The recent speculative discourse attempting to reframe Vice President Kashim Shettima’s role in the 2023 election and more critically, his relevance in President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 re-election blueprint is not only flawed but dangerously simplistic. It reeks of political amnesia, strategic blindness, and a reckless disregard for the hard-earned lessons of Nigeria’s complex electoral terrain.
Let us be brutally honest, Shettima was not selected for his capacity to summon electoral miracles at the polls. He was a deliberate and calculated choice a necessary stabilizing figure deployed at a time of religious, regional, and political volatility. His emergence on the APC ticket was far more about neutralizing threats and preserving the coalition, than about appealing to mass voters.
Specifically, his selection was a masterstroke to counterbalance the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar, the PDP’s flag bearer who also hails from the Northeast. In a race where religious optics, regional sensitivities, and identity politics were already boiling over, the Tinubu-Shettima ticket was designed not just to win votes but to tactically checkmate Atiku’s stronghold in the Northeast to divide his base, blunt his message, and fracture the emotional loyalty he enjoyed in the region. To ignore this cold, calculated logic is to fundamentally misunderstand the chessboard of Nigerian politics in 2023.
Borno State, Shettima’s home turf, did not produce record-breaking figures for the APC. The entire Northeast, in fact, lagged behind the Northwest in turnout and support. But again, Shettima’s value was never numeric, it was strategic, psychological, and structural. He calmed tensions triggered by the Muslim-Muslim ticket, brought ideological coherence to a fragmented alliance, and lent gravitas to a ticket struggling to unify multiple factions under one flag. He was a balancer, not a crowd-puller and his presence was indispensable at that moment.
Now, to suggest, almost casually, that Shettima should be discarded in favor of Nuhu Ribadu an accomplished technocrat with little to no electoral muscle is not just wrongheaded, it is a political misadventure bordering on self-sabotage.
Let us deal with the facts, not fantasies, Ribadu has never won a competitive election. Not in 2011 when he ran for president. Not in 2023. Not ever. His home state of Adamawa remains a formidable PDP bastion, tightly controlled by Atiku Abubakar’s deeply entrenched political machinery. Ribadu is admired in bureaucratic circles, certainly. But administrative brilliance does not translate into electoral viability. And in Nigerian politics, proximity to state power does not automatically confer grassroots legitimacy.
To believe that Ribadu could consolidate the Northeast, or expand the party’s footprint in 2027, is to fall for a dangerous illusion. He has no grassroots network, no political infrastructure, and no unifying force within his own state’s fractured APC chapter. Replacing Shettima with Ribadu is not a tactical improvement it is a catastrophic misread of regional dynamics that could fracture the fragile unity already hanging by a thread.
Even more troubling is the symbolic insult such a move would send not just to the Northeast but to the Northwest, the electoral engine room that powered APC’s victory in 2023. The same Northwest that mobilized its masses and delivered historic support for the Tinubu ticket now finds itself underrepresented in power and sidelined in appointments. Visionary leaders like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai undeniably capable and committed were ignored for the vice presidency, snubbed in the formation of the federal cabinet, and excluded from strategic planning, all to appease certain regional sentiments.
Let’s not mince words this is not strategy, this is betrayal, wrapped in the language of realignment.
Those floating the idea of Shettima’s replacement forget that the discontent in the Northeast today is not because of Shettima, but because forces within the presidency seem hell-bent on undermining him, reducing his visibility, and strangling his influence before 2031. This isn’t just shortsighted, it is profoundly destructive. To replace him now with a less influential figure sends a clear, cynical message, loyalty counts for nothing, contribution is disposable, and alliances are negotiable.
This kind of internal hemorrhaging will not be fixed with cosmetic replacements or superficial appeasement. APC must abandon the dangerous notion that the vice-presidency is a chess piece to be sacrificed at will. Political maneuvering may win whispers in Abuja, but elections are won in dusty towns, tense regions, and among the forgotten masses who remember every slight.
Tijjani Sarki, a good governance advocate and public policy analyst writes from Zawaciki, Kano. He can be reached at: abdullahisarkitijjani@gmail.com
