The Shettima challenge

The Nigerian is that person who laughs even in a funeral house and at his tragedy. Such dark humour has to be his coping mechanism because it plays out even where he’s expected to appear contemplative. It’s even more so when the source of their jokes is inspired by a hilarious event, and Senator Kashim […]

The Nigerian is that person who laughs even in a funeral house and at his tragedy. Such dark humour has to be his coping mechanism because it plays out even where he’s expected to appear contemplative. It’s even more so when the source of their jokes is inspired by a hilarious event, and Senator Kashim Shettima’s unusual dress sense at the ongoing NBA Conference, a three-piece suit worn with Converse sneakers, has sparked a mimicry trend on which even his party’s campaign spokesman, Mr. Festus Keyamo, has jumped.

This is the scrutiny to which the senator must be used in the race to Aso Rock. This won’t just be his life as an aspiring co-pilot in flying 200 million people to higher altitudes, but also in withstanding their bile and humour. And there’s nothing peculiar in the backlash sparked by his outing at the Eko Hotel, Lagos, this week. It’s a fashion style caricatured even in the headquarters of Western values from someone with his public profile.

When, as Vice President-elect of the United States in early January, Kamala Harris appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine wearing a suit with Converse sneakers she was fiercely ridiculed on social media, and the disapproval was massive and crude. The magazine had to suspend the cover idea, settling for an image of her in a formal suit that, according to the critics, wasn’t disrespectful to the office she’s waiting to occupy. Her team too was alarmed because the photograph wasn’t their favourite—or perhaps that’s just to calm the media storm.

The then US President Barack Obama also drew the ire of a section of his countrymen in 2014 when he appeared on live TV to hold a press conference wearing a tan suit, which, to his critics, was too casual wear and unpresidential. The partisan camp believed that the choice of suit belittled his office and the gravity of the topic addressed—the American military’s anti-ISIS campaign in Syria. For the vocal Democrats, though, it was a non-issue, “a slow-news day” and they dismissed it as another Republican obsession with the trivial.

Shettima couldn’t have been unaware of the expectations and even the absurdities of the profession he’s chosen, and the dress style that triggered the trending Shettima Challenge is inescapable in being held to a higher standard. This is democracy at work. Only that this annual conference of lawyers by the Nigerian Bar Association was intended to spark conversations around the question of the 2023 presidential election. That some treat it as a fashion show, preferring to scandalise his dress style instead of interrogating the invited politicians’ diverse ideas at the event, is a miscalculated sabotage of national dialogues.

Unfortunately, the fashion policing has evolved into a predictable opportunity to mischaracterise Shettima, damning the eloquence and perspicacity of his views as a representative of his principal at the conference. Even the ideas of other candidates have been drowned by this aim. The most mischievous has to be the recurring political marketing catchphrase, which is a curious agenda to portray him—a top bank executive, two-time governor, five-time commissioner, and now senator—as inexperienced to run a country. “Vote Tinubu, Think Shettima” has been serially dispensed by the hostile political camp to warn about the risk of having the running mate of APC’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the vicinity of the seat of power—and the sentiment they set out to stir is ambiguous and ridiculous.

The first sentiment, which is an attempt to question Shettima’s capability, defies the logic fiercely advertised by the same character—the yearning that the nation’s leader must, at least, hold a qualification above a secondary school certificate. This was deployed to drive the image crisis that has haunted Buhari since he registered his interest to run for office and was characterised as illiterate despite rising to the rank of a Major-General in the Nigerian Army and despite, of course, having previously served as military Head of State 30 years before his second coming in plainclothes.

With his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Agricultural Economics, Shettima has escaped every objective bid to be painted in Buhari’s academic hue, even though the partisan urge to minimalise his education too seems obvious. Perhaps, then, the catchphrase was intended to gloss over his career history, which again is an untenable bid.

Having risen fast through the ranks to become a General Manager at Zenith Bank, one of the most successful financial institutions in the country, and left to head, first, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in Borno State Government, and then the ministries of Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs, Education, Agriculture and, finally, Health, under the then Borno Governor Ali Modu Sheriff, it’s going to be a difficult job to force him into the box being designed by the opposing partisans. 

The second interpretation of the catchphrase is reminiscent of the scaremongering before Buhari’s election in 2023. The contesting Buhari was marketed as bound for death in the high office and the irony now stares everyone in the face. The then Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, in one of his bursts of toxic politics, sponsored death-wishing adverts on the front page of national newspapers with the photographs of Nigerian presidents who died in office published to hint about a lingering repeat of a state-house funeral.

Five years later, fate would have Buhari condoling with Fayose for the loss of his “immediate elder sister, Mrs. Moji Ladeji.” A benign Fayose, perhaps after learning was that episode, was seen patronising Tinubu when he shared their photograph on Twitter on October 12, 2021, to say, “Today, I was at Bourdillon to wish Asiwaju Bola Tinubu soonest recovery. Health issues know no political party and in this part of the world, we seldom celebrate people when they are alive. Rather, we like to sign condolence registers. To me, that is not the best way to live.”

On the eve of the APC presidential primaries, Fayose also shared a statement to say that “I equally read the reactions of your political allies both in the North and in the South,” adding “The reactions gave me great cause for concern for you and your life. Again, I see danger! (sic).”He cited the antecedents of other Yoruba national figures who died in their bids to run for office, weaving a conspiracy theory that Tinubu was being targeted.

The danger of dirty politics or obsessing with the trivial is losing our focus to ask the questions that matter, and scrutinise every ticket objectively. There are a thousand and one issues to raise in de-marketing or marketing the Tinubu – Shettima ticket, but the running mate’s competence isn’t one of them. After managing a terrorist-ravaged state, a first-rate commercial bank, and pivotal state ministries in his state, warning Nigerians to be wary of the senator is even more trivial than the trending challenge.