NNPP slams Kwankwaso for members’ defection to APC

The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has explained why its former national chairman, Professor Rufa’i Alkali, and several other members defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Abdulsalam Abdulrasaq, released a statement on Wednesday saying that Alkali, Prof. Bem Angwe, Senator Othman Hunkuyi, and others had left “due to high-handedness and insatiable desire to take over a platform benevolently donated by Dr. Boniface Aniebonam and its mother organization — NAGAFF for use in the 2023 general election.”

On Wednesday, Abdullahi Ganduje, national chairman of the APC, welcomed 26 NNPP chieftains, including Alkali and three governorship hopefuls, into the party in Abuja. The news was announced on the APC’s official X handle.

In the statement, Abdulrasaq referred back to the press’s repeated exposure of Angwe and Hunkuyi’s participation as signatories to the MOU between Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and NNPP, which ultimately led to the merger of the Kwankwassiyya and TNM parties.

According to the statement, Alkali was elected national chairman at the convention that formalized the union on March 30, 2022, but he resigned on March 30, 2023, citing “high-handedness and irreconcilable differences with Kwankwaso on issues of undemocratic tendencies and lately the desire to take over fraudulently a platform that he was benevolently given by a gentle old man to actualise his ambition of running for the presidency of Nigeria.”

He said that Angwe had purportedly complained of attempts to sell off his governorship ticket in Benue State, which he had fought so hard to earn, to the highest bidder, and that this was the reason he had withdrawn his signature from the MOU long before it expired after the 2023 election.

Despite the unwavering support he receives from the good people of Benue State, the statement claims that he had cold feet afterward, which negatively hampered his performance in the 2023 election.

The statement claims that Hunkuyi, who had previously signed the MOU but has since withdrawn, has been at war with Kwankwaso even while working as the National Organising Secretary for the party.

According to the statement, Hunkuyi had various complaints about his time serving the party, including high-handedness, imposition, a refusal to listen to others, and more.

After being the NNPP’s candidate for governor of Kaduna State, “the irreconcilable conflicts extended into the years after.

“While the campaign lasted, there was no noticeable contact or synergy with the governorship candidate due to the rift which was very obvious,” the statement said, adding that Hunkuyi had communicated his withdrawal to the party’s founder, Aniebonam, to whom he also apologized for all the embarrassment faced despite his benevolence at the time they came into the party.

Abdulrasaq claims that the new party leadership under Dr. Agbo Major had formed a special committee to communicate with the defecting NNPP chieftains, therefore their departure came as a devastating blow.