Tinubu, Kashim Shettima: An unwavering political ‘chef-d’oeuvre’ in the race for 2023

Tinubu, Kashim Shettima: An unwavering political ‘chef-d’oeuvre’ in the race for 2023

By: James Bwala

Two days ago, I read a book with the title: ‘Political Party Governance’ written by a former House of Representative and cabinet member in the Good luck Jonathan administration, Mr. Mohammed Wakil. The book, a 290 pages was handed to me on Sunday, August 7, 2022 by the Vice Presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Senator Kashim Shettima, the man I so admire in the political race for his courage and unyielding stand in the pursuit of victory with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the buildup for 2023.

I called them President and Vice President of the Nigerian states with much confidence as the days unfold and we march towards the day of grandeur in the making of history. While I picture them in the mirror of ‘Political Party Governance’, which informed this piece, it appears clearer to me that my writings of November 4, 2021 with the title: 2023: How Kashim Shettima may become Nigeria’s Next Vice President’ indeed was coming from a scuttlebutt of pleasingly prediction with the imperceptible hand turning the tide.

I believe that even nature has agreed with the arrangement that makes possible the emergence of Tinubu and Kashim Shettima in the race for Aso Rock come 2023. And for a number of times I keep saying that the direction of the wind carries the message that only those with discerning minds can understand the way and manner things are unfolding. 

From the days of my early education, one thing I cannot forget quickly is my social studies teacher beating us on the question of the direction of the wind. Indeed, not even the teacher could claim to have seen the wind or the direction in which it flows but it was theoretically framed and the books, which informed him that the prevailing westerlies are the normal winds blowing from West to East. This theory perhaps may have justified what I have seen in the coming together of these grill minds holding sway in our political institution.  

With that understanding I come to stand with that argument in the political calculations and to agree with the ruling party on the move and selection of its candidates. From the forward of the book, in which I am linking my thoughts, Professor Abubakar O. Suleiman gauged the heath and resilience of a country’s democracy from the strength of its institutions of democracy….And went further to explain the means of its symbolic integration in the making of Political Party Governance’. The book fishes out beyond the ordinary reader’s imagination something more particularly with the ongoing struggles to inch towards another big outing for the APC on the day of election.

Although I am not out to review the book by Wakil, many thoughts, thinking and things as revealed in the lines of writing keeps pulling me into linking many parts of the revelations with the Tinubu/Shettima ticket and the new face of the ruling party in the lines of the exposures in the book. Like the lion that remains focused on its target, Tinubu and Kashim Shettima have been on the same page from their defining stand on political party governance as anyone reading their profile may understand. 

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I also tried to profile the four political runners in the thinking of the writer on his title: ‘Political Party Governance’ to see where they fit in. Their antecedents in the country’s politics over the years left a mark on the political ground that reveals their stability as leaders. Well, as  unstable as it portrays for the others, Tinubu and Kashim Shettima no doubt have a record that portray them in positive light as progressive in their move from individual rising on the political soil to touching the political firmament with such a green ambition where all thinking stops. 

Beyond the ‘rhetoric’ as Kashim Shettima would put, the Biblical truth is that an unstable person is always a double minded personality and as such is never straight in all his ways. Those who had been moving from here and there in their political journeys have this in their records but Tinubu and Kashim Shettima we know have the history of being politically stable as such they are good examples of leaders Nigerians should follow.

On an ‘individual party level initiative’, I see the Tinubu, Shettima train putting more efforts on the key advises the book by Mohammed Wakil attempted to answer on some of the questions on challenges from a number of internal capacities suffered by political parties in the country ( if narrowed to the ongoing challenges within the Nigeria’s political parties), and to put on record I can confidently say that with the revelations across party levels, the APC is enjoying a better platform and better candidates for the Presidential role than the other poles in the race for Aso Rock.

Recently, groups have continued to run into the Tinubu, Kashim Shettima offices to register their support and solidarity. Some of these groups include  Tinubu-Shettima Support Group, Arewa Christian Reawakening Network, Detribalized Tinubu Support Group with partners, NairaXi, APC Young Stakeholders and Nigeria First Movement. This indeed further revealed that the Muslim-muslim agitations was a scratch but another strength for the party to surmount the ideas and to bring Nigeria out of the woods over religious differences and other misplaced agenda and to set citizens on the pedestrian for another walk to freedom.

Tinubu, Kashim Shettima: An unwavering political ‘chef-d’oeuvre’ in the race for 2023