Muslims Muslim Ticket Untenable, Unnecessary Risk, Prof Osinbajo

Tinubu and Osinbajo 

Abuja: By Our REPORTER

Published, Tuesday, July 12, 2022

PROFESSOR YEMI OSINBAJO, Vice-President is said to oppose the selection of Senator Kashim Shettima, former governor of Borno State as the running mate of All Progressives Congress Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, saying a Muslim-Muslim ticket would not augur well for both the party and the country. 

Sources closed to the Vice- President disclosed in Abuja yesterday that Osinbajo had posited Muslim-Muslim ticket would be untenable and an unnecessary risk, counselling both top APC chieftains and Tinubu to avoid an unbalanced ticket, 

“Professor Osinbajo is opposed to this thing announced on Sunday, and his objections are well known both to the party and even the flagbearer himself,” the source said, adding that  the VP opposed a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2014 even before what later turned out as his own eventual nomination as VP.

Osinbajo was reported to have explained to Tinubu that a Muslim-Muslim ticket would simply isolate Christians. Later the then APC flagbearer, President Buhari, also shared that position and rejected overtures to name Tinubu as his running mate after emerging as the presidential candidate.

 The dispatch learned that the VP had told top APC hierarchies that the logic, fairness and justice of a balanced ticket could not assailed. He said the argument that merit should be considered above a Muslim- Christian balance presents a false choice, adding that all the merits inherent in Muslim-Muslim ticket are also in a balanced ticket.

“The VP said anything short of a balanced ticket creates a needless tension and further aggravates some of the country’s fault-lines. But a balanced ticket certainly sends a positive signal", explained the knowledgeable sources.

However, the APC standard bearer, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has argued that religion, ethnicity and region cannot always and fully determine our (Nigeria's) path, adding that "to forge ahead as a nation toward development and prosperity, we must break free of old binds. We must recalibrate our political calculations to where competence and fairness matter more than reductive demographics".