The Presidency has issued a blistering response to Datti Baba-Ahmed, running mate to Peter Obi in the 2023 presidential election, over his recent suggestion that Vice-President Kashim Shettima should be removed from office.
In a strongly worded statement on Friday, Stanley Nkwocha, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications (Office of the Vice-President), dismissed Baba-Ahmed’s comments as “obsessive vituperation” and described his remarks as “beer parlour gossip” unworthy of serious political discourse.
Baba-Ahmed had made the remarks during a recent interview on Arise Television, where he questioned the continued presence of Shettima in office and advocated support for a new opposition coalition.
Nkwocha responded by accusing Baba-Ahmed of displaying frustration rooted in the Labour Party’s loss at the 2023 polls.
“In the said interview, Baba-Ahmed expressed his frustrations on why the president had yet to remove the vice-president from office not for any offence, but merely to soothe his ego and wish,” the statement read.
“Well, the bad news for him is that his frustration is just beginning.”
Nkwocha went further to cite Baba-Ahmed’s past political defeats, including the 2011 tribunal ruling that voided his senatorial victory in Kaduna North in favour of Ahmed Makarfi.
He lauded Vice-President Shettima as a “tested democrat” and “loyal ally,” highlighting his steady political trajectory from banking to commissioner, governor, senator, and now vice-president all without electoral defeat.
“If God, in His infinite mercy, has elevated Senator Shettima to become the vice-president of Nigeria, is it unmeritorious?” Nkwocha queried.
The presidency noted that while the Office of the Vice-President had previously ignored similar criticisms, it would now begin issuing responses to such attacks.
“Attacks like this will henceforth not go without a response from us,” Nkwocha warned.
The clash underscores intensifying tensions between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and opposition voices, as the 2027 elections approach and coalition talks gain momentum.
