APC leader, Farouk Aliyu, has said that Christians are now more at ease with the party’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket than they were before the 2023 general election.
Aliyu spoke during an interview on Arise Television’s The Morning Show on Thursday. He said President Bola Tinubu’s government has eased worries about religious bias.
While discussing President Tinubu’s choice to keep Vice President Kashim Shettima as his running mate for the 2027 presidential election, Aliyu said that the APC gained Nigerians' trust in the last election.
“Our leader, the President, decided in his wisdom not to change the winning ticket. And the Christians in this country, I am sure, are now comfortable, much, much more comfortable than when we came up with the Muslim-Muslim ticket,” he stated.
Aliyu remembered that the APC’s choice to have two Muslim candidates in 2023 faced heavy backlash. Many worried that Christians would be left out in government.
“That was when there was a lot of hue and cry that the Christians were going to be marginalised. Well, now it’s history that nobody is being marginalised along religious lines,” Aliyu said.
He mentioned that Tinubu has led without any religious bias since taking office.
“President Tinubu has been leading this country as a Nigerian, not anybody with any religious toga,” he added.
The APC leader said they were pleased to keep Shettima as Tinubu’s running mate. He pointed out that changing the ticket could have led to unnecessary political problems.
“Now it is our own decision, the party, of course, through the leader, to retain Kashim Shettima, and we are very happy that the ticket has not been tinkered with, so that we also, as a party, don’t have to start thinking what next to do,” he explained.
Aliyu is confident that Nigerians will support the Tinubu-Shettima ticket again in the 2027 election.
“We’ve tried it when it was hectic, when it was about impossible, and Nigerians believed in us, gave us the chance, and we are doing it again. And we hope Nigerians will believe in us and give us a chance again with the Muslim-Muslim ticket,” he said.
The APC’s choice to run Tinubu, a Muslim from the South-West, and Shettima, a Muslim from the North-East, as its presidential ticket for the 2023 election led to a big national discussion.
Christian groups, such as the Christian Association of Nigeria and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, rejected the decision. They argued that it ignored Nigeria’s religious diversity and tradition of balancing presidential tickets along religious lines.
But the APC defended their choice based on competence and strategy, not religion. Tinubu and Shettima went on to win the 2023 presidential election and took office on May 29, 2023.
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