Vice President Kashim Shettima has urged Nigerian politicians not to see politics as a game of death but to always reconcile after a contest.

Citing President Bola Tinubu as a model of politics without lasting bitterness, he said that Tinubu, as a sound politician, takes after former President Muhammadu Buhari, whom he said never allowed ambitious individuals to upstage or hold him to ransom in political negotiations.

Shettima, who spoke yesterday at the palace of the Emir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, during the turbaning of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq as the Sardauna of Ilorin Emirate, disclosed that only six of the 19 northern governors supported Tinubu’s presidential ambition in 2023.

However, “after the 2023 election, President Tinubu hugged and forgave all other northern governors that did not support him. That is a mark of a good leader,” he said.

Against this background, he urged Kwara politicians to emulate Tinubu’s large heart in politics by closing ranks over the crisis that followed the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries in the state.

According to Shettima, the tension that heralded the 2023 presidential campaign and the election proper was so intense that only a determined politician with a strong heart could continue pursuing his ambition.