The All Progressives Congress (APC) has unveiled Kashim Shettima, the former Governor of Borno State as the running mate of its presidential flagbearer, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The unveiling ceremony took place in Abuja on Wednesday
The unveiling was greeted by anger as hundreds of demonstrators stormed the APC secretariat in Abuja to register their grievances over the decision.
The protest took place at about the same time the former Borno state governor was being presented to party leaders by the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja.
Defending his selection of Shettima, Tinubu said, “Senator Kashim Shettima’s career in politics and beyond shows that he is eminently qualified not only to deliver that all important electoral victory, but also step into the shoes of the Vice-President. As a man with the talent, maturity, strength, charater and patriotism, he has my implicit confidence and faith.”
Governors, aspirants and delegates of South East extraction were conspicuously missing at the event.
Protesters who came to the APC secretariat in six luxury buses were led by some party members under the aegis of APC Hausa-Fulani Youth Forum.
They chanted songs and wielded various banners with the inscriptions, ‘A cry for justice’, ‘Drop Shettima and ‘Give slots to our Christian brothers’, ‘Discrimination and mutual suspicion in our country’ and so on.
Speaking to one of our correspondents, the convener of the forum, Abdullahi Mohamadu declared that they would not stop protesting until the party do the right thing.
In a letter addressed to the National Chairman of the APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, and made available to The PUNCH, Mohammadu stated that they saw the selection of Shettima as an aberration that should be corrected immediately by the leadership of the party.
The petition read in part, ‘’As concerned stakeholders of the APC and those who constitute the voting strength of our party, we find it worrisome that such a decision could be taken without recourse to its implication on the electoral chances of the party and the attendant uproar such a decision could bring about in the country. Picking another Muslim from the north-eastern part of the country as running mate is politically and morally indefensible.’’
With its choice of the Muslim-Muslim ticket, the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union says the ruling party has already lost 2.2m votes from the Southern part of Kaduna in the 2023 poll.
Spokesman for SOKAPU, Luka Binniyat, condemned the APC’s decision and predicted that the 2023 presidential contest would be between the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party, Peter Obi.
He said, “The selection of Shettima is an assured, well packaged and comfortable defeat of the APC in the presidential election come 2023, from what I can predict for the Southern Kaduna voting population of about 2.2 million.’’
The Middle Belt Forum lambasted Tinubu for saying that picking Shettima as his vice-presidential candidate would guarantee him victory in 2023.
Speaking in Jos on Wednesday, the MBF National President, Dr Bitrus Pogu, urged the APC presidential candidate to wait and see the results of the 2023 elections.
Speaking in the same vein, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Congress, Dr Victor Oye, observed that the Muslim-Muslim ticket negated sections 14 and 15 of the Federal Character principle.
He added that the interests of Nigerians should have been placed above selfish interest.
Decrying the development in the APC, scores of Christian leaders in Ogun state have asked the Christian Association of Nigeria to announce its anointed candidate ahead of the 2023 presidential poll. – Punch.
