By Kolawole Ojebisi
The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party in the 2023 general elections, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, has taken a swipe at both the Peoples Democratic Party( PDP) and the All Progressives Congress(APC) in his remarks during his party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Monday.
Kwankwaso, who doubles as a national leader of the NNPP, stated that the PDP had sounded its death knell as a political party by failing to address the internal wranglings bedeviling it. The former Kano State governor described the PDP as a “dead party” awaiting interment.
Kwankwaso, who did not spare the APC in his criticism, stressed that there is no much difference between the fate of the PDP and that of the ruling APC. He noted that the APC has lost touch with the realities of Nigerians and keep patching things up while the masses languish in abject poverty, biting hunger and escalating insecurity
Also, he criticised the APC for not being in touch with the current realities Nigerians are grappling with, which includes, escalating insecurity, abject poverty, and hunger.
Kwankwaso emphasised that despite the numerous challenges confronting the party, the NNPP is the fastest-growing political movement in Nigeria and a “viable alternative” in the country’s political terrain.
“I’m pleased to say that, despite all the challenges, today, our party is the fastest-growing party in this country. I remember when I visited Katsina State to commission our state office, I mentioned that the two parties, especially the PDP, were dead, and there are so many concerns within the fold of the PDP,” Kwankwaso pointed out.
He added: “I’m sure when I was making that statement, many of them did not see what was happening today, that the party had been broken into pieces. The party is imploding, and therefore if they didn’t understand at that time, now I believe they will agree with all of us that the party is dead.”
On the state of the APC, Kwankwaso noted that: “The APC, as it stands today, you can see that the leadership is just up there in the air, and the entire nation, the people of this country, are on the ground.
“At that level, whether they believe they are doing well, all of us, especially the voters in this country, believe that they are performing very, very badly, especially if you look at the issue of security, the level of poverty in this country, and of course the menace of hunger that we are currently witnessing in this country.”
Rabiu Kwankwaso, who can be described as a political bird of passage, contested and won the 1999 Kano State gubernatorial election on the platform of PDP. His dream of elongating his tenure by serving a second term was truncated by losing to the All Nigerian People’s Party’s governorship candidate, Ibrahim Shekarau
He would later launch a comeback to the Kano State highest political office in 2011 having served as Minister of Defence in Obasanjo’s cabinet.
Kwankwaso served for another four years as governor and was succeeded by his erstwhile deputy, Ibrahim Ganduje.
The former minister was one of the PDP stalwarts who formed alliance with members of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP), a faction of PDP, called New PDP, and a faction of All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA), to form the All Progressives Congress, a coalition that wrested the reins of power from the PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan at the national level.
Kwankwaso contested the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the NNPP and lost to Tinubu of the APC
It was rumoured after the general elections that the NNPP leader was planning to return to the fold of APC but he has since debunked the news.
