ON ABACHA'S 'HOSPITALITY,' I WAS MISQUOTED - NIGERIA REQUIRES HIS RUTHLESSNESS

Shettima and Tinubu (R-L)

Shettima clarifies comments about Tinubu and Abacha, saying he was joking and was misquoted

Kashim Shettima, the All Progressives Congress (APC) vice presidential candidate, claims he was misquoted on a recent comment he made referencing the late Sani Abacha.

Speaking on Thursday at the 96th anniversary celebration of the Yoruba Tennis Club in Ikoyi, Lagos state, NAN quoted him as saying Nigeria needs Abacha's "hospitality."

Shettima, on the other hand, has stated that the country requires a president with "a dose of Abacha's ruthlessness and taciturnity."

The APC vice-presidential candidate also mentioned the qualities of leaders such as Olusegun Obasanjo, Abdusalami Abubakar, Ibrahim Babangida, and President Muhammadu Buhari, and claimed that Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate, possesses them.

In a series of tweets on Friday, the former governor of Borno clarified his comparison of Abacha to Tinubu, saying he did not attribute hospitality to Abacha and that Nigeria needs a president who is ruthless like the late military ruler to address insecurity.

"The obsession with distorting one's views to settle partisan scores brings to mind a certain WBC Commentary. "The trouble with deliberate bias,' it says, is that it cannot be erased by sound education". The video of my speech in Lagos is out there for those sincerely curious," he tweeted.

"I never attributed hospitality to Abacha in my speech. I did a rundown of our past Presidents and played up the taciturnity and a dose of the ruthlessness of a Sani Abacha' to show we need strongmen to deal with the non-state actors who've turned Nigeria into a vast killing field.

"I was quick to tease the audience, appreciating the humour hovering around the hall, with the familiar jibe that nice men don't make good leaders."