Shettima Reveals How Tinubu Saved Atiku, Nuhu Ribadu

Former Governor of Borno State, Senator Kashim Shettima, has revealed how the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, gave former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, and the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, platform to contest.

Shettima, a vocal supporter of a Tinubu presidency in 2023, said the former Lagos governor gave the duo a platform to contest for presidency after they were embarrassed and kicked out of their former parties.

He said, “It is pertinent to mention that when former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, was harassed, brutalised and chased out of the PDP, even some of our northern brothers were treating him as a pariah, it was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu that provided him with a sanctuary and platform to contest the 2007 presidential election.

“Again, four years later, he provided the same platform to another harassed northerner, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, to contest for the presidency under the ACN.”

“Without the block support of the South-West, it would have been difficult for President Buhari to emerge as the candidate of the APC. Tinubu worked for Buhari in 2015 and in 2019. This is why some of us find it utterly disgusting when some of the folks who vigorously worked against Buhari’s ambition in 2014 have done some political somersaults and are now members of what I called Buharist Church of Latter-Day Saints, hectoring down on us and liberally dropping the president’s name,” he said.

Naija News reports that Atiku contested on the platform of the Action Congress (AC) in 2007 coming third behind Musa Yar’adua and Muhammadu Buhari,  while Ribadu contested on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2011 and also coming third behind Gooduck Jonathan and Buhari.