On Wednesday revealing APC vice-presidential candidate was received by anger as hundreds of demonstrators stormed the APC secretariat in Abuja to register their grievances over the decision.
The
protest took place at about the same time the vice-presidential candidate of
the All Progressives Congress, Senator Kashim Shettima was being presented to
party leaders by the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at the
Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja.
Defending
his selection of former Borno state governor Shettima, Tinubu said, “Senator
Kashim Shettima’s career in politics and beyond shows that he is eminently
qualified not only to deliver that all important electoral victory, but also
step into the shoes of the Vice-President. As a man with the talent, maturity,
strength, character, and patriotism, he has my implicit confidence and faith.”
Governors,
aspirants and delegates of South-East extraction were conspicuously missing at
the event.
Protesters
who came to the APC secretariat in six luxury buses were led by some party
members under the aegis of APC Hausa-Fulani Youth Forum.
They
chanted songs and wielded various banners with the inscriptions, ‘A cry for
justice’, ‘Drop Shettima and ‘Give slots to our Christian brothers’,
‘Discrimination and mutual suspicion in our country’ and so on.
Speaking
to one of our correspondents, the convener of the forum, Abdullahi Mohamadu
declared that they would not stop protesting until the party do the right
thing.
In a
letter addressed to the National Chairman of the APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu,
and made available to The PUNCH, Mohammadu stated that they saw the selection
of Shettima as an aberration that should be corrected immediately by the
leadership of the party.
The
petition read in part, ‘’As concerned stakeholders of the APC and those who
constitute the voting strength of our party, we find it worrisome that such a
decision could be taken without recourse to its implication on the electoral
chances of the party and the attendant uproar such a decision could bring about
in the country. Picking another Muslim from the north-eastern part of the
country as running mate is politically and morally indefensible.’’
With its
choice of the Muslim-Muslim ticket, the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union says the
ruling party has already lost 2.2m votes from the Southern part of Kaduna in
the 2023 poll.
Spokesman
for SOKAPU, Luka Binniyat, condemned the APC’s decision and predicted that the
2023 presidential contest would be between the presidential candidates of the
Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party, Peter Obi.
He said,
“The selection of Shettima is an assured, well packaged and comfortable defeat
of the APC in the presidential election come 2023, from what I can predict for
the Southern Kaduna voting population of about 2.2 million.’’
The Middle
Belt Forum lambasted Tinubu for saying that picking Shettima as his
vice-presidential candidate would guarantee him victory in 2023.
Speaking
in an interview with The PUNCH in Jos on Wednesday, the MBF National President,
Dr Bitrus Pogu, urged the APC presidential candidate to wait and see the
results of the 2023 elections.
Speaking
in the same vein, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Congress,
Dr Victor Oye, observed that the Muslim-Muslim ticket negated sections 14 and
15 of the Federal Character principle.
He added
that the interests of Nigerians should have been placed above selfish interest.
Decrying
the development in the APC, scores of Christian leaders in Ogun state have
asked the Christian Association of Nigeria to announce its anointed candidate ahead
of the 2023 presidential poll.
Addressing
the participants in Abeokuta on Tuesday, the CAN Vice-Chairman, Solomon Kuponu appealed to the religious leaders in the state to be patient with the national leadership of
CAN till they come up with their
official stand on the matter .
Meanwhile,
the CAN has dissociated itself from some clerics who attended the unveiling of
the APC vice presidential candidate, saying they were “desperados who went
there for themselves.”
The Vice
President of CAN in19 Northern States and Abuja, Rev. Joseph Hayab, said though
Tinubu was free to “hire mechanics and
other artisans and sew clerical garments for them, that effort would only add
to their many ropes but would not change
the need for fairness and justice.’’
Hayab, who is also the CAN Chairman in Kaduna
State stated this in reaction to reports that some pastors attended the
unveiling of Shettima in Abuja.
He stated,
“CAN wonders why the desperation. First, a story was out claiming to have come
from the Chairman of CAN Borno state only to be refuted. Secondly, there was
another lie that BAT (Bola Ahmed Tinubu) and his running mate were on their way
to meet CAN President one night. A meeting that was not true and was on a night
that the CAN President was in Alabama USA attending Baptist World Alliance
Conference of which he is the Vice President.’’
Also,
Adebayo Oladeji, Special Assistant (Media and Communication) to the President
of CAN, Samson Ayokunle, challenged the APC to name the Christian leaders that
attended Shettima’s unveiling.
He said,
“Let them name the CAN officials at the programme and their offices. If they
could use 2017 photos to claim that some Pastors visited Shettima and lied that
Pastor E. A Adeboye has endorsed them, they could do anything. Our position on
Muslim-Muslim ticket is irreversible. Anybody can claim anything but one thing
is clear, CAN was not part of the unveiling programme of Shettima.”
A former
Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung, in an interview with
The PUNCH, described the Muslim-Muslim ticket as a manifestation of
insensitivity.
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