Former governor of Borno state, Kasim Shettima, has apologised for his uncomplimentary remarks about vice president, Yemi Osinbajo and senate president, Ahmad Lawan.
Shettima had on Thursday, when he featured an Channels TV programme, said people like Osinbajo should be selling ice ice cream and not aspiring for presidency.
But in a statement on Sunday, Shettima said his remarks during the interview were misconstrued, noting that he would never belittle the vice president.
Read full statement below.
My Channels TV interview Taken Out of Context 1. When I appeared on Channels TV last Thursday amidst the tension rippling through our political arena, it was to underline the promise Bola Tinubu’s presidential bid held for those yet to establish the certainty of the hurdle ahead of the All Progressives Congress.
I never set out to denigrate the personality of any aspirant, and definitely not that of my dear friends and allies. None of them is an opponent, so their aspiration isn’t a threat to us.
They appear so in the sprint to become the party’s presidential flag-bearer in the 2023 elections, but they are our allies in the marathon. My assessments of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Senate President Ahmad Lawan were well-intentioned.
I never set out to subject them to ridicule but, rather, to stir up interest in the contrasting virtues of the cast of aspirants putting up a fight against my preferred aspirant, one most favoured and advantaged to guarantee APC’s victory in the forthcoming presidential election.
The interpretations of my remarks on Yemi Osinbajo and Senator Lawan are, thus, being done literally and overblown.
My words weren’t woven to portray them as unworthy aspirants, but merely to qualify them as non-threatening contenders. I, however, take full responsibility for my utterances and wish to appeal to our teeming supporters to neither take my words out of their metaphoric contexts nor interpret them as a measure and declaration of hostility towards my dear friends and allies.
I hereby tender my unreserved apologies to the Vice President and the President of the Senate for the unintended pains my jibes might have caused them and their families and supporters.
As we approach the finishing line of this tense political race, I’m not unaware of who the actual opponents are. A divided house, even if in the assumptions and imaginations of supporters with a distant grasp of our relationships with other aspirants, is the last impression we wish to create among Nigerians.
I want this to be taken as an appeal to our supporters across all political camps to build bridges and mend fences as the actual journey is just about to begin. Victory, for the discerning, has always been the first lap of the race. Thank you for your understanding