By Emma Aziken
Senator Kashim Shettima, the All Progressives Congress, APC vice-presidential candidate has lately been the object of much joke over his dressing gaffe at the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA conference in Lagos.
For this writer, what may have been the most hilarious intervention into the brouhaha came from the twitter user, Illiya, who tweeting @swagskelly01 averred that Shettima may have been confused over the NBA that invited, him.
Was it the Nigerian Bar Association or the National Basketball Association? Since the two bodies popular in Nigeria bear the same acronyms, to meet the two interests, he decided to dress to satisfy both bodies.
He wore the suit to satisfy the lawyers and then wore the basketball shoes to fit in with the basketball players.
Remarkably, that fudge fits in with the reality of Shettima’s political party, All Progressives Congress, APC and to some extent his own political trajectory.
Shettima, a suave and cosmopolitan former banker, has however, radiated very controversial emissions that undoubtedly call for a further interrogation of his person and his politics.
For a man who was plucked from the bank to serve in the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, SAS administration, the rapidity with which he took to annihilate his political godfather calls for sober reflection on his power ambitions.
Though presently effusive of Asiwaju Bola TInubu one should well ask whether he would not serve Tinubu the same treatment he gave SAS.
Today, SAS who was once the reputed political godfather in Borno and his former disciple, Shettima are engaged in a game of cat and mouse in the state.
Restructure My Foot
There is even more on Shettima. It is indeed poetic justice for a man who not too long ago drew attention to his foot that today the nation is pouring over his footwear.
In a viral video that has touched many raw nerves, Shettima, while delivering a lecture in the recent past fully dismissed the crave by many political progressives for restructuring.
Concluding his now controversial speech, he ended thus: ”Restructure my foot”. As we are now forced to look at his feet, what we find is that they do not match his dressing.
Is it not ironical that Shettima is the running mate to a man who in the past was one of the most radical exponents of restructuring? This his suit does not fit his shoe indeed.
Given the seemingly poisonous dismissal of the popular agitation for restructuring it is bothering to all that with Shettima on board as the running mate to Bola Tinubu that the country faces the prospects of having two men with opposite ideologies as potential president and vice-president.
We have a Tinubu who as a NADECO veteran was inclined towards the restructuring of the country. Indeed, Tinubu has been forced to confront an old interview he granted while he was in exile where he said that he doesn’t believe in Nigeria.
The APC has, undoubtedly brought together two contradicting characters at the top of its ticket. We have a passionate advocate of restructuring teaming up with another Nigerian who in his words is determined to destroy restructuring ala “Restructure my foot,”
Shettima would in the immediate future have to look beyond the embarrassment of his footwear at the NBA conference to reassure Nigerians after his haughty dismissal of restructuring.
If he can so easily dismiss something that many Nigerians are passionate about, one wonders the extent to which Shettima would go to project his biases.
Indeed, the issue of ‘restructure my foot’ may indeed be just a little fray in the controversies around the APC presidential running mate.
The controversy over the Chibok school kidnap is just another one, and perhaps reflects the arrogance that some tend to see in the APC presidential running mate.
It is a matter of fact that the Federal Ministry of Education had in 2014 written Shettima as governor of Borno State to move the girls of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok to a safer location. Shettima rejected that offer and today many of those school girls remain in captivity.
If it is embarrassing for Shettima to address the media on his fashion gaffe, it is, however, inevitable that he must surely address Nigerians on the circumstances that prompted him to disregard the advisory from the Federal Ministry of Education not to hold the examination in Chibok.
He will also have to explain to all why is it that it was in the Borno Government House, Abuja that the notorious suicide bomber, Kabiru Sokoto was nabbed in Abuja.
How come of all the houses in Abuja that it was only in the Borno Governor’s Lodge in Abuja that Kabiru Sokoto was caught?
One would not talk of the arrogant posture he struck in the now leaked phone conversation with former Governor Ibikunle Amosun. The way he spoke to his then colleague governor was to say the least repulsive. The arrogance he brought to bear in that phone conversation was abhorring given the fact that Amosun is his senior in age and even qualifications.
If Shettima had over the years had his way, it is ironical that today as we examine his foot and dressing, we see a fudge that requires a deeper interrogation of the man that would want to be vice-president.
