Will Replacing Shettima Really Cost Tinubu His Second Term?

In recent times, no topic has generated more ruckus in the Nigerian political space than that of a possible replacement of Vice President Kashim Shettima as President Bola Tinubu’s running mate in the 2027 presidential election. It is one topic that has drawn the attention and triggered the cacophonous opinions of almost all political players, including members of the opposition parties and even the general public. The subject is so sensitive and important that it has kept almost all political gladiators in Nigeria on their toes.

It is widely believed that any decision that the president takes at this eventful time will determine the moves and decisions of many other political heavyweights who are also eyeing his job.

Replacing Shettima with perhaps a northern Christian will, as speculated in some quarters, raise a lot of dust because ‘Nigeria’s politics is largely influenced by religion and ethnicity’ – a fact that is known to even non-Nigerians.

The key takeaway from all this is that whether or not Tinubu replaces Shettima, there is bound to be a major shift in Nigeria’s political alignments and arrangements in days and months to come.

Many deep-thinking political heavyweights and actors would find a way to cash in on any opportunities that Tinubu’s replacement of Shettima would present, and that is why the issue is of paramount political implication in the current political dispensation in Nigeria.

Political opinion holders and leaders of thoughts are of the view that President Tinubu has maintained the regular pattern of replacing his deputies since his days as governor of Lagos State, and that that pattern, being Tinubu’s signature modus operandi, will still play out now that he is president. But some political analysts have argued that it will not augur well for the president to replace his deputy as the very nature and vagaries of the presidential office are totally different from those of governorship. They are of the opinion that the position of president is a lot more complex than that of governor, and that a decision such as replacing a vice president cannot be left to the president alone to take.

But Tinubu, being a strong-willed political strategist, may choose to brave the odds by taking the unpopular decision of replacing Shettima in the same manner he controversially picked him as running mate in 2022.

Tinubu picked Shettima as running mate to the chagrin of Northern Christians, Southern Christians, and even local and foreign observers of political happenings in Nigeria. Shettima’s choice as Tinubu’s deputy was heavily criticized and contested, with a large majority of those who disagreed with the decision saying that such a move would greatly jeopardize Tinubu’s chances of emerging victorious at the polls.

A major argument that took centre stage following Tinubu’s appointment of Shettima as deputy was that he (Tinubu) was trying to stoke the embers of religious dissonance by opting for a Muslim-Muslim ticket in a country where religion plays a prominent role in the progression and synthesization of politics. There were also arguments that Tinubu’s choice of a Northern Muslim was in bad faith and should be rejected and resisted by all means; but the argument triggered the prompt response of staunch Islamic adherents such as Prof. Ishaq Akintola, the Director-General of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), who maintained that Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket would succeed in the same way the 1993 Abiola/Kingibe ticket was massively supported by Nigerians. Akintola maintained that there aren’t any real differences in the way Nigerians of yesteryears perceived politics from the way Nigerians of nowadays perceive it, and even insisted that the Tinubu/Shettima Muslim-Muslim ticket would be the best thing to ever happen to Nigeria politically.

Well, the Tinubu/Shettima ticket eventually sailed through, and it became a thing of necessity for Nigerians, both the politically-inclined and those who are absolutely disinterested in the issues of politics, to fix their gaze on the Tinubu-led government and watch closely how anything uncommon could happen just because the president and his vice are both Muslims.

As expected, nothing special happened just because President Tinubu and Vice President Shettima are of the same faith, and as 2027 lurks around the corner, cacophonous arguments have again enveloped the political space, this time not about the correctness or otherwise of the Muslim-Muslim ticket, but about the hurdles that Tinubu stands to contend with if he chooses to replace Shettima as his running mate. A number of names has been pencilled down as possible replacement for Shettima and some of them are Most Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Gen. Christopher Musa, the Minister of Defence. But in spite of the rumours making the rounds about a possible replacement of Vice President Shettima, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has time and again denied the news, dismissing the rumours as handiwork of mischief makers and rumour mongers.

The APC has vehemently maintained that Vice President Shettima will not be replaced even though some cliques in the North have vented their fears about the plans being hatched to replace him. It would be recalled that in June last year, an APC North-East caucus meeting held in Gombe to show solidarity for President Tinubu and endorse him for a second term, degenerated into a rowdy session and a violent face-off just because the APC National Vice Chairman (North East), Mustapha Salihu, failed to mention Shettima’s name during his endorsement speech.

Still at that same North-East caucus meeting, the then APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, gave his own endorsement speech without mentioning Shettima’s name, a development that stoked further worries about the Vice President’s fate as such a repeated omission was not deemed by attendees of the meeting as mere coincidence.

Members of the APC North-East caucus who attended the Gombe meeting made it unequivocally clear that without Shettima on the ticket, there would be no endorsement for President Tinubu and that their support would be shifted to Atiku Abubakar. The discordant tunes from the North-East caucus members continued with even more ferocity when the APC Deputy National Chairman (North), Ali Bukar Dalori, tried to douse the tension by assuring the North-East stakeholders that the Tinubu/Shettima ticket remained intact.

And only recently, there was another outburst in Borno State, Vice President Shettima’s home state, over the conspicuous omission of his picture from an APC banner that bore the picture of President Tinubu and the five APC North-East governors. Speaker of the Borno State House of Assembly, Abdulkarim Lawan, rose in protest of the omission, describing it as a subtle ploy to sideline Vice President Shettima, even in his home state. He further described the omission as unfair and provocative, and insisted that Shettima must not be replaced to avoid any unfavourable outcomes.

Among APC stalwarts who have condemned the rumoured plan to replace Vice President Shettima is former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, who warned that replacing Shettima would inadvertently alter the fortunes of “the winning team.”

“It would bring a lot of disruptions if the move is made, and it would endanger the possibility of Tinubu’s second presidency. They must continue,” Shittu warned, against replacing the current Vice President.

Hannatu Musawa, the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, also recently vocalized her concerns over the disturbing rumours of a possible replacement of Shettima on the APC 2027 ticket. She warned that such a move would definitely cost President Tinubu his re-election, a possibility that she doesn’t want to occur. Musawa actually warned that it was risky to drop a Northern Muslim from the APC ticket in preference of a Northern Christian. She stressed that the core Northerners would not vote for the APC ticket if it does not include a Hausa, a Fulani or a Kanuri Muslim on it.

“If there is no Hausa, Fulani or Kanuri Muslim on the ticket, it creates a hurdle. That is the reality of the way people think,” stated Musawa.

“The core North states like Katsina, Kano, Kaduna, Kebbi, Jigawa, Zamfara and Sokoto, understand politics at a very deep level. Politics there is a way of life. People wait every four years to line up and vote because that is where they feel they have influence,” the Minister further stated.

So, in all of this, will it really cost President Tinubu his second term if he replaces Vice President Shettima? Are the warnings and threats against the replacement of Shettima anything to fret about? Will Tinubu, a master of political stratagem, fail to emerge victorious in 2027 if his winning game plan demands that he replaces Shettima?

Now, some political pundits will suggest that replacing Shettima will not have any real political consequences against Tinubu’s 2027 race as he (Tinubu) did not even win the election in the North-East zone, which according to analysts, was the primary reason for which Shettima was chosen as his running mate in the first place. It is still widely believed that Atiku Abubakar will always win the North-East Zone any day a presidential election is conducted in Nigeria. For this reason, therefore, pundits have averred that the replacement of Shettima will not have any real political repercussions against Tinubu.

While the above argument may hold water, it is however not totally convincing or true that the replacement of Vice President Shettima will not have any consequences, seeing that the current political trajectory of Nigeria has changed drastically.

For what it’s worth, Shettima has shown himself to be loyal, hardworking, resourceful and very likeable in the years he has served as Tinubu’s deputy, and has thus won the approval and goodwill of the North and the South alike. His reputation for being a loyal deputy surely counts for something. It is for this reason and more that his acceptance for continuity has grown beyond leaps and bounds. Therefore, if Tinubu toys with the goodwill that Shettima has attracted to their joint ticket, he may face very damning consequences like he has been sternly warned.

Nwachukwu is an Abuja-based journalist and media consultant