Professor Haruna Yerima has said that the claim that the All Progressives Congress (APC) may lose the 2027 presidential elections if President Bola Tinubu adopts Vice President Kashim Shettima as his running mate is insane and unfounded.
Professor Yerima, an APC chieftain and former House of Representatives member, said the insinuation that Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi’s ticket would defeat that of Tinubu/Shettima is a jaundiced and amateur political permutation without any empirical backing.
The don spoke on Thursday in Abuja, reacting to a statement credited to a faceless organisation, Northern Ethnic Nationality Forum, promoted by one Dominic Alancha, urging President Tinubu to drop Senator Shettima and avoid repeating the Muslim-Muslim ticket.
The group said Mr Tinubu must pick a Christian from the Plateau, Benue, and Taraba states to allay the fears of the Islamisation agenda by Tinubu’s presidency. Mr Alancha said retaining the Muslim-Muslim ticket would give the opposition a ready campaign.
However, Professor Yerima said the group got “all its facts wrong because Tinubu’s presidency has disputed the issue of the Islamisation agenda through its dynamic and policy of inclusion.”
In the last two years of President Bola Tinubu’s presidency, “all doubting Thomases that the APC administration is not tilted to any religious group. It is appalling that a faceless group is trying to reincarnate a forgotten issue.”
He said the claim that the opposition would dethrone President Tinubu if he adopts Senator Shettima in 2027 “is another fallacy without any shred of truth or evidence.”
“President Bola Tinubu chose Vice President Kashim Shettima after thoroughly considering various factors. Any attempt to impose a running mate on President Tinubu would not only backfire but would be met by outright rejection by the president himself. President Tinubu is not a political neophyte that some dubious politicians would hide under a mushroom ethnic group to push for an unsaleable agenda,” the APC chieftain said.
The don said, “No ethnic organisation can impose a candidate on the president because he has an admirable agenda for the country, and he selected Kashim Shettima to assist him in executing that agenda. So far, he has been performing very well.”
He said it is funny to believe that the opposition, “which is up in arms against itself, can do anything tangible in 2027, let alone defeat President Tinubu.”
The former lawmaker cautioned against mixing religion with politics, explaining that “it is puzzling that some people are driving faith-based sentiments on strictly loyalty and competence-based issues. Senator Shettima has been diligently fulfilling the roles assigned to him by his principal with all diligence, competence, and dedication.”
