The National Vice Chairman (North East) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mustapha Salihu, has broken his silence on why he did not include Vice President Kashim Shettima in his endorsement of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Sunday.

Salihu had endorsed Tinubu for re-election in 2027 in his speech during the North East  APC Stakeholders’ meeting of the APC held in Gombe last Sunday,  but reportedly excluded Shettima.

The development angered some delegates from Borno, Shettima’s home state, who reportedly engaged him in physical fight until he was rescued out of the meeting hall by security operatives.

But speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Salihu said his remarks were misunderstood, clarifying that there was no intention to sideline the vice president.

“In the last paragraph of my speech, just before the endorsement, I eulogised Kashim Shettima. “I referred to him as our son and made it clear that we in the North East are proud of him and stand by him,” he said.

He described as premature any attempt to suggest who should be on the 2027 presidential ticket. “There is only one ticket. To suggest a running mate at this stage is to put the cart before the horse. It is the prerogative of the presidential candidate, not ours.

“The president has given our region ministers, heads of agencies, and other federal appointments. I thanked him for that before moving on to the endorsement,” he said.

Salihu added that the structure of the party does not require a joint endorsement of both president and vice president during the primaries.

He argued that such endorsements were typically focused on the presidential candidate.

“In party politics, there is only one ticket at the primary level. Whether it’s for the president, governor, or chairman of a council, the candidate emerges first. It is after that the choice of a running mate is made,” he said.