Shettima, Tinubu’s presidency a done deal, Northern groups

A day after the former Borno State Governor, Senator Kashim Shettima was unveiled as the vice-presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Northern Emancipation Network (NEN), has declared its support, saying with Shettima on the ballot, Tinubu’s presidency is a done deal.

Rising from an expanded meeting in Abuja Wednesday evening, the Arewa Network said it has resolved to give full backing to the Tinubu, Atiku ticket after critically assessing all the available options.

The group in a communique by its Coordinator, Suleiman Abdul-Azeez, said, Nigeria needs a strong leadership that can see it through and out of its current limitations around security and the economy.

Suleiman said after carefully assessing the credentials and antecedents of the teams presented by all the parties, the Network has concluded that the Tinubu, Shettima ticket is the best option for the country and resolved to work for its success.

While Shettima will provide the necessary balance for the ticket, he can as well support the presidency to provide the enduring, effective, and focused leadership that has eluded Nigeria for too long.

“We have resolved to undertaken the vital task of campaigning and sensitizing the Nigerian voter on the futility of entrusting the responsibility of addressing the fundamentals of our national existence through the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which in the first 16 years of the inception of this dispensation ran an administration that had acquired the reputation of being the worst in the history of our nation in terms of any capacity to generate confidence in achieving credible national goals.

“We are convinced that Shettima’s influence and popularity spread will soon reenact the high point in the activities of 2014 that laid the foundations of the collapse of that citadel of poor governance, indifference, insensitivity and unprecedented plunder that was the PDP presidency.

“We are committed to massive mobilization in the North and stepping up in a manner never seen in northern political history to get the northern political elites to close ranks in support of the Tinubu, Shettima ticket in order to permanently seal the fate of those politicians whose personal wealth and personal ambition remained tied to the continuation of decay and destruction of a nation and a people.

“Northern Christians and Muslims must close the religious divide, awakened by the burden of the shared legacy of the general and pervasive insecurity being experienced across the region and the deteriorating standards of living as politicians fleece the poor of resources to develop.

“We urge every significant component of the northern society to back the Tinubu, Shettima ticket, particularly the poor, the young and northern women who must reject the tradition of lining up to receive handouts to abandon their future, and choose instead to install a leadership that will make them more secure and provide their children with a productive future,” the communique concluded”.