Friday, July 11, 2025 - Vice President Kashim Shettima has disclosed that former President Goodluck Jonathan once attempted to remove him from office when he was governor of Borno State.
While speaking on Thursday in Abuja at the public
presentation of a memoir by former Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and
Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), Shettima disclosed that he was
the “most demonised” public official under the Jonathan government.
“In the last
four years of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, I was the
most demonised person; I was the public enemy number one,” Shettima said
The Vice President, who governed Borno State between 2011
and 2019, recounted how a secret plan was hatched at the highest levels of
government to oust him from office amid the heightened insecurity and Boko
Haram insurgency in the North-East region.
“There are two gentlemen seated here,” he said, referring to
Adoke and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal.
“Certain decisions are taken in a very rare peace circle – the President, the
Vice President, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives.
“In one of such conclaves, former President Goodluck
Jonathan, with whom we have now sheathed the sword and recalibrated our
relationship, was mooting the idea of removing this Borno governor.”
According to Shettima, it took the intervention of Tambuwal
and Adoke to halt the plan at the time. Speaker Tambuwal, he noted, boldly
confronted the President with the constitutional limitations of his office.
“Aminu
Tambuwal had the courage to tell the President: ‘Your Excellency, you don’t
have the powers to remove an elected councillor,’” Shettima recalled.
Still unsatisfied, Jonathan reportedly escalated the matter
to the Federal Executive Council (FEC). It was there that Adoke firmly stood
his ground on the constitutionality of the issue.
“He (Adoke)
told the then President, ‘Mr. President, you do not have the powers to remove a
sitting governor, not even a councillor.’ They sought the opinion of another
SAN in the cabinet, Kabiru Turaki, who concurred with Adoke. That was how the
matter was laid to rest,” Vice President Shettima explained.
Shettima added that the incident cemented a lifelong bond
between him, Adoke and Tambuwal, whom he praised for their courage and fidelity
to democratic principles.
Watch a video of him speaking below
SHETTIMA narrated how ADOKE and TAMBUWAL stopped former president JONATHAN from ousting him as Borno governor pic.twitter.com/Nquc38IjU2
— DAILY POST 🇳🇬 (@dailypost_ng) July 11, 2025
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