on clout. We wait.

As genuine as Mr. President’s concern may be about the needfulness of his deputy in 2027, his poor treatment of past deputies will definitely cloud public judgement of his intent. Past always comes back to bite. If Shettima must go, the president owes him a dignified soft-landing and for the embattled number two, the sun may be setting on a chequered political career that began with being Ali Modu Sheriff’s Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development, before heading four other different ministries; Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs, Education, Agriculture and Health, but there is always life after office, though politicians hardly ever want to quit. It is either willingly or willy-nilly. I wish Mr. Kash well.