Arewa group knocks Babachir over Muslim-Muslim ticket comments

The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum has blasted a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, for attacking his party, the All Progressives Congress, over the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.

The group described the former SGF’s stance on the ticket as “narrow-minded, unguarded political sentimentalism and provocative.”

The National President of the AYCF, Yerima Shettima, in a statement in Kaduna on Friday, said there could be no better choice for the vice president for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu than Senator Kashim Shettima within the party.

He described the APC presidential running mate and former Borno State governor as a “nationalist” to the core, adding that, “no one should turn our democratic space into the home of religious extremism.”

 The statement read in part, “Talking of Muslim-Muslim ticket, have these charlatans become so blinded by emotional religious fixation that they forgot history? We had a Christian-Christian ticket with Awolowo under the UPN in 1978 and Azikiwe under the UNPP when he picked Prof Ishaya Audu, another Christian as running mate.

“Since the emergence of democracy till date, the South-South and South-East states have never given Muslims the chance to taste the seat of running mates even at the level of governorship. Anti-Shettima campaign promoters should be shut before they create bad blood along religious fault lines and drag the nation into further insecurity.”