2027 VP: Congratulations to Shettima, By SULEIMAN A. SULEIMAN

Just 18 minutes after it was posted online by a national paper last Friday, I saw a breaking news story saying that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had officially renominated Vice President Kashim Shettima as his running mate for the 2027 election.

The story was a pleasant surprise for me because I had earlier decided I was going to write about the same issue for my column this week under the title “Tinubu’s strategic ambiguity on Shettima.” I was going to use that established academic concept in American foreign policy studies to speculate on the electoral dangers of delaying Shettima’s re-nomination further, 42 days after Tinubu himself secured the APC ticket. I thought that for an incumbent president to leave the position of his deputy vacant weeks after securing his own nomination creates needless ambiguities that can be ultimately damaging. The news story of the renomination pleasantly upended that whole argument, however, and has now put all speculations to bed.

Since then, however, at least four people have shared with me a previous piece I wrote on the same issue in these pages just more than a year ago on 30 June 2025 under the title “Tinubu’s decision, Shettima’s indecision.” For this week, therefore, I am reproducing a slightly edited version of that previous piece. Please enjoy: 

The events of the past few weeks appear to suggest that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to replace Shettima with another running mate. The automatic endorsement of the President by APC without Shettima, the drama in Gombe, the gun-point removal of Ganduje, and the open jostling for the post by many presidential associates all point to that. But the clearest pointer to this was the “clarification” by the National Vice Chairman (North East) of the APC, Mustapha Salihu, that “There is only one ticket. To suggest a running mate at this stage is to put the cart before the horse. It is the prerogative of the presidential candidate, not ours.”

This statement effectively declares Shettima’s position as vacant because what Salihu describes is the exception, not the rule. Salihu’s statement makes sense only in the context of a president seeking to switch their running mate, and only President Tinubu’s personal political body language could have suggested that or given rise to it. Otherwise, the endorsement of a president for a second term comes automatically with that of their vice president, as was the case for Buhari in 2019, Jonathan in 2011 and 2015, and even Obasanjo in 2003. Vice-presidential swaps on a single ticket for second-term elections are extremely rare in presidential democracies globally, with the last exact case being by Franklin Roosevelt in the US in 1944.

But the point, for today, is that Tinubu’s probable quest to replace Shettima introduces three different unknowns into the political matrix of 2027: why replace Shettima, who is the replacement, and what the consequences could be for him and APC. All of these leave President Tinubu with a decision to make, possibly the most consequential of his political career so far. Perhaps he has already made his decision and is only waiting to announce it. Perhaps he is still mulling over all the possibilities and consequences of which hand to deal, and how.

Tinubu’s first unknown is why he feels a need to replace Shettima in the first place. Under normal circumstances, there should be no further talk about a running mate, as there was none under Jonathan or Buhari. But Tinubu is a different kind of president altogether.

If the decision is to replace Shettima, then there can be only personal or political reasons for that. The political reasons would be easier to explain, but the personal ones may be more defining for President Tinubu himself. Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, who worked in the presidency until a few months ago, has said that Tinubu and Shettima enjoy “a good chemistry” between them. Apparently there is more to it than that; otherwise this whole conversation would be muted, and the indicative theatrics in the political arena would be pointless and non-existent.

In other words, if there are any specific personal reasons between Tinubu and Shettima that are strong enough for the former to be shopping for a replacement for the latter, to the pundit these would be absolute unknown unknowns, and therefore no point blabbing about what one doesn’t know and cannot know. But on the political side, if Tinubu’s ultimate goal is to win the 2027 presidential election, then his choice is already limited. He cannot choose the First Lady Remi, or his son Seyi, or indeed anyone south of the River Niger, since doing that would imperil the whole second-term project, as happened to Chief Awolowo in 1979 and 1983.

That leaves him with only a northern choice. By the past weekend, the number of probable northern candidates for the post had swelled on social media, with Nuhu Ribadu, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Uba Sani, Yakubu Dogara, Hadiza Bala Usman, Umaru Bago, and George Akume all rumoured to be in consideration. And then, of course, there is the sitting Vice President Kashim Shettima. I personally cannot see how anyone on this list offers Tinubu a higher political or electoral value than what Shettima has already given, and can yet give further. And I say this with all due consideration and respect for all.

True, Shettima can only give Borno in direct votes, as far as we can assume at this point or infer from the 2023 election. But no one else on the list can do better than that, and only Kwankwaso, Bago, Akume, and perhaps Uba Sani can be relied upon to give even that one state. Ribadu, Barau, Dogara, and Usman would struggle to deliver their states. Kwankwaso’s 1.5 million votes in 2023 are certainly tantalizing, but there is not much guarantee they would be replicated in the completely different context of the 2027 election.

And as far as northern and national political appeals go, only Kwankwaso can match Shettima. By itself, a swap would stir up strong feelings of betrayal and disapproval among ordinary northern voters, many of whom could well share the anger that flared up in Gombe two weeks ago. More importantly, even in the difficult circumstances of the past two years, Shettima has carved out a national reputation for himself as a most loyal, patient, and able assistant and unifier, who to this day preaches nothing other than support for President Tinubu and his policies, even where and when it is most inconvenient to do so.

Moreover, to the extent of what is publicly known, Shettima has not done so much out of step against Tinubu to warrant replacement, or for the Nigerian public to accept dropping him as normal political practice. Thus, any replacement must first defray the political costs of publicly humiliating Shettima, and then, on top of that, the replacement must still add even far more electoral value for Tinubu to justify the swap, not hypothetically, but in reality. This political cost-benefit hurdle would be extremely difficult for any other northern politician to cross right now, regardless of who they are and which part of the north they come from.

As Machiavelli knew, fighting weaker opponents can be tricky in politics because the public loves the innocent David against the mighty and aggressive Goliath. In short, replacing Shettima simultaneously offers low benefits and high costs for President Tinubu. In my view, then, replacing Shettima is a needless known unknown because should Tinubu give Shettima nothing to lose, the outcome can be politically messy for both, but more so for the boss.

Finally, there is the most unknown-unknown variable of all. An incumbent president who seeks to swap deputies during a second-term election must picture the political unknowns of working together with an entirely different person after victory, if it happens. Napoleon once said that each time he appointed any one person to a high post, he made nine enemies and one ingrate. Any possible replacement the President is considering might look good on paper now, or might look good for electoral purposes. But working with them can turn out very different.

Therefore, the more Tinubu delays this issue, the more problematic the outcome would likely be for him, since those who feel themselves much invested in the chase could well turn against him if they eventually lose out, which, both constitutionally and mathematically, all but one of them must. After all, the Nigerian constitution has space for only one vice president at a time, and President Tinubu himself has left no one in doubt that that personal ambition is the only consideration that matters. We all wait to see.

With slight editing, the italicised section of this piece was first published in June last year. And now, with the latest story, the waiting on this question is over.

Suleiman, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja

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