Six Out of 19: Shettima Reveals How Much of the North Tinubu Had to Win Over in 2023

Six Out of 19: Shettima Reveals How Much of the North Tinubu Had to Win Over in 2023

At an Ilorin ceremony, Vice President Kashim Shettima offered a revealing account of the political resistance surrounding Bola Tinubu’s 2023 presidential ambition — and the reconciliation that followed.

Exclusive to Ekocity | By Ekocity Politics & Governance Desk

Vice President Kashim Shettima has offered one of the clearest accounts yet of the political obstacles that confronted Bola Tinubu on his journey to the presidency in 2023.

Speaking on Wednesday at the palace of the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, Shettima said that only six of the 19 northern governors supported Tinubu’s presidential ambition at the time.

“You all know that we have 19 states in the North. Out of these, only six actually believed and supported Tinubu,” Shettima said.

The remark provides a striking retrospective on the 2023 election, when questions over zoning, succession and the balance between northern and southern political interests dominated the presidential contest.

Tinubu eventually won the election, but Shettima’s account suggests that his political coalition was far from unanimous among northern governors.

That is significant because the North represented 19 states and a substantial portion of Nigeria’s presidential electorate.

Yet the Vice President’s intervention was not presented simply as an account of old political divisions.

It was also a message about what happens after the ballots are counted.

Shettima said Tinubu subsequently reconciled with northern governors who had opposed his presidential ambition.

“After the 2023 election, President Tinubu hugged and forgave all other northern governors that did not support him,” he said, describing the gesture as a mark of leadership.

That part of the story may be as important as the six-governor revelation itself.

Nigerian politics is often defined by intense competition before an election and political realignment after it. Alliances can change rapidly once the winner assumes office and the political system moves from campaigning to governing.

Shettima used the experience to appeal for reconciliation among politicians in Kwara State following the APC governorship primary. He urged politicians not to treat political contests as permanent battles and encouraged them to close ranks after elections.

His comments come as Nigeria’s political class begins positioning itself for another major electoral contest in 2027.

But there is also a historical caution in interpreting the six-governor figure.

Public records from the 2023 campaign show that several northern governors openly appeared with or expressed support for Tinubu at different stages of the election cycle. Contemporary reporting also documented northern governors campaigning for him.

Shettima’s statement should therefore be understood specifically as his retrospective assessment of who he regarded as having genuinely believed in and supported Tinubu’s presidential ambition, rather than as an independently established numerical tally of every northern governor’s public campaign activity.

That distinction matters.

Political support is not always binary. A governor can support a candidate privately, publicly, strategically or at different stages of a campaign.

Still, Shettima’s central message is unmistakable: Tinubu’s path to the presidency was not built on unanimous northern political support.

It was built through a coalition that survived disagreements, competition and political uncertainty.

And after the election, according to the Vice President, reconciliation became part of the governing strategy.

For a country already looking toward 2027, that may be the more consequential lesson from Ilorin.

Politics creates opponents. Governing requires finding a way to work with them.

Fawumi Kayode Abiodun
Political Analyst | CEO, Ekocity Media | Publisher, Ekocity Magazine and The Capitol Post