The Presidency has said that those political enemies of the President, including Datti Baba-Ahmed, Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 Presidential election, planning to scuttle Vice President Kashim Shettima’s loyalty to President Bola Tinubu with a view to getting him sacked would fail.
Responding to a call for Shettima’s sack by Datti in a recent comments on a popular television programme, a presidential spokesman, Stanley Nkwocha in a public announcement released on Friday said those calling for Shettima’s sack would not succeed.
According to him, the political chemistry between the President and his vice has gone beyond what could be ruptured by the bellicose opposition.
He said “this Vice President has continued to carry out his duties with integrity, decency and patriotism. The office of the Vice President requires total loyalty, which Shettima embodies. He has, without equivocation, continued to market the programmes of this administration with unbridled gusto and conviction both in Nigeria and all over the world.
“As a consummate salesman and believer in the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Tinubu administration, the Vice President continues to traverse the world, marketing and showcasing the economic viability of the present administration, geared towards the unfurling of the great Nigerian possibility.
“It is this kind of loyalty and commitment that the Dattis of this world, acting in cahoots with implacable enemies of the President, want to scuttle. History will bear witness to Shettima as an effective Vice President, who has continued to work on a daily basis for the good governance of a country he is so proud of. The delusion of VP Shettima being removed by Datti and his gang of jealous, malicious and conspiratorial manipulators will not succeed.
“This Vice President’s media team and image handlers are very calm, gentle and respectable professionals, choosing to support their principal in the most effective way possible. For us, the overall goal and prize is the success of President Tinubu, as always emphasised by the Vice President. This, from the Vice President to everyone in his office and home, is solemn in priority and task. Undue and unprovoked attacks like this would henceforth not go without a response from us.
We might not have the power to stop Datti Baba-Ahmed’s obsession with a fellow politician and fellow Northerner’s charismatic persona, especially one who has attained a position he so relishes but might never attain, however, in seeking the Vice President’s fall, he must defer to the Almighty Allah, who gives power to whom He pleases. A million and one hate comments will never change the will of the Almighty.”
Nkwocha describes Datti as a failed politician who has never won any election but had in 2011 rigged one into the Senate only to be nullified by the court.
He described Shettima as a cerebral professional and an accomplished politician having won all the elections he contacted in the recent past.
