By Aminu Kutama
The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, on Monday, blasted his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, saying any party that can’t control Lagos, Kano, and Rivers states should forget about the 2023 presidential election.
Kwankwaso made this known when he commissioned the Mgbutanwo Internal Roads in the Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State at the invitation of Governor Nyesom Wike. The former Kano governor also hit some PDP leaders whom he described as rigid and selfish
“Many people have made so many mistakes; many people don’t understand. Some leaders are very rigid, rigid in the sense that whether they are failing or winning, they will stick to one idea, they will stick to one candidate not minding the consequences, not minding the feelings of the people involved
We have seen people in my former party that all they want is to get the presidential ticket. They are ready to do anything to have a ticket.
“Any party that cannot control two of the three states – Kano, Lagos, and Rivers is out,” he added.
Kwankwaso also queried how the PDP will win the presidential election having lost its key stakeholders in the states of Rivers, Kano and Lagos.
“He (Wike) has been saying it and people have not taken note of it. Anyway, by now, with Kwankwaso out of that party, and Wike struggling to be there or not to be there, somehow things are moving, certainly, Lagos is not their own, and one begins to wonder how they will win the election of 2023.”
Kwankwaso also told the Rivers governor that he saw very early what he (Wike) now sees in the PDP, hence his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in December 2013 and later to the NNPP in March 2022. Kwankwaso also said he left the APC and returned to the PDP in 2018 because the ruling party proved to be worse than the PDP.
