Vice President Kashim Shettima and his predecessor, Atiku Abubakar differed yesterday over a role President Bola Tinubu played in Atiku’s political sojourn.
Shettima, a former governor of Borno state, said Tinubu supported and helped Atiku to emerge presidential candidate in 2007 after he “was harassed, intimidated, dehumanised and chased out of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).”
But Atiku, a former vice president and PDP presidential candidate in 2023, countered his successor’s claim, stating that Tinubu “benefited immensely from his (Atiku) goodwill” which salvaged Tinubu’s political career as former governor of Lagos State.
The former vice president also said the platform on which he contested the 2007 election was Action Congress (AC), which was a coalition of Advance Congress of Democrats (ACD) formed by mainly PDM members and other associates and Tinubu’s faction of AD.
Speaking at the launch of third expanded national MSMEs clinics and commissioning of some four projects in Ado- Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, Shettima said President Tinubu and the people of South West were instrumental to the emergence of former president, Muhammadu Buhari as candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his victory at the 2015 presidential poll.
However, while describing Tinubu as a very veritable sanctuary for victims of political witch-hunt he said, “When Atiku Abubakar was harassed, intimidated, dehumanized and chased out of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), it was the bourdilion he ran to for support and it was in bourdilion that he got the needed support and he contested for the presidency of this country.
“Four years later, the same Asiwaju supported another Nigerians, to contest for the presidency of this nation, he is the current National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu”.
He added that without Tinubu’s support, Buhari wouldn’t have emerged as APC candidate and that without the support of the South West, he couldn’t have won the 2015 presidential election.
He added that 2023 was an opportunity to pay back Tinubu, adding, “we felt that we had to give back to Bola Ahmed Tinubu what he had given to the North.”
Countering the claim, Atiku, in a statement by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, said Shettima goofed over his claim that he benefited from Tinubu’s goodwill when he was being “persecuted” in the PDP.
He said, “Truth be told, it was Tinubu that actually benefited immensely from Atiku’s goodwill.
“But for Atiku’s support, hinged on his pro-democracy instincts and rule of law, Tinubu’s tenure as governor of Lagos would have been rough with a wide possibility of termination of his political career.
“For some time, and especially leading up to the 2023 election, there has been a deliberate attempt to distort the history of the politics of the early 4th Republic by ascribing the AC, the political platform that Atiku ran in 2007 as Tinubu’s party.
“Nothing can be further from the truth. Vice President Shettima, obviously carried away with the euphoria of the unveiling of his official residence as Vice President, repeated the same lie.
“Shettima needs to be reminded that Atiku did not run under the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), but Action Congress (AC). AC came out of a coalition of ACD (Advance Congress of Democrats), formed by mainly PDM members and other associates and Tinubu’s faction of AD.”
Atiku added that Tinubu was not in a position to lend him the platform because he was nominated by all the delegates from all the states to be presidential candidate at the time.
He further listed some of the delegates at the primary election wherein he emerged as the party’s presidential candidate to include Atiku Abubakar himself, Lawal Keita, Amb. Yahaya Kwande, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, Alexis Anielo, Titi Ajanaku, former Governor Rasheed Ladoja, Chief Tom Ikimi, and Chief Dapo Sarumi.
Others were Chief Sergeant Awuse, Alh. Lawan, Dr. Chris Ngige, Prof Ango Abdulahi, Dr Farouk Abdul Azeez, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Chief Ejiofor Onyia, and Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, among others.
He said from the Tinubu’s Alliance for Democracy were Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Chief Segun Osoba, Chief Adebayo Adefarati, and Chief Bisi Akande, among others.
“It will be appropriate for Vice President Shettima to refrain from making statements on subject matters on which he knows little or nothing about,” Atiku said.