As The New Northern Leaders In TINUBU’s Administration
If you meet Vice-President Kashim Shettima for the very first time you are most likely to underrate him.
Just like his boss, Pres. Bola Tinubu, he wears this placid look that can at times be expressionless.
All he would do is to simply keep staring look at you continuously and wait for you to go straight to the point.
Not many people know that the VP is a tough man who is very deep. He is also very intelligent. He is one man who understands Power and it’s uses.
Right now, he is the most powerful politician from the North in Tinubu’s cabinet. He has broken the jinx. He is also the most Senior Northern politician in the Tinubu administration. And he is conscious of that position that history has put at his feet.
Recall that for the past 8 years, a Northerner of the Fulani stock had been President, with a Yoruba as VP. Now things have changed. A Yoruba man has taken over, with a Kanuri man from Borno as No 2. He is a young man. At 57. Kashim Shettima Mustapha GCON is a the 15th Vice President of Nigeria. He previously served as Senator for Borno Central from 2019 to 2023, and as the Governor of Borno State from 2011 to 2019.
Born in Maiduguri in 1966, Shettima graduated from the University of Maiduguri and the University of Ibadan. After schooling, he entered Business and Banking, eventually rising to hold several high-ranking executive positions at banks. By the mid-2000s, Shettima was the manager of Zenith Bank’s Maiduguri branch before leaving the position to enter the state cabinet of Governor Ali Modu Sheriff in 2007. After four years in the cabinet, he was elected governor in 2011 and re-elected by a wider margin in 2015; his term in office was dominated by the deadly Boko Haram insurgency. Shettima left office in 2019, and was elected to the senate. Despite being renominated for Senate in 2023, he withdrew from the nomination to become Bola Tinubu’s running mate. Kaka-Shehu Lawan replaced him as the senate nominee.
Let’s quickly tell you that Kashim Shettima was born into the family of Shettima Mustafa Kuttayibe on 2 September 1966 in Maiduguri, then Northern Region. He is married to Nana Shettima, and they have 3 children.
Shettima attended Lamisula Primary School in Maiduguri from 1972 to 1978; Government Community Secondary School, Biu in Southern part of Borno State from 1978 to 1980; transferred to Government Science Secondary School, Potiskum (now in neighbouring Yobe State) where he completed his secondary education in 1983. He studied at the University of Maiduguri and earned a Degree (BSc) in Agricultural Economics in 1989. He had his one-year compulsory membership of the National Youths Service Corps, NYSC, at the defunct Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative Bank, Calabar, capital of Cross River State in South-South, Nigeria, from 1989 to 1990. He obtained a master’s degree (MSc) in Agricultural Economics in 1991 at the University of Ibadan in Southwest, Nigeria. Shettima joined the University of Maiduguri as a Lecturer with the Department of Agricultural Economics and was in the academia from 1991 to 1993.
In 1993, he moved into the banking sector and was employed by (now defunct) Commercial Bank of Africa Limited as head of accounts unit at the bank’s office in Ikeja, Lagos State, Southwest, Nigeria. Shettima was there from 1993 to 1997. In 1997, he crossed over to the African International Bank Limited as a Deputy Manager and rose to become a Manager in 2001. In 2001, he moved to the Zenith Bank as head of its main branch in Maiduguri. At the Zenith Bank, he rose to Senior Manager/Branch Head; Assistant General Manager (AGM)/Zonal Head (North-East), Deputy General Manager/Zonal Head (North-East) before he stepped out of the Zenith Bank as a General Manager in 2007 following his appointment as Commissioner for Finance in Borno State.
Shettima worked with the Commercial Bank of Africa as an Agricultural Economist at its Ikeja Office, Lagos State (1993-1997). He then became a deputy manager, later manager, at the African International Bank Limited, Kaduna Branch (1997–2001), and was appointed Deputy Manager/Branch Head of the Zenith Bank’s Maiduguri Office in 2001, becoming General Manager five years later.
In mid-2007, Shettima was appointed Commissioner of the Borno State Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Later he became Commissioner in the Ministries of Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs, Education, Agriculture and later Health under his predecessor as Borno Governor Ali Modu Sheriff.
From 2007 to 2011, he served as Commissioner in 5 Ministries. In the January 2011 ANPP primaries, Engineer Modu Fannami Gubio was selected as candidate for the governorship. However, Gubio was later shot dead by gunmen, and Shettima was selected in a second primary in February 2011. In the 26 April 2011 elections, Shettima won with 531,147 votes while the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Muhammed Goni, gained 450,140 votes.
Shettima emerged the 2014 Governor of the Year (Leadership, Governor of the Year, 2015, (Nigeria Union of Journalists, national body); Governor of the Year, 2015 (NewsWatchTimes n); Governor of the Year, 2015 (Vanguard newspapers); Governor of the Year, 2016 (Tell magazine; 2017 Zik Prize for Leadership; Kaduna Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Award for courage and exceptional leadership (2017), FCT NUJ Merit Award for exceptional Leadership, 2017.
In February, 2019 he became the winner of the Borno Central Senatorial District election, thereby replacing Senator Babakaka Bashir.
On 1 March 2023, Bola Tinubu was confirmed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the presidential election. Thus, Shettima became the Vice President-elect of Nigeria. They were both sworn in on 29 May 2023.
Equally powerful from the North is Nuhu Ribadu who is 63. He is a retired Police Officer who since 26 June 2023 has been serving as the National Security Adviser; after shortly serving as Special Adviser on Security to President Bola Tinubu.
Ribadu ran unsuccessfully for the office of the President of Nigeria in 2011 as the presidential candidate of the Action Congress. He ran for Governor of Adamawa State in 2015 as a candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party; before joining the All Progressives Congress to run in 2019 and lost his bid in 2023 to Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed.
He was the Chairman of the Petroleum Special Revenue Task Force from 2012 to 2014 and the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from 2003 to 2007, the government commission tasked with countering corruption and fraud.
Ribadu was born on 21 November 1960 in Yola. He attended Mustapha Primary School from 1966 to 1973 in Adamawa and Yelwa Government Secondary School, Yola from 1973 to 1978; College of Preliminary Studies, Yola from 1978 to 1980.
Ribadu studied law at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Kaduna State from 1980 until 1983, receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree. Following a year at the Nigerian Law School, he was called to Bar in 1984. He also earned a Master of Laws degree from the same university.
Ribadu joined the Nigerian Police Force shortly after graduation and held the positions of Assistant Superintendent of Police, Nigeria Police Force, January 1, 1986; Divisional Crime Officer for Ajegunle, Mushin, Apapa from 1990 to 1997; Force CID. AIagbon Close, Ugos; dep. Superintendent of Police, 1992; Superintendent of Police, 1995; Chief Superintendent of Police, 1998; asst comm. of Police, 2002; Head, Ugal and Prosecution Department, NPF.
The Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, appointed him to the chairmanship of the EFCC in 2003 and reappointed him in 2007, as well as promoting him to the position of Assistant Inspector General of Police. The promotion on 9 April 2007, three weeks before newly elected President Umaru Yar’Adua was sworn-in, was later challenged on the basis that it was “illegal, unconstitutional, null and void, and of no legal effect.” In December 2007, Mike Okiro, Inspector-General of Police, stated that Ribadu would be removed as EFCC Chairman for a one-year training course.
On 20 October 2006, Nuhu Ribadu told the BBC that over 380 billion dollars had been stolen or wasted by Nigerian governments since independence in 1960. Under Ribadu’s administration, the EFCC charged prominent bankers, former State governors, ministers, Senators, high-ranking political party members, Commissioners of Police, and advance fee fraud (“419”) gang operators. The EFCC issued thousands of indictments and achieved about 270 convictions. One notable case was that of his boss, the then Inspector-General of the Nigerian Police Force, Tafa Balogun, who was convicted, jailed and made to return £150 million under a plea bargain.
During the course of his duty Ribadu was offered bribes to pervert the course of justice, amongst these was a state governor who offered Ribadu $15 million and a house abroad. Interviewed from Washington D.C. on the BBC’s Hardtalk programme, Ribadu said that he took the money and used the bribe as evidence to prosecute the state governor. This claim has however been refuted by the ex-governor who noted that the fact that Ribadu put the money in the CBN is not a proof that he gave the money. Ribadu escaped two assassination attempts in Nigeria before he left the country for the United Kingdom in early 2009.
In December 2007, Inspector-General of Police Mike Okiro ordered that Ribadu be temporarily removed from the position of EFCC Chairman and ordered him to attend the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru, Jos, Plateau State for a mandatory one-year course. The decision was criticised by, among others, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, House of Representatives Members, and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) National Chairman Edwin Ume-Ezeoke as politically motivated and/or likely to set back the fight against corruption.
On 22 December 2008, as widely predicted, he was dismissed from the Nigerian Police force by the Nigerian Police Service Commission (PSC). He left Nigeria and in April assumed a fellowship at the Center for Global Development.
He lived in exile until 2010 when he returned to Nigeria and declared his intention to run for President of Nigeria under the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). On Friday, 14 January 2011, Nuhu Ribadu was adopted as the presidential candidate of the ACN.
In August 2014, he defected to the ruling party PDP with the intention to run for the Governorship of Adamawa State, Nigeria. He later joined the ruling APC and contested for governorship of Adamawa in 2019 and 2023, he became a close confidant of Bola Tinubu during the presidential campaign.
Ribadu was appointed by President Bola Tinubu as National Security Adviser on 19 June 2023.
