The vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Kashim Shettima, has said there is no need to question the health and age of the party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.
Speaking on Monday night in Lagos at a banquet held in honour of President Muhammadu Buhari who was in the state for a two-day visit, Shettima said he and his principal are aiming for an office and not preparing for the Olympics.
Shettima asserted that the fixation on Tinubu’s age and health is “mischievous”, saying that they are preparing for governance that “thrives on superior ideas”.
He said, “There’s this mischievous fixation on Asiwaju’s health and age. We are not asking Nigerians to turn down critical assessments of their leaders but we direct them to look at the larger picture.
“We are not preparing for the Olympics but an institution that thrives on the superiority of ideas and established track record.”
The former Borno State governor said Tinubu is an individual that is known to sacrifice his comfort for the good of the country.
He said: “The roads that led us to Asiwaju did not happen by chance, this is a man that has shown a propensity for sacrificing his personal comfort for the good of the nation.
“Right from the days of our struggle for the enthronement of democracy in this country to this date, a lot has been said about this political enigma but largely because quacks with a poor sense of history. When his contemporaries were trading their principles for a seat at the table in the villa during the regime of Olusegun Obasanjo, he stood for justice and fairness.”
The APC chieftain also urged electorates to vote for Tinubu so he could bring his wealth of experience to bear for the good of Nigeria.
Shettima also claimed that the former Lagos State governor helped shelter a lot of northerners when they faced what he described as a political witch hunt.
He listed such persons as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and an ex-chief of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Nuhu Ribadu.
He said: “For Atiku Abubakar in 2007, when he was harassed, intimidated, and chased out of the PDP, he gave him a sanctuary and platform to contest for the presidency of this country under AC.
“It happened four years later when the same platform was provided for mallam Nuhu Ribadu to contest for the presidency of this country.
“Those of us from the north owe him a depth of gratitude for supporting our leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, in 2015 and 2019.”
