Northerners Plotting To Replace Tinubu With Shettima – Naja’atu Mohammed
NAJAATU MOHAMMED: Tinubu Purchased APC Presidential Ticket By Bribing Party’s Governors
A former member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Hajia Najaatu Mohammed, has claimed that some northerners are plotting to make Senator Kashim Shettima president if the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, becomes incapacitated.
She told This Day that some northerners urging Tinubu to continue with his presidential ambition so his running mate can replace him if his health fails.
Naja’atu, who had recently resigned as the APC campaign organization director for civil society, disclosed that some supporters of northern extraction are banking on Tinubu’s eventual incapacitation so that Shettima could assume office as constitutionally stipulated.
While stating that the northerners are banking on his ill health, Mohammed said: “They just want to push him for them to be the president. It’s not even in his interest.”
She added, “Some people from Maiduguri called me today (Monday) asking, ‘Hajia, why did you do this? You have now punctured our interest. Our son is going to be president, and you’re talking like that? After all, look at Tinubu; he cannot do it. We’re all for Kashim. You have not done well for us.”
Who do you blame for Tinubu’s emergence because you said somewhere recently that Osinbajo would have been better?
There is nothing like democracy in this democratic system. The whole thing is a hoax. I will tell you, for instance, what happened in their primary election. People were given ballot papers with Asiwaju written on it. That was what happened. And we saw a clip in which governors were collecting money. It’s so shameful. What a disgrace! Governors collecting money; sharing money given to them by Asiwaju. It is such a disgrace. It is the first time that I have heard or seen such. At least in this dispensation. I have been in politics for decades, I was born into politics. But this is the first time that a presidential candidate will be sponsoring governors to support him. This is what is happening. Asiwaju is synonymous with money. For God’s sake, if all it takes is money, then what else will he do when he takes over power? It’s for him to retrieve his money.
Look, this is not even about Egbe Omo Oduduwa. Osinbajo is even more Egbe Omo Oduduwa than Tinubu. He’s a professor. He’s brilliant. He knows what he’s doing. For the few weeks that he was given this country to run, he did a great job. But the Lagos-Ibadan press villainised him. They said all sorts of things against him because Tinubu controls the strongest propaganda machine in this country, which is the Lagos–Ibadan press.
Going by what you said about giving governors money, does that mean he practically purchased his victory in the APC presidential primary?
He did, of course! It was purchased from the governors. There’s no doubt about that.
You’re the first person to give the public a glimpse of how things are because he has avoided debates. He has avoided granting interviews to the media and successfully avoided scrutiny.
That’s what they don’t want anybody to see. They just want to push him for them to be the president. It’s not even in his interest. Some people from Maiduguri called me today (Monday) asking, ‘Hajia, why did you do this? You have now punctured our interest. Our son is going to be president, and you’re talking like that? After all, look at Tinubu; he cannot do it. We’re all for Kashim. You have not done well for us.’ People from Maiduguri called me and were abusing me: that I’m denying them their chance. So, you begin to see the way people perceive things. If they’re all wrong, we cannot all be wrong. There is always a day of reckoning and this whole thing will consume all of us.
