Shettima To Osinbajo: Forgive Me, ‘Ice Cream’ Comment Not Intended To Denigrate Your Personality

Former Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, has tendered an open apology to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for making disparaging remarks against him in a recent interview.

Shettima had said that ‘nice’ people like Osinbajo should not be running for president because they “do not make good leaders” and “tend to be nasty.”

He said rather, Osinbajo “should be selling popcorn and ice cream” since that is what “decent people” like him are good at doing.

The former governor spoke on Channels TV’s ‘Politics Today’, where he also described former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the best aspirant on the APC platform to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2023.

Although Osinbajo has yet to respond to him, Shettima took to his Twitter account on Sunday to apoligise to the Vice President and the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who are presidential aspirants on the ruling party’s platform.

He wrote in a series of tweets, “When I appeared on Channels TV last Thursday amidst the tension rippling through our political arena, it was to underline the promise @officialABAT’s presidential bid held for those yet to establish the certainty of the hurdle ahead of the @OfficialAPCNg

“I never set out to denigrate the personality of any aspirant, and definitely not that of my dear friends and allies. None of them is an opponent, so their aspiration isn’t a threat to us.

“They appear so in the sprint to become the party’s presidential flag-bearer in the 2023 elections, but they are our allies in the marathon.

“My assessments of the Vice President, @ProfOsinbajo, and the @SPNigeria, Senator Ahmad Lawan, were well-intentioned.

“I never set out to subject them to ridicule but, rather, to stir up interest in the contrasting virtues of the cast of aspirants putting up a fight against my preferred aspirant, one most favoured and advantaged to guarantee APC’s victory in the forthcoming presidential election.

“The interpretations of my remarks on @ProfOsinbajo and @SPNigeria, Senator Lawan are, thus, being done literally and overblown.

“My words weren’t woven to portray them as unworthy aspirants, but merely to qualify them as non-threatening contenders. I, however, take full responsibility for my utterances and wish to appeal to our teeming supporters to neither take my words out of their metaphoric contexts nor interpret them as a measure and declaration of hostility towards my dear friends and allies.

“I hereby tender my unreserved apologies to the Vice President and the President of the Senate for the unintended pains my jibes might have caused them and their families and supporters.

“As we approach the finishing line of this tense political race, I’m not unaware of who the actual opponents are. A divided house, even if in the assumptions and imaginations of supporters with a distant grasp of our relationships with other aspirants, is the last impression we wish to create among Nigerians.

“I want this to be taken as an appeal to our supporters across all political camps to build bridges and mend fences as the actual journey is just about to begin. Victory, for the discerning, has always been the first lap of the race. Thank you for your understanding.”