KASHIM SHETTIMA AND APC NATIONAL CHAIRMANSHIP: PIECE OF GOLD IN A HAYSTACK

 

Sen. Kashim Shettima

By Yakubu Ahmed-BK

He has never ever, even when the calculations do not favor him, abandoned the progressives’ family. In other words, he has, all his political life, been a progressive politician, of all seasons. He has never, in all his years of association with Muhammadu Buhari, ever betrayed him despite the litany of political misfortunes that have dogged the pre-2015 Buhari-for-President project until he finally nicked it in 2015. Come rain, come shine, the indefatigable and resilient Kashim Shettima had kept faith with the ups and downs that have trailed the Buhari difficult journey over the years.

Cast your mind to the group of politicians-of-fortune who have been in and out of the Buhari train based on their whims and caprices. These are people who were on record to have defined their engagement with Buhari based on how well the Buhari project served their immediate political interests. We are almost back into the trenches of a season strewn with all manner of characters angling for the national Chairmanship of the All Progressives Congress (APC). 

Every Tom, Dick and Harry, regardless of how his misconduct oozes with the terrible stench of treachery, is today positioning himself to become Chairman of a party which some of them have relentlessly battered and assailed in the past in pursuit of their narrow minded interests. Is it any wonder therefore, that amongst the dozen or so of aspirants that have so far shown interest in the national Chairmanship of the APC, there are some of them whose history of anti-Buhari shenanigans were legendary to the extent that they, when they served as Governors, openly collaborated with the PDP power brokers then, to sabotage Buhari’s several bids at the presidency?

One of them was so notoriously anti-Buhari, that at each time the retired General visited Borno on campaign trail, he (the Governor of that time) would expend millions to hire out all commercial buses, taxi cars and motorcycles, ship them to Konduga where they will be hidden for the period of the visit in order to send a message that Buhari was not popular in Borno state. 

This act of treachery by a sitting Governor against his own party’s presidential candidate only stopped when Kashim Shettima took over as Governor in 2011. He galvanized support, spent money and fought all the anti-Buhari elements and stopped them in their tracks. The results of the 2015 and 2019 presidential elections which Kashim Shettima supervised and which Buhari won conclusively and which were at variance with the pre-2015 compromised results aptly proved the change of baton and a change of narrative of the sincerity of the actors. The manner the results were churned out made the world of difference. With over 90% of the total votes going the way of Buhari both in 2015 and 2019, Borno emerged as the state with the highest votes, on the average for Buhari. At no time in the past was it this amenable to the president and those results did not just emerge out of the blues. Someone, who does not have the treachery DNA in his veins and in his character, worked them out, out of loyalty to the core values of progressive politics and in consonance with his own convictions. Since then, Kashim Shettima has remained loyal and uncompromising to the ethics of progressive politics, to his friends and associates as well as to the larger interest of his state in particular and the nation at large.

HIS POPULARITY NATIONWIDE

Only very few politicians can, on current form, match Kashim Shettima’s popularity nationwide. Apart from the charisma which God has endowed him with, the nation was treated to one of Nigeria’s most action-packed infrastructure-provision governance when he served as Governor of Borno state between 2011 and 2019. When President Muhammadu Buhari visited Borno in May 2019 to commission projects built by Kashim Shettima, he ended up commissioning the ones he could and had to leave many others that were actually lined up, but which the President just couldn’t due to time constraints. 

He was so overwhelmed that he, at each turn of his visit, will look over his shoulders at the direction of Kashim Shettima and was saying rather overwhelmingly ‘’Allah yayi maka albarka, meaning ‘’May God bless you.” 

Where ever you go in the country in each of the six geo-political zones, Kashim Shettima is seen generally as the architect of modern Borno and the torch bearer of good governance. In the North East where he comes from, everywhere is home to him. In the North Central and the North West, the man has carved a niche for himself such that where ever his name is mentioned it is usually greeted with widespread appreciation for teaching other Governors how to govern and how to support the right man to take over from him.

In Kebbi state where he accepted an invitation to speak at a youth gathering in November last year, the hall was filled to the brim and despite the presence of many other dignitaries of repute, everyone admitted that he came to see Kashim Shettima and to hear him talk about how he came about mentoring Professor Babagana Umara Zulum to succeed him. 

In the South as a whole, the same type of reverence had played out amongst different layers of political and professional groupings. 

His very wide cycle of friends and associates nationwide testified to the unprecedented popularity which he enjoys.

Which political party, in the whole of Africa, will have the prospect of making a Kashim Shettima its national Chairman and still waste time rummaging through a haystack of a mixture of some notable politicians alright, but with a tinge of some misfits, political lepers, old brigades, notorious carpet crossers and money-for-hand-back-for-ground political prostitutes? Tell me, which serious political party would tinker with the idea of bypassing a Kashim Shettima with all his pluses, capacity, popularity, crowd-pulling ability, national appeal, charisma, contacts and undiluted loyalty and look out for someone with lesser pedigree just because of small intra-party squabbles and legitimate struggle for space - something that can be sorted out through horse trading and adjustments here and there? 

If what the APC is looking for is someone that can naturally knit the party together and unite all criss-crossing interests for the good of the party, democracy and the nation at large, a man like Kashim Shettima - who has remained steadfast, loyal, uncompromisingly progressive, broadminded and large hearted should be the natural choice to take the party to greater heights, heal wounds, reach out and expand the frontiers of victories should be the natural choice.

He may not have shown interest in the office, but the APC has grown so large that it should launch a search for the right people to launch it into the space of consolidation in a post-2023 e-politics of egg-heads in a diverse Nigeria struggling to come out of extraordinary security, social and economic challenges threatening to tear it apart. 

We cannot afford to have weaklings at the heart of these make or mar struggles.

Ahmed-BK, a public affairs commentator wrote in from Gesse III, Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State.