Nigeria’s Vice President-elect, Kashim Shettima, on Saturday again defended the Muslim-Muslim ticket under whose platform the 2023 All Progressive Congress (APC) Presidential candidate emerged, saying he and his principal, Bola Ahmed Tinub, have no agenda to islamise Nigeria.
Shettima. who spoke at the Presidential Inauguration Lecture, in Abuja, organised by the 2023 Presidential Transition Council (PTC), ahead of the May 29, 2023 Presidential swearing-in, said his emergence as Vice Presidential candidate of APC despite his Islamic religion along with Tinubu, was an issue borne out of necessity and not an attempt to islamise Nigeria.
According to him: “I was a child of necessity. There is no Islamisation Agenda. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a Muslim who is married to a Christian, not only a Christian but a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God. Someone who has not islamised his family, people are alluding that he has the intention to islamise the nation.
“Politics is about perception. As we begin the formation of a new administration, I deliberately picked an Igbo man, a Catholic, to be my Chief Security Officer.”
The announcement of Shettima as running mate by Tinubu, who is also of the Muslim faith, had further fuelled an already existing rumour of an Islamisation agenda and generated controversy with Convener of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and elder statesman, Edwin Clark, labelling the choice of a Muslim running mate as a threat to the nation.
Said Clark: “There are rumours of an attempt to Islamise the country. Are all these pointers to the confirmation and actualisation of such rumours? One needs to bear in mind the antecedents of the major backers of Alhaji Ahmed Tinubu’s ambition, who include Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna state; Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the Governor of Kano State; and the chosen one, Kashim Shettima.”
Some members of the APC, to which Tinubu and Shettima belong, had also condemned the choice of presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the same faith.
Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal, while condemning the ticket, accused Tinubu of surrounding himself with bigots.
The Senator who represented Adamawa North in the 9th Assembly, Elisha Abbo, also resigned from the Tinubu Campaign Organisation in protest of the ticket.
