Abuja: Professor Haruna Yerima, a senior member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has dismissed calls to abandon the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket, insisting that President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima will secure victory in the 2027 elections if they run together.
Yerima, a former House of Representatives member, said this while reacting to a statement credited to the Northern Ethnic Nationality Forum in Abuja on Saturday.
The group urged President Tinubu to drop Sen. Shettima and avoid repeating the Muslim-Muslim ticket.
According to the group, Tinubu must pick a Christian from the Plateau, Benue, and Taraba states to allay the fears of the Islamisation agenda by Tinubu’s presidency.
It added that retaining the Muslim-Muslim ticket would give the opposition a ready campaign.
Yerima, however, said it was a fallacy and unfounded to make such a statement.
“The claim that the APC may lose the 2027 presidential elections if President Bola Tinubu adopts Vice President Kashim Shettima as his running mate is insane and unfounded,” he said.
According to him, the insinuation that Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi’s ticket would defeat that of Tinubu/Shettima is a jaundiced and amateur political permutation without any empirical backing.
“We dismiss this statement by one Dominic Alancha of a faceless organisation, Northern Ethnic Nationality Forum, who urged President Tinubu to drop Sen. Shettima and avoid repeating the Muslim-Muslim ticket.”
The don said the group got “all its facts wrong because Tinubu’s presidency has disputed the issue of the Islamisation agenda through its dynamic and policy of inclusion.”
“In the last two years of President Bola Tinubu’s presidency, all doubting Thomases that the APC administration is not tilted to any religious group. It is appalling that a faceless group is trying to reincarnate a forgotten issue.
“The claim that the opposition would dethrone President Tinubu if he adopts Senator Shettima in 2027 is another fallacy that is without any shred of truth or evidence.
“President Bola Tinubu chose Vice President Kashim Shettima after thorough consideration of various factors. Any attempt to impose a running mate on President Tinubu would not only backfire but would be met by outright rejection by the President himself.
“President Tinubu is not a political neophyte that some dubious politicians would hide under a mushroom ethnic group to push for an unsaleable agenda.”
The former lawmaker cautioned against mixing religion with politics, explaining that “it is puzzling that some people are driving faith-based sentiments on issues that are strictly loyalty and competence-based.
