16th September, 2022
The Vice Presidential candidate of APC, Kashim Shettima has broken his silence on his comment at the Yoruba Tennis Club, saying he never attributed hospitality to Abacha.
Shettima was quoted as saying that ”We need a leader with a vision and sense of responsibility and commitment and somebody who understands the nation like an Abdulsalami Abubakar and in our systemic circumstances, we need a leader with a dose of the hospitality of a Sani Abacha.”
His comment has been trending since morning as he received lots of bashing.
Shettima, in series of tweets on Friday said the “obsession with distorting one’s views to settle partisan scores brings to mind a certain WBC Commentary. “The trouble with deliberate bias,” it says, “is that it cannot be erased by sound education”. The video of my speech in Lagos is out there for those sincerely curious.
“I never attributed hospitality to Abacha in my speech. I did a rundown of our past Presidents and played up “the taciturnity and a dose of ruthlessness of a Sani Abacha” to show we need strongmen to deal with the nonstate actors who’ve turned Nigeria into a vast killing-field.
“I was quick to tease the audience, appreciating the humour hovering around the hall, with the familiar jibe that nice men don’t make good leaders. By nice men I meant those who get easily manipulated and pressured to divert state resources to appeal to private expectations.”