Ruling party presidential running mate Kashim Shettima has clarified that he only said his principal Bola Tinubu will be ruthless like Sani Abacha if elected president next February and not hospitable as previously reported.
“I never attributed hospitality to Abacha in my speech. I did a rundown of our past Presidents and played up “the taciturnity and a dose of ruthlessness of a Sani Abacha” to show we need strongmen to deal with the nonstate actors who’ve turned Nigeria into a vast killing-field,” Mr Shettima said in a tweet Friday night.
Federal Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, also said that Mr Shettima never implied that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, would be hospitable to Nigerians in the similitude of late military dictator Sanni Abacha. On the contrary, Mr Keyamo says Mr Tinubu will be ruthless as president.
As shown in the video below, @KashimSM never attributed hospitality to Abacha. He only played up “the taciturnity and a dose of the ruthlessness of a Sani Abacha” to show we need strongmen to deal with the non-state actors who want to disrupt our peace,” Mr Keyamo said on Friday.
Mr Keyamo was addressing an article that had previously covered Mr Shettima’s remarks at the 96th anniversary of the Yoruba Tennis Club in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday.
In his remarks, Mr Shettima compared his principal to former Nigerian leaders, both of democratic rule and military regimes. He said that Mr Tinubu embodied their qualities altogether, which according to him, makes the former Lagos governor the best fit for the 2023 presidential elections.
Mr Keyamo has now modified Mr Shettima’s comments to reflect that Mr Tinubu’s “will-be ruthlessness” is directed at non-state actors who threaten the peace of the country
