2023: Shettima wants power shift to the South
Aformer governor of Borno State and senator representing Borno Central Senatorial District, Kashim Shettima, has said the 2023 presidency should shift to the South to ensure equity and justice.
Shettima said there was a ‘gentleman agreement’ at the formative stages of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to rotate power between the northern and southern blocs, adding that politicians should honour their commitments to that pact.
He spoke during the launch of an autobiography by a former vice chancellor of the University of Maiduguri, Professor Emeritus Njidda Mamadu Gadzama, titled, ‘Standing for Truth and Courage.’
“Even in the colony of thieves, there exists a code of moral behaviour. Just because we are politicians, how can we believe anything goes? We should have minimal thresholds below which we shouldn’t operate,” he said, adding that politicians should be guided by equity in their activities or risk dismemberment of the country.
He said President Buhari, despite garnering millions of votes on three attempts, could not clinch the presidency until “we had a handshake across the River Niger.”
“The irreducible minimum is for a power shift to southern Nigeria, unless the advocates of power retention have a hidden agenda for the dismemberment of the country. And to be fair to the president, he has neither endorsed nor showed preference for any of the gladiators,” he said.
Shettima also said the problem of the country was neither religion nor ethnicity, saying, “Religion has become a body of rituals devoid of any practical value. People use religion to advance their own individual interests - we have god on our lips and devil in our hearts. No religion sanctions oppression.”
He said the rest of African countries are looking up to Nigeria, saying “the hope for the black man rests not on South Africans or Kenyans. The hope for the black man rests with the people of this country. We have to make this country work. Our country of 211 million people; if this country is to implode where are we going to go? Down is the Atlantic Ocean. Up is Niger Republic.”
In his remarks at the public presentation of the book, the chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof Ibrahim Gambari, said the country was going through difficult times because it was not spared from the enormous challenges facing the world.
The executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Prof Suleiman Bogoro, said the author had sacrificed and keeps sacrificing for the country, adding that at 80, he chairs the agency’s Research and Development Standing Committee, which had made crucial recommendations to ensure the growth of the country.
He eulogised the diplomatic method with which Prof Emeritus Gadzama speaks and stands for the truth with courage.
The book was reviewed by a former vice chancellor of the Federal University, Wukari, Taraba State, Prof Abubakar Kundiri and had a former governor of Bauchi State, Adamu Muazu and other dignitaries in attendance.