Tension surfaced within Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress on Saturday after the image of Vice President Kashim Shettima was omitted from a banner displayed at a party event in Maiduguri, fueling speculation about his political future ahead of the 2027 elections.
The banner, hung behind the podium at the APC North-East Zonal Public Hearing, featured President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, governors from the region and senior party officials. But Shettima — a former Borno State governor, a native of the state and the most senior APC figure from the North-East — was missing.
Abdulkarim Lawan, speaker of the Borno State House of Assembly and Nigeria’s longest-serving speaker, drew attention to the omission as he addressed the gathering.
“Why would the vice president’s picture not be included in the banner?” Lawan asked, drawing loud applause from the audience. What might have been dismissed as an oversight was widely interpreted by attendees as a deliberate slight.
The incident followed a similar episode at an APC event in Gombe State last year, where the absence of Shettima’s image reportedly triggered a disruption of proceedings. The Maiduguri episode, however, carried greater weight, coming in Shettima’s home state and amid early maneuvering within Nigeria’s political class ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Within the APC, speculation has intensified that President Tinubu may consider dropping Shettima as his running mate in 2027, amid renewed debate over the party’s Muslim–Muslim ticket and pressure from some quarters for religious balancing.
The omission at the Maiduguri event appeared to give public expression to what had previously circulated as quiet talk within party circles.
Abayomi Nurain Mumuni, an APC chieftain and security expert who served on the intelligence and security team of the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council in 2023, warned that replacing Shettima on religious grounds would amount to a risky political gamble for the party.
