Tinubu should be given right of first refusal to presidency – Shettima

Former Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, says National Leader of the All Progressives Congress Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is the most deserving to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.

Speaking on Channels TV programme Politics Today on Friday, Shettima said with the contribution of Tinubu to the APC, he deserved to be given the right of first refusal to the presidency.

The serving senator said more than any other person, Tinubu played a crucial role in Buhari’s emergence as the candidate of the APC in 2015 and subsequently going on to defeat President Goodluck Jonathan at the polls.

“People cannot be indifferent to Bola Tinubu, like late Gani Fawehinmi, you either love him passionately or hate him intensely, hating him in terms of your attitude for jealousy. What he said yesterday (in Abeokuta) was not a new thing. Can anyone come out and dispute what he has said?

“He played a very crucial role in the ascendancy of President Buhari. I was a foundation member of the APC and those that suffer from memory amnesia may forget about the role of Asiwaju Tinubu in the ascendancy of President Buhari. If you can go down memory lane, their relationship transcends beyond 2015, it started earlier. They made an attempt at marriage in the 2011 election, but prior to the 2013 merger and subsequent presentation of Muhammadu Buhari, a foremost traditional ruler from Northern Nigeria led his own team, went to Asiwaju in Lagos that ‘Not in our name, he (Buhari) doesn’t represent us’. A group of retired generals equally approached Asiwaju and told him, ‘Not in our name, he (Buhari) is not our candidate’. So also the Northern establishment, a professor led the team and disowned President Buhari. And to add insult to injury, an icing on the cake, was a delegation from Katsina that disowned the president and said he was not their anointed candidate.

“He withstood all those pressures and at the presidential primaries in Lagos, without the bloc vote from the South West, Buhari couldn’t have clinched that ticket.

“In the 2015 election, Rotimi Amaechi as the director general of the presidential campaign council was able to garner 69,238 votes for the APC candidate as against the 1,487,705 garnered by the PDP candidate. President Jonathan got the highest quantum of votes in the 2015 elections from Rivers State, he got the highest percentage of votes, 94.44%, facts do not lie, people may make efforts to distort history. In the whole of the South South less Edo, President Buhari got 210,131 votes, less than half of what rural Yobe State contributed to the kitty. And politics is local, your ability to generate votes establishes your relevance.

“In 2011,  the president got 72,000 votes in Oyo State, by 2015, he got 562,000 votes, in Ekiti, he got 2,689 votes in 2011, but in 2015,  he got 120,133 votes. In Ogun 17,654 votes in 2011 as against the 308,290 he got in 2015. I can roll out all these. I’m historically armed.

“What is wrong with him demanding for the leadership? He has paid the price and this is a man when his other AD (Alliance for Democracy) colleagues were rusted by the widely known General from Ota, he had the wits and the wisdom, he stood his ground. Not only that, this is man with ferocious penchant for sacrificing his own good for the enthronement of democracy in this country. The Yorubas respect Obafemi Awolowo not because he is an Ijebu man, they respect him not because he was a lawyer, they respected him because he was a transformational leader who invested heavily in infrastructure, in education. And Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is about the most successful politician from the South West ever since. He has built men and institutions,” Shettima said.

According to him, Tinubu has further shown his leadership qualities by the amount of proteges and influence he has.

“You cannot even call him first among equals, it’s a gratuitous insult. The Minister of Works and Housing is his protégé, he is one of the best performing ministers under the current system, Rauf Aregbesola was his commissioner for works and housing for eight years, the vice president, a very cerebral person, was his attorney general and commissioner for justice for eight years, I can roll on more. So, he should be given the right of first refusal for the presidency of this country.

“When the president emerged as the presidential candidate of the APC, he had a captive vote of 10 million in the North, but his popularity in the South was very low, it was the same South West people that repackaged him, that brought in experts and sold him to the Nigerian people.”