The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has distanced itself from Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s planned defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC), insisting that such a move is strictly personal to him and his Kwankwasiya Movement.
National Secretary of the NNPP, Dr Ogini Olaposi, made this known in a statement on Monday in Lagos. He explained that Kwankwaso’s recent declaration of readiness to join the ruling APC confirms that he and his group are no longer part of the NNPP.
“At last we have been vindicated. All negotiations by any party with Kwankwaso should be done on his individual capacity. Our party will now rest from the Movement’s resistance after they were expelled for anti-party activities,” Olaposi said.
Kwankwaso, a former Kano State governor and NNPP’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, had over the weekend announced that he and his supporters were ready to join the APC. However, he stressed that his movement “will not allow itself to be used to win elections and then abandoned afterwards.”
Responding, Olaposi stressed that the NNPP has no issues with the APC and could consider alliances ahead of the 2027 elections, but only through collective decisions of its members.
“For now, we are putting our house in order ahead of elections nationwide after the crisis and litigations that Kwankwaso and his followers brought to the NNPP,” he said.
According to him, the Memorandum of Understanding between the Kwankwasiya Movement and the NNPP expired after the 2023 general elections. He accused the group of attempting to hijack the party instead of exiting peacefully.
“The crisis began because, rather than leave peacefully, they began to plan to hijack the party. We can’t wait to see them in another party,” Olaposi added.
The NNPP scribe further argued that Kwankwaso no longer has a political base, claiming that many of his supporters in Kano had already defected to the APC.
“Kwankwaso has no political party. His political value dipped after betraying the NNPP that gave him a free platform for his presidential ambition, and when the strategic members of the movement joined the ruling party. Nigerians who negotiate with Kwankwaso and his group should know that it is on his right as a citizen but not as a member of the NNPP. Any negotiation in the name of NNPP is null and void because they remain expelled from our party,” he declared.
Olaposi also lamented the delay by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in uploading the party’s new executive after a court-ordered convention that produced the Dr Agbo Major-led leadership.
