Much ado about Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket

Since he announced Senator Kashim Shettima as his running mate for the 2023 presidency, the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has been in the eye of the storm. There has been outrage in the land as to why he should pick a Muslim as his running mate when he too is a Muslim.

It is understandable that religion is a volatile and vexed issue when it comes to Nigeria and election. Many people, especially the opposition parties have seen this as an opportunity to feast on the APC and its candidate, simply to get their pound of flesh and gain political advantage in the build up to 2023 presidential election.

With the outrage that has greeted the declaration of Shettima as Tinubu’s running mate, it is clear that several Nigerians have succumbed to defeat already that Tinubu is going to win the forthcoming election. If a lesser political party has run on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, the hues and cries will not be heard at all.

What we should know is that no part of the Nigeria’s constitution ever made provision that a political party must choose its running mate from any particular religion. Those championing this move that if a presidential candidate is a Muslim, he must chose a Christian as running mate, vice versa, are simply playing primordial politics.

It is understandable that in recent time, there has been wanton killings of Christians by bandits and terrorists. Note also that these dare-devils also killed lots of Muslims in the north, ravaged mosques and abducted many people for ransom. The way and manner the nation is polarised into religion dogma is unhelpful to integration and diversity.

What we must know is that in an election time, any candidate throwing his hat into the ring wants to win. The candidate must devised strategies to win, not minding whose ox is gored. But many Nigerians are losing sleep over a Muslim-Muslim ticket. Many are saying oh, they will Islamise Nigeria. It is not possible to Islamise Nigeria. Many are saying, oh, the killings will increase. This is just the fear of the unknown.

The truth is that the opposition parties want Tinubu to pick a Christian running mate from the north because they know he will lose the election. The north is populated and dominated by Muslims. To appeal to such a huge population electorally, the best thing he could have done is to pick a northern Muslim. If Tinubu had been a Christian, picking a northern Muslim as VP would not have been a problem and he would have done that. But it is clear that he is in dilemma and had no choice than to pick a fellow Muslim from the north as running mate. It is clear that the electoral value of a Christian candidate in the north will be extremely low.

As the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Mathew Kukah, puts it, Tinubu’s choice is simply what he called team selection and that it was not something people should be losing sleep over.

“This is what you call team selection and everybody will choose depending on what they think will give them a fair chance. So people will take responsibility for the choices they have made. For me, it is not something to lose sleep over,” he said.

According to him, if people felt unhappy with the kind of choices that had been made, they had a choice as this is democracy.

“If people feel unhappy with the kind of choices that have been made, that is why we are democrats, you can’t force it. We outsiders cannot force a choice of any candidate.

“It is now left for you to look at the choices that have been made. And there is no guarantee that all Christians will vote for Christians and all Muslims will vote for Muslims,” he said.