NNPP:  Kwankaso in Race to Win, Not Playing Spoiler’s Game

•Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso no match for Tinubu, says Opeifa

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP), has its presidential candidate, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, was in the race to win the February 18 presidential election and not playing spoiler’s game.

National Secretary, Mr. Dipo Olayoku, in a statement yesterday after an emergency meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC), dismissed  insinuations that Kwankwaso was a spoiler in the next year’s presidential election.

The party maintained that Kwankwaso was the one to beat in the 2023 presidential contest and therefore could not be a spoiler or a pretender.

A weekly newspaper had raised the question: “Kwankwaso, a contender or spoiler”? But Olayoku, who also dismissed report on the storm in the party said, journalists and media houses should refuse to be used by some candidates to run the NNPP and its presidential candidate down.

“The report alleged that a chieftain of the party is a mole, working for another party and its presidential candidate. According to the report, this has placed the chieftain against the NNPP presidential candidate, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.

“However, l want to state that nothing can be further from the truth than this. We, in the National Working Committee, consider these reports as the handiwork of  fifth columnists, who have been trying to cause disaffection in the party and they will never succeed.

“They had tried in the past to plant such discord that our presidential candidate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, was going to step down for another presidential candidate. Since that couldn’t fly, they have resorted to planting sundry stories against the party.

“As a political party, our mission and vision and that of our presidential candidate is very clear. That mission and vision is to win the presidential election next year and to take the country out of the woods, which it has been in the last seven years.

“The meritorious and distinguished credentials of our presidential candidate, Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in  public service and all the political offices that he held are indisputable and no one can fault them,” he said.

Meanwhile, a former Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, Dr. Kayode Opeifa, has said the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, his Labour Party (LP)opponent, Peter Obi as well as Kwankwaso were no match for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Opeifa stated this yesterday in Abuja at a Capacity Building for Affiliated Support Groups and Independence Day Celebration, with the theme: Tinubu/Shettima, A Pan Nigeria Project organised by Asiwaju Beyond 2023 Project.

He said the Tinubu/Shettima ticket presents the kind of leaders Nigeria has never had before, saying this was the first time in history that the country would have a presidential and the vice presidential candidates coming from private sector backgrounds.

The APC Chieftain noted that in the case of Tinubu, he worked in the  private sector; he worked for international companies like Deloitte and Mobil, saying no international company would hire someone, who is  not brilliant, while Senator Kashim Shettima worked for Zenith Bank.

“Our candidate is a brilliant Nigerian. It tells you we are not bringing a man without shoes and without a brain,” he said.