Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in South East, has disowned the former governor of Kano State and presidential candidate of the party, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, following his expulsion from the party.
The leadership of Major Agbo had expelled Senator Kwankwaso and his support group over alleged anti-party activities, and misappropriation of party campaign funds among other alleged offenses.
The faction also dissolved the Kawu Ali-lead National Working Committee (NWC) for their role in the party crisis.
During their Executive Conference that was held in Awka, Anambra State capital, the South-East NNPP said they are solidly behind the party’s actions on the erring members.
The leaders who were representatives of Anambra, Enugu, Abia, Imo, and Ebonyi states, said following the expulsion, Kwankwaso has ceased to be recognised as a member of the party.
They said: “Alhaji Kwankwaso and some of his Kwankwassia supporters’ membership expired immediately after the conclusion of the February 25th, 2023, presidential election.”
According to them, “there was a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishing the union, but it has expired. So, even beyond the expulsion, the MoU has expelled him already.
The South-East leaders further announced that Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, who founded the party twenty-two years ago, will remain the national leader of the party under the chairmanship of Dr. Agbo Major.
The resolution was moved by Hon. Chief Ozeogu Stephen, acting Ebonyi State chairman of the NNPP, and seconded by Hon. Nnani Nnaemeka Emmanuel, acting state publicity secretary of Imo State, respectively.
Speaking during the meeting, Deputy National Chairman of the Party, Chief Felix Chukwurah, accused the current NWC and Kwankwaso of hijacking the party structure from the original owners without involving the founder, Dr Aniebonam, in the party’s scheme of things.
He said: “We are all aware that the NNPP, as the number four out of eighteen parties after the last general election, has encountered encumbrances capable of destabilising her pursuits on many fronts towards claiming God’s mandate of producing the number one citizen (the president) in Nigeria and other political offices in the three arms of government in the next political dispensation come 2027.
“Our party NNPP is not immune to party quagmires, but the peculiarities in our circumstances are worth dealing with decisively to resist the obvious.
“We have a situation where the party constitution was grossly violated and abandoned for a new fresh one under the guise of amendment by some recent entrants in the party to enable them to perfect a hijack of the party, founded and nurtured for twenty-two years by Dr. Boniface Aniebonam supported by some other pioneer members.
“We have a situation where the NWC was swallowed and manipulated by few new entrants (Kwankwaso and co). They marshall the NWC members to meetings in their private houses for easy access and control of selfish and unpopular decisions.
“They frame anybody they set their eyes on especially some state chairmen who are not likely to support their hijack agenda and suspend or expel them altogether.
“They conspired and replaced their imaginary enemies in many states with some Kwankwasia members as the caretaker chairmen.
“Furthermore, those evil geniuses who are professional transactional politicians who penetrate parties, use them to jog out money from unsuspecting individuals and corporations within or outside the country, after the above actions moved to suspend the founder and prominent founding pioneers in the NNPP but the chicken will come home to roost because they failed beforehand.
“It is in the wake of the foregoing that some of you were invited, given your political ingenuity to join hands in moving our party forward than ever before.
“In the coming weeks, many of our court cases would have yielded an expected result of sending all the miscreants and hijackers out of our party with restorations of the party glory like never before.”
Chukwurah assured that the party is fully prepared and ready to take over states in the a
South-East in the forthcoming governorship elections. He also said it is ready to wrestle the Presidency from the ruling All Progressives Congress in the next presidential election.
