A palpable panic mode seemed to have enveloped the presidency, especially the office of the Vice President, Kashim Shettima, following speculations over his possible replacement by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027, a public affairs analyst has said.
Iliyasu Gadu, who is also a political associate of Datti Baba Ahmed, the running mate of Labour Party’s Presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, made this known in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja on Sunday July 7, 2027.
Gadu, while reacting to a statement credited to Stanley Nkwocha, media aide to Shettima, over a recent interview granted by Datti on Arise Television, said the panic mode comes as “negative speculations are currently swirling around the VP’s fate leading to a loss of nuanced thinking and action on sensitive matters.”
The ICIR reports that Nkwocha in a statement said Baba-Ahmed’s appearance on Arise Television, where he canvassed support for a political coalition and questioned Shettima’s continued stay in office, was “nothing but another public display of frustration.”
In the statement issued on Friday, Nkwocha, senior special assistant to the president on media and communications (office of the vice-president), described Baba-Ahmed’s criticism as “obsessive vituperation” and “beer parlour gossip”.
“In the said interview, Baba-Ahmed expressed his frustrations on why the president had yet to remove the vice-president from office for not a single reason or offence he evidently linked the vice-president with, but merely to soothe his ego and wish,” the statement reads, adding: “Well, the bad news for him is that his frustration is just beginning.”
Describing the statement as rather distasteful and indecorous, Gadu said: “In his haste to defend his boss, the SA failed to exercise the necessary caution as the case demands and instead proceeded to launch tirades at Senator Datti even going personal at him.”
“Nkwocha allowed himself to unnecessarily flip over Datti’s remarks which to all intents and purposes was inconclusive . In his statement on Shettima, the Senator made what amounted to a veiled remark and resisted the anchor Aniagolu’s prodding to reveal more of what he knew about the VP.
“The SA should have refrained from going on overdrive as he did in his response especially as Senator had stopped short of providing full details of what he was alluding to the VP’s shortcomings.
“All he should have done in response was to have acknowledged Datti’s’s statement and to say that since it lacked details and the onus lied on him to prove his claims on the VP to the Nigerian public.
“This would have been a more nuanced response expected of the publicist of a highly placed public official who happens to be by order of protocol the occupant of a second highest office in the land.”
Gadu said Datti did not talk about Shettima alone in the interview, saying: “He commented on former VP Atiku Abubakar, Nasir El-Rufai, Peter Obi and Rotimi Amaechi all of whom are high personalities in their own rights; but they all know better than to challenge Senator Datti.”
“To put it into context, Nkwocha’s response reflect the fit of jitters and paranoia which seemed to have gripped the Tinubu presidency in view of recent developments in the polity.
“A palpable panic mode seemed to have set into the presidency especially the office of the Vice President Shettima as negative speculations are currently swirling around his fate leading to a loss of nuanced thinking and action on sensitive matters.”
“But such is the current state of dysfunction in the VP’s office that even a veteran like Nkwocha who ought to know better is resorting to name calling in order to defend
his principal in a manner that brings disrepute to the exalted office of the VP,” Gadu said.
Nurudeen Akewushola is an investigative reporter and fact-checker with The ICIR. He believes courageous in-depth investigative reporting is the key to social justice, accountability and good governance in society. You can reach him via nyahaya@icirnigeria.org and @NurudeenAkewus1 on Twitter.