President has no power to remove governor from office – Shettima

• He disclosed that he was on the verge of being ousted by the former president Goodluck Jonathan, but he later shelved the plan
• Shettima’s remark is against the backdrop of President Bola Tinubu’s removal of Rivers State governor, Sim Fubara

Vice-President Kashim Shettima says the polity must be guided against executive overreach, gamesmanship and troubling constitutional manoeuvring that undermine Nigeria’s democracy.

This is even as he stated that a president lacks the power to unilaterally remove a sitting governor.

The number two citizen spoke at a book launch in Abuja on Thursday afternoon.

Shettima asserted that the Nigerian constitution does not give the power to unilaterally remove a democratically elected governor to the president.

He recounted his own ordeal when he was governor to buttress his assertion. He disclosed that he was on the verge of being ousted by the former president Goodluck Jonathan, but he later shelved the plan after he sought the opinion of top legal minds in his government, who told him he did not have the power to do that.

“Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was floating the idea of removing this Borno governor (pointing at himself), and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives to to tell the president: You don’t have the power to remove an elected councillor,” Mr Shettima said at the book launch of former attorney-general Bello Adoke.

Shettima also hailed Adoke for using his role as the attorney-general at the time to truncate Jonathan’s attempt to remove governors of northeastern states over insecurity in 2013, adding that his intervention made them eternal friends.

“The president was still unconvinced, he mooted the idea at the Federal Executive Council, Mr Mohammed Adoke told the president: You do not have the power to remove a sitting governor,” the vice-president said. “They sought the opinion of another SAN in the cabinet, Kabiru Turaki, who also said: I am of the candid opinion of my senior colleagues. That was how the matter was laid to rest.”

“I want to thank you for the courage to forgive those who have offended you. In the last four years of the Jonathan government, I was the public enemy number one,” he added.

Shettima’s remark is against the backdrop of President Bola Tinubu’s removal of Rivers State governor, Sim Fubara.

Recall that Tinubu unilaterally suspended Fubara from office on March 18, 2025, under the pretext of security concerns. The National Assembly later sanctioned the widely condemned move.

Shettima has largely refrained from talking about the legality or otherwise of Fubara’s removal since it was announced, and his decision to publicly, albeit subtly and indirectly, condemn the action could further deepen the purported rift between him and his principal.