Tinubu’s aide Bayo Onanuga, has criticised Nigerians who attacked the vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Kashim Shettima’s outfit at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) 2022 conference.
Shettima, a former governor of Borno State, became the butt of internet jokes after his photograph of him wearing an oversized black suit and red tie, accompanied by pair of gym sneakers, which has stirred reactions from social media users.
At the event, Mr Shettima represented the APC presidential flag bearer, Bola Tinubu.
Reacting to the criticism Onanuga said, “If someone had landed in Nigeria from Mars on Monday and read treads on Twitter Nigeria, he would have thought Senator Kashim Shettima was one tasteless, uneducated Nigerian. But the man so derisively targeted by a section of Twittersphere was nothing of such.
“He was a victim of the Twitter herd, people who behave like the herdsman’s cows, without any reflection and tweet what others in their group are tweeting, tweets dripping with hate and insults, that ought not to be on the social media platform were the Twitter police alive to their responsibility.
“Shettima, two-term governor of Borno, a serving senator and vice presidential candidate of the APC became the butt of derisive jokes that Monday, because he featured as a panelist at the NBA Conference in Lagos. He came to represent Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“He was the first to take the podium, which was provided after he had started speaking. He jettisoned a prepared speech on the topic and rather chose to speak on the track records of Tinubu as governor of Lagos and his record as governor of Borno state.
“His delivery, done extemporaneously, was top notch. As many unbiased listeners said, he was the starboy at the segment of the conference. He spoke eloquently with conviction. He quoted figures and he said he and Tinubu will replicate their joint records at the centre from 29 May 2023.
“Clearly, some sections of people in the hall were not interested in Shettima’s speech. They were focussed on the mundane: his attire. But they got it all wrong. If they had not been limited by their own bushman’s narrow view, they would have known that it was pointless ridiculing the senator with his suit and tie. They were the people that needed further exposure on the correctness of dress modes,” he said.
