APC Vice Presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, represented his boss, Ashiwaju Bola Tinubu at the just concluded NBA conference in Lagos and he acquitted himself creditably, despite all the noise about his suit and sneakers being out of place.
The other Presidential candidates present, PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, and Labour party’s Peter Obi,did hold their own, they didn’t submerge Shettima in a maze of stellar performances as expected.
Obi is known for his statistical analysis and brilliant delivery before audiences, which has, indeed up the ante in national dialogue, and virtually set a new standard for other speakers, but on this NBA occasion, Shettima certainly was the star boy.
Obi didn’t do badly though, and Atiku actually did well, but both came behind Shettima on this occasion,if marks were to be awarded.
Shettima reeled out figures that showed clearly,he understands the dynamics of leadership and the intricacies of the Nigerian national question. He said Tinubu would handle the economy, while Shettima would deal with security;an excellent division of labour if you ask me. He based this on Tinubu’s much vaunted pedigree as the architect of the Lagos megacity project success and the consolidation of the revenue generation scheme started by the then Military Administrator,Brig Buba Marwa.
Tinubu went on to shoot the Internally Generated Revenue of Lagos state from a paltry 700 hundred million monthly that he met when he became Governor in 1999, to the fairy tale 50 billion currently generated by the present administration of Babajide Sanwo-Olu, one of the Jagaban’s mentees.
Shettima did a good job of selling the Tinubu candidacy and the mercurial City Boy,who has been at the receiving end of a relentless media bashing, but came off looking good. Shettima also sold himself as the wizkid who kept Bornu state under his Governorship, from falling apart, despite the onslaught of the notorious Boko Haram insurgents. He justified his ability to handle security under a Tinubu administration,if elected in 2023.
Shettima’s performance at the NBA conference was his debut on the national stage and one expects the media to focus on that, but the ill informed social media crowd chose to talk about his so-called odd combination of sneakers and suit, which is totally off point.
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