Vice President Kashim Shettima has revealed that some individuals from his home state of Borno once accused him of plotting to assassinate President Bola Tinubu through traditional outfits he gifted to him during the 2023 election campaign.
Shettima said the allegation surfaced barely three months after Tinubu assumed office, when some people reportedly visited the President and urged him to stop wearing the Borno-style clothes and caps that the Vice President had given him.
The Vice President disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja while speaking at the public presentation of the autobiography of former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, titled My Life of Duty and Allegiance.
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Representing Tinubu at the event, Shettima used the anecdote to illustrate what he described as the growing culture of suspicion in Nigeria’s political space.
“When we were campaigning for him to emerge as the aspirant of the APC, we were going around the North. We, the people of Borno, unlike the people of Sokoto, are the best-dressed Northerners.
“So I got some materials and caps for him to blend with the northern crowd. It fitted him very well, and his aides said, ‘Please, produce more.’
“Barely three months, he was sworn into office. Some of my people from Borno came to him and said, please, stop wearing those Shettima clothing. He must have charmed them, and you are going to die, and he will become the President,” Shettima recounted.
The Vice President further said that after he returned from China, where he had represented the President at the Belt and Road Initiative Forum, Tinubu reportedly summoned him and relayed the startling accusation.
“Just barely three months, and to the eternal credit of the President, when I came back from China, while I represented him at the Bells and Roses Initiative campaign, he said, ‘Sit down. Your people came to me and said, I should stop wearing those dresses you gave me.
“Their story did not add up because when you gave me those dresses, I was an aspirant. I wasn’t the candidate. Neither were you, the Vice President and the presidential candidate,” the VP stated.
To demonstrate his rejection of the claim, the Vice President said Tinubu continued wearing the outfits for an entire week.
“For one week, he wore those dresses. These are some of the gimmicks taking place in power circles in Nigeria nowadays. Suspicion smears our relationships, and it ought not to be. We are essentially one people tied to a common destiny,” he added.
Shettima contrasted the incident with an earlier account shared by the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, who narrated how his family regularly sent gallons of fura to Gowon during his time as Head of State.
According to the Vice President, Gowon accepted the gesture without suspicion, reflecting a level of trust that appears to be fading in contemporary Nigeria.
Shettima also paid tribute to Gowon, describing him as a statesman whose leadership continues to shape Nigeria’s unity.
He highlighted initiatives such as the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) as enduring legacies of the former military leader.
