By Ochereome Nnana and Emmanuel Aziken,

Agricultural economist, turned banker and now politician, Gov. Kasshim Shettima of Borno State has soldiered against hope in the face of some of the most extraneous circumstances in the land. The governor has bravely countered the instruments of fear as mounted by the Boko Haram insurgency on one hand and the political conspiracy weaved from the highest areas echelons of the former administration.

Ahead of his investiture as Vanguard’s Governor of the Year, 2015, Governor Shettima in two separate interview sessions in Maiduguri and Lagos spoke on his political development among other things excerpts:

Gov. Shettima

In what way are you mobilising the forum members to consolidate the stability of the country?

We are one people. As an attempt to reach out to our brothers across the Niger we are going to attend the burial in Ebonyi of the mother of the governor. One thing people fail to appreciate is that the Ibo nation played a silent but extremely strategic role in the emergence of President Buhari. You may not believe it, but the statistics are there. In 2011, the Ibo nation gave Jonathan about 8 million votes, so when people start accusing Ogbonnanya Onu or Chris Ngige of not doing their own part of the job, people are not being fair to them. In 2015 Jonathan got 300,000 votes in Ebonyi, go and juxtapose the quantum of votes he got in 2011 in the Ibo heartland with what he got in 2015! If the Ibos had produced the quantum of votes they gave him in 2011 in 2015, the story would have been different.

Was it not because of card reader?
Not only because of the card reader, but of the vigilance of the APC politicians. There was card reader in Akwa Ibom and in Delta when PDP scored the votes they got. I think the Ibo nation deserves special commendation and respect for the efforts they made. What was the difference between Buhari and Jonathan? It was about 2.5 million votes.

What is your reaction to the emergence of your predecessor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as the national chairman of the PDP and his vow to kick out the APC from power in 2019?
His Excellency, Senator Ali Sheriff is my boss and is someone that I am eternally indebted to. I always tend to shy away from commenting on issues directly involving him. He is a very consummate politician who is presiding over a dead horse, and I am absolutely certain that he will see to the total annihilation of the PDP.

The PDP is an idea whose time has elapsed. The mind disturbing revelations about how funds meant to acquire weapons to prevent Boko Haram insurgents from their scales of murder, were siphoned is enough to erase the PDP from the minds of the party’s founding fathers, those who drafted it’s constitution and those who designed the party’s if they have conscience. I don’t see majority of good Nigerians ever accepting the PDP again except perhaps, a different political affiliation but certainly not PDP as it is known.

Read full interview in Vanguard’s newspapers tomorrow…