A member of the House of Representatives and chieftain of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, (NNPP Abdulmumunin Jibrin, has advised President Bola Tinubu not to succumb to the pressure to replace his current Vice-President, Kashim Shettima, in his re-election bid in 2027, warning that he would regret it. He said altering the ticket would have a lot of implications.
Jibrin, representing Kiru/Bebeji Federal constituency of Kano State, who spoke in an interview on Wednesday on Channels Television Programme, Politics Today, also described former chairman of the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu as perhaps the best National Security Adviser, NS, Nigeria has ever had.
Newsmata.com.ng reports that Jibrin, a very close ally of President Tinubu, carpeted Northern elders for not being able to wade into the rift between two prominent sons of the north -Ribadu and former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai who had been at daggers drawn.
Commenting on the clamour for Shettima’s replacement ahead of the 2027 election, Jibrin said, “I will not advise him to accede to that, and I have my reasons. If you like the president, but the fact that I like the president does not mean that I cannot disagree with him on some issues and the rest, and he’s large-hearted enough to accommodate dissenting views.
“I think anybody who will advise the president at this point to think about that has no interest of the president at heart, and I’ve said this repeatedly because if you weigh the implication, not because of how Shettima will react if that happens, but multiple issues that will come up if you decide to do a replacement. You will kneel down and beg that it is better that you stayed the way you were.
“If you’re thinking about changing the ticket, then again, you bring yourself back to the Muslim- Muslim issue debate. So, you get to a junction where people will now say, oh, this is the time for you to correct it and do something else.
“Then again, you open up conversations about is it going to be Northwest, or is it going to be Northeast and the rest? Then again, if you reduce it down, again, it goes down to personalities. Many people who are interested, perhaps some of them are even the ones sponsoring the whole of these things.
“But in any case, has the president said he’s going to replace the vice-president? No, he hasn’t said that. But again, is it a good approach, or will it be a good thing to do? Absolutely no.
On Nasir El-Rufai’s prediction that Tinubu would come third in the 2027 polls, the fourth-term lawmaker said, “The interesting thing is that I don’t know why you keep bringing back El-Rufai.
“I tell you something; incidentally, I’m a huge fan of his, and I would have wanted a situation where he’s managed in a better way because I can describe him as ‘a committee of one’. So, he’s somebody who alone can get a lot of things done, but particularly when you narrow it to the context of his disagreement with the national security adviser, that is where I blame Northern leaders.
“When they come out to talk, it’s about power, power, power, power; El-Rufai, Ribadu, you cannot go in and resolve the issue. Everybody should be in his party and the rest. But throwing stones at each other, you know, you stop it. Two very distinguished Northerners; Ribadu, fantastic.
“And I tell you this, and that is where I disagree with El-Rufai. Ribadu, in my own opinion, with the exception of…is the best NSA this country has ever had”.