TheCable

Kashim Shettima, former Borno governor, says his becoming the All Progressives Congress (APC) vice-presidential candidate shows that Nigerians are ready to choose competence over “primordial sentiments”.

Shettima said this on Wednesday during his unveiling as the running mate of Bola Tinubu, APC presidential candidate.

The event held on Wednesday at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua centre in Abuja.

Tinubu, a Muslim from the south-west, had, on July 10, announced Shettima, a Muslim from the north-east, as his running mate.

The Muslim-Muslim ticket had elicited criticism from some Nigerians who described it as an “injustice” to the Christian community.

However, the former Borno governor said his becoming the APC vice-presidential candidate is based on democratic values.

“The goodwill messages that have poured in, since the announcement of my selection as running mate to the high-performing Jagaban Borgu, easily underscore the depth of hope that our people are investing in the ticket,” he said.

“And I do not doubt that the amplitude of this love across the country, from Abia through to Zamfara, is an assurance that Nigerians are again prepared to choose the competence of their unifying representatives, over any expression of primordial sentiments.

“My emergence as the running mate of the inimitable Jagaban Borgu is based on the party’s very forthright assessment of the threats ahead, and I’m most honoured by the consensus of the distinguished stakeholders of our party to trust me with representing the nation’s interests, under the leadership of the very sage, the youths all over our country, fondly refer to as ‘city boy’, in honour of his cosmopolitan profile. 

“Our public-spirited progressive governors have also demonstrated why they are the backbone of the party. There can’t be enough words to quantify their sacrifices. We acknowledge the fact that they are responsible for this spectacular structure that offers us a palpable electoral advantage over our opponents.

“Whatever supremacy we attribute to the APC is owed to the commitment of our progressive governors.

“Like most of us, they submitted to the supreme interests of the party to guarantee our success in the forthcoming elections, and the immensity of these sacrifices calibrates their wisdom and sensitivity, to the myriad of opponents we are going to face in 2023.

“I’m here today, because of their wisdom, and I’m therefore grateful for their perception of the task ahead, as one that can only be executed through meticulous collaboration, across the board.”

Shettima also said the joint ticket is not an imposition, but an outcome of a wide party consultation which involved aggregation of the ideas and insights.

“This ticket isn’t an imposition; it’s an outcome of democracy at its practical best, and based on the aggregation of the ideas and insights of our great party’s stakeholders,” he said.

“If this were an unpopular option, as the cast of partisan provocateurs has attempted to paint, there wouldn’t have been the tonnes of goodwill messages, especially from distinguished Christians, from all over the country.

“This ticket is a Nigerian project, not a sectional agenda that the frightened camps have been struggling to sensationalise.

“I’m sincerely proud of the rational citizens, who view this as nothing but a pragmatic permutation, to defeat our opponents at the polls, and based on acknowledgment and implementation of the candid perspectives of our Christian brothers and sisters in the APC, who, like us, are bound by the passion for us to retain power, in order to deepen the delivery of unifying and transformative governance, to Nigerians.”