There are new twists in the narrative about the Adamawa by-election saga. Those who ganged up and manipulated the process from the beginning are now looking for a fall guy and Kashim Shettima, the Vice President-elect seems to fit their calculations.
One does not need to plead innuendo to know their identities, nor does one require a talisman to tell about their antics.
They obviously had their individual grudges and motives, but were united in their anger against the APC and its Adamawa State governorship candidate, Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani.
As far as they are concerned, let it even be a third rate political party, but the APC and let even the devil be, but certainly not Binani. And they may have succeeded, though certainly it is not yet uhuru.
Like people say, when the crocodile eats its own eggs, there is no saving the flesh of frogs and lesser sea animals. This seems to be the situation, where we have hunt dogs being unleashed on people who were neither parties nor even have stakes in the particular exercise.
How otherwise could the Vice President elect, Kashim Shettima be blamed for an act in which everyone knows the key players.
I listened to an audio made out by one Dan Arewa, and for anybody who understands Hausa, the name applies to every northerner and not any specific person.
The fact that his identity is subsumed in a sea of doubt, presupposes that his assumptions are not only doubtful but also unreliable.
The first question I asked myself while listening to the audio was, why should somebody like Nuhu Ribadu: who ostensibly is the architect try to hide the identity of his cannon fodder?
The next thought that crossed my mind again was why hold another man responsible for the actions of another man, even when it is obvious that the person in question had no particular stake in an election that could have any effect on his own political fortunes?
Every attempt at getting answers to these and other posers, seem to open further windows to the obvious mischief that informed the fresh twist.
Amongst those who obviously masterminded the conspiracy to embarrass Kashim Shettima, none of them is today a match to this rising political maverick called Kashim Shettima.
As far as I am concerned, neither the so-called Uba Dan Arewa nor his pay master, Nuhu Ribadu seem to have cut the ice with this new narrative, and I think Kashim Shettima does not even need to respond as a critical observer could see through the obvious mischief.
That Kashim Shettima is the Vice President-elect is no longer in doubt. I dare say that the fear of a Kashim Shettima Vice Presidency is not lost on those who think they can manipulate the Presidency, without having to contend with Shettima.
I pity the likes of Nuhu Ribadu, who has been hoping to leverage in his relationship with Tinubu to edge Shettima into the corner, as such a possibility shall remain a pipe dream, so long as Shettima is around Tinubu.
No Nigerian is in doubt about Kashim Shettima’s capacity to checkmate any emergent threat to this hard fought Presidency.
No Nigerian can ever fail to appreciate Kashim Shettima’s demonstrable intellectual acumen, nay political sagacity to hold back any potential intruder into his bond with Asiwaju.
It is rather infantile that an incoherent hireling like Habu Dan Arewa: real or imagined, try standing facts on the head, just to please a paymaster.
Bwala writes from Marama, Borno State
