Senator Kassim Shettima has apologised to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Senate President Ahmed Lawan for a remark he made about them in a recent interview.

The former Borno State governor tendered the apology in a series of tweets on his official handle on Sunday, days after the interview, in which he threw a jibe at them, went viral.

“Osinbajo is a good man; he’s a nice man. But nice men do not make good leaders, because nice men tend to be nasty,” he said on Channels Television’s Politics Today. “Nice men should be selling popcorn, and ice cream.”

On Lawan, he said: “Go to Ohafia or Arochukwu and ask for Ahmed Lawan, the first thing that will come to their mind is that of a tomato dealer who is bringing tomatoes from Maiduguri. Go to any part of the south. Does the brand name sell?”

But the former governor has said his remarks were never meant to insult Osinbajo as perceived in many quarters.

“I never set out to subject them to ridicule but, rather, to stir up interest in the contrasting virtues of the cast of aspirants putting up a fight against my preferred aspirant, one most favoured and advantaged to guarantee APC’s victory in the forthcoming presidential election,” he said.

The interpretations of my remarks on @ProfOsinbajo and @SPNigeria, Senator Lawan are, thus, being done literally and overblown.

“My words weren’t woven to portray them as unworthy aspirants, but merely to qualify them as non-threatening contenders.

“I, however, take full responsibility for my utterances and wish to appeal to our teeming supporters to neither take my words out of their metaphoric contexts nor interpret them as a measure and declaration of hostility towards my dear friends and allies.

“I hereby tender my unreserved apologies to the Vice President and the President of the Senate for the unintended pains my jibes might have caused them and their families and supporters.” (Channels TV)