Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Adewole Adebayo, on Tuesday declared that there is nothing like a Muslim-Muslim ticket, stressing that Nigerians are not interested in such ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Adebayo maintained that Nigerians want a righteous leader who is fit for the job and is not one who emerges based on religious sentiments.
Appearing on Arise Television’s Morning Show, the SDP presidential candidate described the President Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima ticket as zero-zero ticket.
He said: “There is nothing like the Muslim-Muslim ticket, even when the contraption was brought up four years ago and I was in Kano, I was asked the same question while meddling with the Ulamas and I let them know that if you are hoping for a Muslim-Muslim ticket in President Tinubu and Vice President Shettima, you will be lucky to even have a single Muslim out of the two.
“And it turned out now that it’s not a Muslim-Muslim ticket, from the point of view of Muslims in Nigeria it’s a zero-zero ticket because in Islam what is expected of a leader in Islamic jurisprudence is not the religion of that leader but justice.
“The reason why Muslims get involved in politics is to have a just society and there are guidelines in Islamic jurisprudence regarding politics. In Islam, it’s expected that if you are a good Muslim you do not give public office or responsibility to anyone who is not fit for that, so you look among yourselves for the most suitable and committed person.”
He insisted that the concept of Muslim-Muslim ticket was created to defraud Nigerians.
“Second, you don’t give power based on favoritism or bias, and you don’t give power based on expectation of reward.
“So the whole concept from the beginning was just to defraud the populace by using religious sentiment. What the North and all Nigerians are looking for is a righteous leader no matter the person,” he said.
Noting that Nigerians are groaning due to the toMuslim-Muslim ticket, Adebayo said one of the proponents, Nasir El-Rufai and his family are crying, adding that Nigerians do not support it.
“So when you say you are looking for a Muslim-Muslim ticket and there is no justice anywhere, even one of the proponents, El-Rufai who was celebrating it, he and his family are now crying for justice and that is the biggest irony you can have.
“Nobody was more of a Muslim-Muslim ticket than El-Rufai who can’t get justice, so I don’t think that Nigerians are interested in that at all and the government and APC are just looking for what to say, there is no support for a Muslim-Muslim ticket anywhere,” he added.
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BACKSTORY:
The Muslim-Muslim ticket presented by the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the 2023 presidential election has remained one of the most debated political issues in Nigeria in recent years.
When President Bola Tinubu selected former Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima as his running mate, the decision generated widespread reactions across the country. While the APC defended the choice as a strategic political calculation that reflected competence and electoral realities, critics argued that it failed to reflect Nigeria’s religious diversity and raised concerns about inclusiveness at the highest level of government.
Despite the controversy, Tinubu and Shettima won the 2023 presidential election, but public debate over the ticket has persisted, especially as political parties begin positioning themselves ahead of the 2027 general election. The issue has continued to feature prominently in discussions on leadership, national unity, religious balance and electoral strategy.
Against this backdrop, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adewole Adebayo, weighed in on the debate during an appearance on Arise Television’s Morning Show. He argued that Nigerians are no longer interested in the religious composition of presidential tickets but are instead focused on electing a competent and morally upright leader capable of addressing the country’s challenges. Adebayo also dismissed the description of the Tinubu-Shettima ticket as a Muslim-Muslim ticket, instead referring to it as a “zero-zero ticket” in criticism of the administration’s performance.
