The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu has finally settled for a former Borno State Governor, Senator Kashim Shettima as his running mate, thus ending weeks of sustained anxiety on the sensitive issue.
But the choice of Shettima presents an electioneering nightmare for Tinubu who has by his decision excluded the critical Christian religious block in the country from his presidential ticket.
The choice by Tinubu, which is considered strategic to win Northern votes, is at the expense of the Chrustian population in the North which number is quite considerable in many northern states contrary to claims that the region has an overwhelmingly staggering Muslim majority that cannot be upset.
The major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has picked its presidential candidate from the North innthe person of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who is is from Adamawa on the Northeast, the same zone with APC’s running mate, Shettima.
The budding opposition party, Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, from the Southeast, has already picked Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, from Kaduna State, Northwest zone, as his running mate.
Shettima, a serving Senator, is the Director General of the Tinubu Presidential Campaign Organisation who plotted, along with others, Tinubu’s victory at the party’s presidential primary election.
Tinubu officially announced former Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno as his running mate on Sunday while briefing journalists after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Daura, Katsina State, Buhari’s home state.
NAN reports that the APC presidential candidate was in Daura to pay Sallah homage to Buhari as well as intimate him of his decision to pick Shettima as his running mate.
Credible reports from the Tinubu camp had earlier pointed to Shettima as Tinubu’s pick for the position.
A credible source in the Tinubu Campaign Organisation has confirmed this to NAN in Abuja on Sunday.
The source had disclosed that Tinubu would make the name of the candidate public this week after briefing Buhari.
Read the narrative that NAN had credited to its source prelude to Tinubu’s official unveiling of Shettima: “The vice-presidential nominee may most likely be a former governor and senator from the Northeast part of Nigeria.
“The person is also by accident of birth a Muslim, confirming what Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State said on Saturday that Tinubu had settled for a Muslim-Muslim ticket,” the source said.
The source had added that in picking the running mate, Tinubu was not thinking about religion, but about competence, exposure and intellectual depth of the candidate.
“The considerations given for the choice of a running mate were dictated by the need to choose an individual capable of working with the presidential candidate to take Nigeria to greater heights,” the source said.
The two-term former governor of Lagos State won APC’s presidential ticket at the party’s June 8 special national convention and presidential primary election.
He earlier chose Ibrahim Kabiru Masari as placeholder for the vice-presidential slot. Masari has just resigned his pisition as placeholder runjing mate.
Tinubu was away in France from June 27 on a short vacation during which he held some strategic meetings.
He, however, returned to Nigeria on Saturday early enough for Sallah festivities.
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