SHEIKH Sani Yahaya Jingir, Jos-based octogenarian Islamic cleric, stirred the hornet’s nest by declaring conditional support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) in the 2027 election. He might have picked the rumours circulating that Vice President Kashim Shettima may be dropped as the running mate in the 2027 election.
In a nation defined by geographical, religious and ethnic fault lines, a same-faith ticket is a political anomaly; but whenever the national mood is less divisive as it was in the 3rd Republic, it could be seamlessly accommodated.
In view of the posturing about mixed-faith or same-faith tickets; the issues are framed in this way: are Nigerians more interested in the religious composition of presidential tickets, or in life more abundant presidencies? Did the policies, budgets, etc, of the same-faith government exclusively negatively affect Northern Christians alone without the Muslims whose brothers in faith are the president and vice president of the country? Or, have they exclusively made Muslim lives more abundant? Didn’t the regime’s subsidy policy nosedive the quality of lives of both Christians and Muslims alike? Aren’t the subsidy windfalls shared among the Christian and Islamic states equitably? Does the improved electricity tariff apply only to a particular Nigerian religious community?
In 1993, the same-faith ticket was an insufficient divisive fault to heat the polity, and the nation accepted it as a political avantgarde, transitioning Nigeria’s democracy to Africa’s melting pot. Those who should have kicked against it, became faith blind and some of them abandoned NRC’s different faiths ticket, and voted for SDP’s same-faith ticket.
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Unfortunately, the election was annulled, and the winner was denied the opportunity to prove that the same-faith ticket wasn’t a monster, if there was the political will to carry everybody along. Thirty years after, Bola Ahmed Tinubu reproduced it, and polarised the nation along dangerous trajectories. But why should accommodation of the same faith ticket in 1993 turn to a rancorous rejection three decades later?
First, it undermines the inclusive normative template that regionally and religiously balances presidential tickets. The 1st Republic’s parliamentary democracy was balanced between a Southern Christian Head of State, Dr Nmandi Azikwe, and a Northern Muslim Head of Government, Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Thereafter, successive military regimes found the template irresistible, to have successively paired Northern military Heads of State with Southern Christian Chiefs of Staff or their equivalents and vice versa, and remained the pairing template in the 2nd Republic.
Secondly, the transformation of the political class into a self-conscious interests articulating and protecting caste, deriving legitimacy from society, at every convenient moment chaining the people constituting society, turning politics into a mega business, framing it as an avenue for accessing national cake on behalf of selves, ethnic and religious groups, inform the ruthless competition for political offices making the same faith ticket repulsive to those with an entitlement mentality to the running-mate-ship under a mixed faith ticket.
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Jingir’s conditional support for the regime on the retention of Vice President Shettima as President Tinubu’s running mate in 2027 is a clerical posturing reducing the competition for the vice presidency to a zero-sum game, in which the loss of one group is the gain of the other. The Northern Christian community, the constituency denied the running mate-ship in 2023, felt short-changed of the benefits that would accrue to it, if its son is the vice president. And the Muslim community entertains an illusion that the presidency is exclusively its. The contestations on the same-faith ticket crassly manifest the manipulation of the nation’s fault lines for personal political ends.
Apprehensions on the same-faith ticket are misplaced. First, since the presidential mandate is Nigerian, not sectional or religious, irrespective of the regime in power, there is no way that a sizeable Nigerian religious community – Islamic, Christian or animist – wouldn’t be carried along in the governance of the nation. Integrative constitutional devices preclude exclusive governance trajectories.
Secondly, the unfolding complex dynamics of Nigerian politics have precluded the emergence of a powerful vice president – Muslim or Christian – who can make or mar. Unlike the former Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, privileged to have severally acted as acting president, PBAT never enjoyed a vacation or sick leave long enough to transmit power to Vice President Shettima as provided for in Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
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Therefore, Vice President Shettima has been reduced to a philosopher king, the regime’s roving orator, expertly delivering compelling addresses and speeches in the United Nations and other global fora, providing a global intellectual corridor for the Tinubu presidency.
Nigerians may be set against one another on the same-faith ticket, while the ruling caste – an undifferentiated class of Christians, Muslims and Animists – a mixed grill, never fails to manipulate ethnic and religious fault lines to achieve personal economic and political objectives. Therefore, the people should rise above primordial sentiments that make them objects of ethnic and religious manipulation. For a nation at a crossroads, exploiting national diversity for personal political ends will truncate the drive towards national cohesion.
The opponents and supporters of the same-faith ticket may hardly believe that after the same-faith regime’s third year in office, Senator Danjuma Goje serially informed the nation that the North-East, Kashim Shettima’s geopolitical zone, is the most neglected zone in the country. And as the statistics portray, it is both the insurgency and poverty capital of the nation.
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In view of the posturing about mixed-faith or same-faith tickets; the issues are framed in this way: are Nigerians more interested in the religious composition of presidential tickets, or in life more abundant presidencies? Did the policies, budgets, etc, of the same-faith government exclusively negatively affect Northern Christians alone without the Muslims whose brothers in faith are the president and vice president of the country? Or, have they exclusively made Muslim lives more abundant? Didn’t the regime’s subsidy policy nosedive the quality of lives of both Christians and Muslims alike? Aren’t the subsidy windfalls shared among the Christian and Islamic states equitably? Does the improved electricity tariff apply only to a particular Nigerian religious community?
Did the same faith ticket regime spare a Muslim community in Sokoto from being bombed on Christmas day by American bombers? Or, did it prevent travelling Muslims from being lynched and burnt in Mangu, Plateau State, not long ago.
The discourse on Vice President Shettima’s retention should shift from the religiously divisive plane the Jingirs push, that unnecessarily heats the polity, to an ethical and political trajectory.
After being highly instrumental in midwifing the regime, isn’t it morally reprehensible to replace him midday? And what is the political cost of dropping him? Diehard regime supporters may withdraw their support from the regime if Shettima is dropped, but many others wouldn’t mind if he is replaced, because he could hardly change the plight of the region and zone on whose backs he rode to the vice presidency.
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Nigerians may be set against one another on the same-faith ticket, while the ruling caste – an undifferentiated class of Christians, Muslims and Animists – a mixed grill, never fails to manipulate ethnic and religious fault lines to achieve personal economic and political objectives. Therefore, the people should rise above primordial sentiments that make them objects of ethnic and religious manipulation. For a nation at a crossroads, exploiting national diversity for personal political ends will truncate the drive towards national cohesion.
Jahun writes from Dutse, Jigawa State.
