Ismaeel Ahmed, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says the ruling party has no plans to replace Vice-President Kashim Shettima on President Bola Tinubu’s re-election ticket.
The former member of the APC board of trustees (BoT) spoke on Tuesday when he featured on Politics Today, a Channel Television programme.
Over the past few days, the APC has been in mild turmoil over the fear that Shettima may not return as Tinubu’s running mate for the 2027 presidential election.
The situation peaked on Sunday during an APC stakeholders’ summit in Gombe that descended into chaos after some party chieftains endorsed Tinubu for the 2027 presidential election without mentioning excluded Shettima as his running mate.
Aggrieved party members disrupted the meeting, insisting that Shettima must be on the ticket with Tinubu in 2027.
At the end of the crisis, Ali Bukar, the deputy national chairman, was forced to endorse both Tinubu and Shettima for a second term.
Speaking on the incident, Ahmed said the fear of APC dropping Shettima from the presidential ticket was fuelled by “malicious rumours”.
He added that the reluctance to endorse the vice-president alongside Tinubu was in accordance with the electoral laws.
“There is no discussion about substituting the vice-president. There is no discussion about the vice-president being blocked,” he said.
“Those are all malicious rumours by people who probably don’t understand what is going on in the presidency or how the presidency works.
“We have the mandate of the people for four years, and we have used two years out of that.
“We have one year to the primaries and two years to the general elections. We are a party in government, which means we are supposed to obey the rules of INEC at a minimum.”(The Cable)
