Barrister Oladotun Hassan has dismissed claims of an alleged fallout between President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima. He described such rumours as baseless and unworthy of public attention. The legal practitioner suggested that stories of this nature are often stirred by political elements aiming to destabilize the presidency.
Hassan speculated that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, alongside certain northern power brokers, might be behind the alleged rumour in a bid to “hijack” national leadership through the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
While addressing the matter, Hassan advocated for political reforms that would allow citizens to pick up forms and contest the vice presidential position independently. According to him, this would prevent any president from unilaterally removing a vice president at will.
“In respect of the rumour of a rift between President Tinubu and the Vice President, I don’t think we should entertain unnecessary rumours or fight. I don’t believe there is a rumour of any destabilisation between the president and the vice president, except if there is an element of betrayal from the vice president, except with the witch hunting of the northern cabals moving and rallying around themselves, even ministers within the government, Atiku and some other leaders from the north, wanting to use SDP to hijack power.”
He went on to highlight how the country’s political operations often lack consistency and loyalty among top government figures. “Sometimes, the way things are being run in this country is not the fact that you have a vice president. When Atiku was [Olusegun] Obasanjo’s vice president, Obasanjo said 99.9 loyalty is not loyalty, therefore, it must be 100 per cent loyalty. Are government officials loyal to themselves, to their party or to their secluded interests?”
Hassan also observed that political maneuvering could play a role in leadership reshuffles. “To me, I don’t see any fight, except whereby there is a renewed strategy by the president to change the vice president and equally look at another northern state, in order to really play the political game. Politics is a game of chess, if you know that your strategy of where you are picking your vice for first term would not be as impactful as where you need to pick your vice for the second term, it is not a matter of war because it is a discretionary appointment by the president to pick his vice.”
He stressed that the current system, where the vice president is selected as part of a joint ticket rather than elected independently, contributes to these tensions. “It is not that we elected on the primary of winning the ticket as we elected presidents. It is a different thing that they’re not winning alongside the vice president. Maybe they should change the political climate for those who will be running within political parties, let people pick form for vice president and let people pick a form for president. So that this discretion of the president removing the vice president at will would not happen. It kills vision. You might not be able to say, at some point, when [Muhammadu] Buhari was there, that his vice was described as a poster boy.”
