Vice President Kashim Shettima on Tuesday revealed that barely three months after President Bola Tinubu was sworn into office, some people from Borno State visited the President and warned him to stop wearing traditional attire given to him by Shettima during the 2023 campaign, alleging the garments had been used to charm him and would lead to his death.

He said Tinubu not only rejected the claim but responded by deliberately wearing the clothing for an entire week as a public rebuke to what he called a story that “did not add up.”

Shettima spoke while delivering his address at the public presentation of former Head of State Yakubu Gowon’s autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, in Abuja on Tuesday, where he represented Tinubu.

Shettima used the incident to illustrate what he described as the dangerous spread of suspicion in Nigerian public life.

He also compared the rising spate of suspicion with the Sultan of Sokoto’s account of how Gowon would receive gallons of fura sent weekly from the Sultan’s family in Sokoto to Dodan Barracks in Lagos.

He noted that Gowon accepted the gesture without any suspicion, in a spirit of trust that he said has since been eroded.

The VP said, “His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto, had been narrating the story of the family of the Sultan sending gallons of fura every week to General Yakubu Gowon in Dodan Barracks, because of the trust and confidence General Gowon was willingly receiving it without any suspicion.

“But now the game is different. Suspicion smears our relationships, and it ought not to be. We are essentially one people tied to a common destiny.”

Narrating his personal story involving Tinubu, Shettima recalled that in the lead-up to the 2023 presidential primaries, as the President canvassed support across the North, he sourced traditional Borno attire and a cap for Tinubu to wear at campaign events so the candidate could blend with the northern crowd.

He said positive feedback from Tinubu’s aides proved that the clothing fitted well, and Tinubu wore it repeatedly during the campaign.

However, the confrontation came just months after victory.

Shettima said he had travelled to Beijing in October 2023 to represent Tinubu at the 3rd Belt and Road Initiative Forum, held from October 16 to 18, one of his early high-profile foreign assignments as Vice President.

When he returned from China, Tinubu summoned him and delivered a message from a group of people about the clothes.

He narrated, “When I came back from China, where I had represented him at the Belt and Road Initiative Conference, he said: ‘Sit down. Your people came to me and said I should stop wearing those dresses you gave me. They said I must have been charmed, and that I am going to die and he will become the president.’”

Shettima noted that Tinubu dismissed the accusation because it did not add up.

According to Shettima, he responded,
“Their story did not add up, because when you gave me those dresses, I was an aspirant. I wasn’t even the candidate. Neither were you the vice-presidential candidate.”

However, he said the President proceeded to wear the dresses for a week.

“For one week, to prove to them that he is not fetish, he wore those dresses.

“These are some of the gimmicks that are taking place in power circles in Nigeria nowadays.”

In his address, Shettima poured encomiums on Gowon, saying his life embodied the opposite of sectarian suspicion.

Shettima cited Gowon’s establishment of the NYSC as a reconciliation instrument, his ECOWAS legacy, and the urgent need for Nigerians to confront divisive forces that seek to undermine unity.

He referenced Plateau State, whose governor, Caleb Mutfwang, was present, urging an end to cycles of violence in language that cited linguistic, genealogical, and historical ties across the divisions currently producing bloodshed on the Plateau.

On Gowon, whom he called the “the last man standing” among Nigeria’s post-independence military generation, Shettima said the autobiography is “a bottom of memory at a time when our country needs a discipline of remembrance.”

He said, “There are people who are remembered before they leave office.

“There are others whose memory endures because office became, in their hands, an instrument of national meaning. General Gowon belongs to the second company.”

He also quoted Martin Luther King Jr. in closing, calling on Nigerians to either unite or face collective ruin.

“Let us learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools,” he stated.

The event was attended by former President Goodluck Jonathan, who chaired the occasion, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume; Senate President Godswill Akpabio, represented by Senator Ireti Kingibe; the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III; the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem; and a galaxy of retired generals, including the son of late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha.

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The Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Apo, Abuja, on Monday sustained the arrest warrant earlier issued against former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiya Farouq Umar, over alleged fraud involving $1.3m and N746.7m.

Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie held that the bench warrant issued against the former minister on April 16, 2026, would remain in force.

Farouq is being prosecuted alongside Bashir Nura Alkali and Sani Nafiu Mohammed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on charges bordering on alleged criminal conspiracy, abuse of office, and diversion of public funds.

At the resumed proceedings, counsel for the EFCC, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), informed the court that the matter was slated for arraignment, but noted that the first defendant, Farouq, was absent without explanation.

Jacobs said, “My lord, we were here on April 16, 2026, when your lordship granted us a bench warrant to arrest the first defendant. It was because of that the second defendant immediately approached the commission and surrendered himself in obedience to your lordship’s order.”

He urged the court to vacate the warrant against the second defendant while sustaining the order against the former minister.

The prosecutor further recalled that Farouq’s counsel, Oladipo Okpesheyi (SAN), had earlier pleaded with the court to grant him one month to produce his client.

According to Jacobs, despite the court’s reluctance to grant a lengthy adjournment under the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, the judge accommodated the defence’s plea.

“My expectation this morning will be for my colleague to say that the client he promised to produce is in court today, but alas, he did not do so,” Jacobs said.

He added, “I will urge your lordship to ensure that the undertaking is enforced by counsel to produce his client instead of asking the court to discharge the order. My lordship should not listen to them until the undertaking is enforced.”

When asked by the court to explain Farouq’s absence, Okpesheyi told the judge that the former minister was currently in Egypt receiving medical treatment.

“My lord, she is in Egypt. I learnt that her doctor said she is not medically fit to appear today,” he said.

“There is a medical report I received on my phone last night that she is in the hospital on the doctor’s advice in Egypt. She will need about two months to recover before she can come. We will be humbly asking for an adjournment.”

Justice Onwuegbuzie, however, frowned on what he described as repeated attempts to frustrate and delay the trial.

“At the last adjournment, M.S. Ibrahim promised the court to produce the first defendant. It will be impossible to grant another adjournment.

“I will not tolerate unnecessary adjournment in my court. I will give you a short adjournment, and you will go and bring her, even if she is in a wheelchair. And if she is not here, the court will do what it needs to do,” the judge said.

The judge subsequently ruled that the arrest warrant against Farouq remained active and adjourned the matter till June 8, 2026, for arraignment.

The PUNCH reports that the EFCC, in the past week, declared the former minister wanted for alleged criminal conspiracy, abuse of office, and diversion of public funds.

In the notice signed by its Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, the anti-graft agency with knowledge of the ex-minister’s whereabouts is to contact the commission.

The EFCC directed anyone with useful information to contact its offices in Ibadan, Uyo, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Benin, Makurdi, Kaduna, Ilorin, Enugu, Kano, Lagos, Gombe, Port Harcourt, or Abuja, or call 08093322644, or email info@efcc.gov.ng, or contact the nearest police station.

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Former President Goodluck Jonathan and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice have asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to dismiss a suit seeking to stop Jonathan from contesting the 2027 presidential election.

Justice Peter Lifu fixed May 26 for a composite judgment, including a ruling on an application by the plaintiff, Abuja-based lawyer, Johnmary Jideobi, asking the judge to recuse himself from the matter.

In the originating summons, Jideobi asked the court to determine “whether in view of the combined provisions of sections 1(1), (2) and (3) and 137(3) of the 1999 Constitution, the 1st defendant is eligible, under any circumstances whatsoever, to contest for the office of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

The plaintiff argued that Jonathan had exhausted the constitutional limit for the office, having completed the tenure of late President Umaru Yar’Adua before serving another full term after the 2011 election.

In an affidavit filed in support of the suit, Emmanuel Agida, who deposed on behalf of Jideobi, stated that Jonathan was first sworn in as president on May 6, 2010, following Yar’Adua’s death, and again on May 29, 2011, after winning the presidential election.

Jideobi also filed an application on Monday asking Justice Lifu to withdraw from the case over alleged bias, claiming the court shortened the 14 days initially granted to respond to Jonathan’s counter-affidavit and preliminary objection.

Counsel for Jonathan, Chris Uche (SAN), while arguing the former president’s counter-affidavit and preliminary objection, urged the court to dismiss the suit and award N50m costs against the plaintiff.

Uche cited previous judgments, including those in suits filed by Andy Solomon and Cyracus Njoku against Jonathan, which he said were dismissed.

He further argued that the amendment to Section 137(3) of the Constitution, which bars persons who had taken the oath of office more than twice from seeking the same office, could not be applied retroactively against Jonathan, who contested the 2015 election.

According to him, Jideobi was attempting to use litigation as a political tool to exclude Jonathan, despite constitutional provisions allowing qualified citizens to seek elective office.

“He has no locus standi to bring this action and no cause of action has crystallised,” he said.

Uche added that for the plaintiff to establish locus standi, he must show how the matter directly affected him and also prove that he was a registered voter interested in who governed the country.

Similarly, the Director of Civil Litigation and Public Law at the Federal Ministry of Justice, Dr Maimuna Lamin Shiru, who stood in for the AGF, asked the court to dismiss the suit in its entirety.

However, counsel to the plaintiff, Ndubuisi Ukpai, argued that being a registered voter was not a condition for instituting the suit and urged the court to dismiss the objections and counter-affidavit filed by Jonathan and the Ministry of Justice.