Former Special Adviser on Political Affairs to Vice President Kashim Shettima, Mr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, on Thursday, sensationally revealed why he left the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Baba-Ahmed, who made the disclosure while fielding questions on Channels Television’s flagship political programme, Politics Today, said he quit his job because he felt the Tinubu administration did not possess the zeal to fix Nigeria.
The former Secretary of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, also declared that though he did not regret working with the President, he would never accept the opportunity to return to the job if offered again.
“The way the Tinubu government is going—no,” he told the anchor, Seun Okinbaloye, adding: “Regretting going in, I don’t. I got out because there was no space. I didn’t see that fire, that commitment, zeal to fix the country that has been wrecked. I saw instead a country that is just getting worse.”
The former presidential adviser, who was appointed in 2023, and quit last month, emphasized that he could not continue working with the Tinubu Administration because he felt that the government no longer holds the mandate of the people to bring about change they earnestly yearned for, especially in addressing poverty and insecurity in the North.
Claiming that both poverty and insecurity had worsened under the Tinubu Administration, Baba-Ahmed revealed that though the President had requested a personal meeting, he declined because he would have told him things he may not have wanted to hear.
He said if the meeting had held, he would have told the President pointedly not to run for a second term in 2027 but instead support a younger, more energetic candidate from within his party to run.
Then Baba-Ahmed dropped another bombshell. He lamented that though he brims with ideas and workable solutions to the myriad problems confronting the country, by way of sound political advice, he was unable to contribute meaningfully in that capacity. Indeed, he said he was redundant while on the seat.
“No, I didn’t do any job,” he continued in the interview. “I was supposed to be adviser on political matters to the President in the office of the Vice President, but I didn’t do any advising.”
On the North’s position on Tinubu, Baba-Ahmed said all the region wants is a President with the capacity and willpower to fix the region.
The former Special Adviser highlighted insecurity, poverty, joblessness, illicit drugs, among the problems that Northerners wanted their President to solve.
