Ganduje: After Failed Presidential Bid, ‘Kwankwaso’ Turned NNPP to Revenue Platform

*Opposition presidential candidates beg to partake in APC guber polls

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, yesterday, took a swipe at his former boss and estranged ally, Rabiu Kwankwaso, who was the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), saying he had turned the party into a revenue platform after his failed presidential bid.

In a deliberately encrypted message, Ganduje, who was addressing other opposition presidential candidates, who had come to be part of the APC campaign councils for the governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States and as well President Bola Tinubu’s ‘Government of National Competence’, did not however, mention Kwankwaso’s name but clearly defined the person he was referring to.
His words: “Thank you for this visit. I will convey your views and requests. And I will ensure that you see Mr President eye to eye. I thank you for being faithful to your respective parties.

“What I am seeing is one political aspirant, who became a presidential candidate by accident. Who became a presidential candidate by hijacking another party because he was partyless.
“He could not give account according to INEC that it cannot qualify it to be political party. He decided to hijack a political party. And since, he could not realise his aspirations he decided to make that party a revenue platform rather than a political party.
“He has now decided to even expel the founder. God forbid, he will not succeed. I salute you presidential candidates for being good ambassadors of your own political parties not destroyers.

“And not turning your political parties as a source of revenue. Since you cannot get the presidential tickets, you will get pocket ticket. I thank you. No doubt we will include you in the three states that we are having elections come November this year,” Ganduje stated.
Earlier, candidate of NRM, Felix Osakwe, who spoke on behalf of the Forum of Concerned Presidential Candidates, said they were for the peace and development of Nigeria, hence their decision not to challenge Tinubu’s mandate at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT).

“I feel Mr chairman you will be the right person to lead us to meet with Mr. President. So that we can air our own views in his presence and also to let him know that it is not all the presidential candidates that were against him. We choose not to go to court because this is Nigeria
“We have a demand and it is for the party. That a slot in the campaign council for the governorship elections should be made available to us. Those of us that have piloted this, we held a meeting. And we are asked to demand from you a presence in the campaign council. We believe that our job is much more wanted now as we prepare to go into the polls in the three states in November.

“I  am to submit the two names to the chairman. And we believe by your power and by the special grace of God, it shall be done by your power. We will do our best to make sure that three states that we are going into polls for succeed. And with what we have been doing, we are going to mobilise our parties in those states for your party,” he said.
Some of the parties, whose presidential candidates met with Ganduje at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja, were All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Action Democratic Party (ADP), National Rescue Movement (NRM), and the Action Peoples Party (APP), among others.