Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, the founder of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), called Rabiu Kwankwaso, the former governor of Kano State, and his attempt to take over the party organization a betrayal of trust on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos, Aniebonam claimed to have given Kwankwaso the opportunity to fulfill his dream of becoming Nigeria’s president on a silver platter.
Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, the founder of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), called Rabiu Kwankwaso, the former governor of Kano State, and his attempt to take over the party organization a betrayal of trust on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos, Aniebonam claimed to have given Kwankwaso the opportunity to fulfill his dream of becoming Nigeria’s president on a silver platter.
The NNPP’s founder claimed that from 2002 until 2022, he worked alone to register and grow the organization. That is, until Kwankwaso and his group asked him to lead the party in the 2023 presidential contest.
Since Kwankwaso and other party members were expelled by the Board of Trustees (BoT) last year for alleged anti-party activities, the NNPP has been rocked by crises.
He said: “Buba Galadima led the delegation, including Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi and Prof. Sam Angai to my country home in Anambra to plead for us to accept Kwankwaso in NNPP.
“After the talks, I placed a call to Kwankwaso and after asking him questions about his intentions for Nigeria, I offered him the platform of NNPP as its sole candidate.
“I believed that Kwankwaso was not aware of the internal crisis in the party until he came out openly on live television, displaying a new logo and flag for the NNPP and mutilating its constitution.
“It is disturbing and if I continue to keep quiet, it will not be in the interest of the soul of the party as the founder and at some point, its board chairman.
“The party’s constitution says the founder is a life member of the board and even when I’m alive, my brother and good friend, Kwankwaso, for whatever reasons, is destroying the party I built from 2002 to 2022 when he joined us to contest the 2023 presidency.
“I funded the party for 22 years and Kwankwaso wants to hijack it even when he is not a member of the board of trustees or the leader of the party.”
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) is the parent organization of the NNPP, according to Aniebonam, who founded the latter organization before founding the former.
Remembering that Kwankwaso and some others had been kicked out of the party for anti-party activities, he said he would pardon Kwankwaso if he abstained from what he was doing because he was a life member of the board and had inherent powers.
“The kangaroo convention even when there was a court order stopping it, is null and void because a Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday ruled that the NNPP issue is an internal crisis.
“This means that the issues can only be settled using the constitution. However, we are ready to pursue the interpretation of the constitution up to the Supreme Court,” he added.
