Kano PDP Supporters Defect To NNPP Days To Presidential Election

A faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kano State has decamped to the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) six days before the 2023 presidential election.

The defectors were reportedly received on Sunday by the NNPP Vice Presidential candidate, Bishop Isaac Idahosa.

The NNPP campaign council spokesman, Sunusi Dawakin Tofa, confirmed the development in a statement issued yesterday, stating that Idahosa and the national chairman of the party, Rufa’i Alkali, gave the defectors a warm welcome at a ceremony held in Kano.

In his address, the PDP factional leader, Shehu Sagagi, claimed they dumped the party due to a lack of internal democracy and nepotism by its national leadership, said the statement.

According to him, the defectors include 36 state executive members, over 700 local government executives, 8,000 ward executives, 44 national delegates and 1,452 ward delegates.

“Politics is a game of numbers. We are optimistic that the NNPP presidential candidate, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, will take us to victory at both the national and state level,” Peoples Gazette quoted Sagagi saying.

He added: “The PDP sabotaged itself in states like Kano by allowing the likes of Senator Kwankwaso to defect in spite of his massive followership not only in the state but the nation at large.”

“To us, this is a homecoming, we are real politicians, and we have joined a political party that plays real politics. I am happy to rejoin Senator Kwankwaso once again a year after our departure.”

I Am Shocked APC Govs Can Insult Buhari – Kwankwaso Speaks On Naira Policy

Meanwhile, NNPP presidential candidate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has expressed shock over the backlash on President Muhammadu Buhari by some governors elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) over the Naira redesign policy.

The former Governor of Kano State said it came to him as a surprise to see the APC chieftains knocking the Nigerian leader in that manner for siding with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to have some of the country’s currency notes changed to address some issues including vote buying and money laundering.

Naija News recalls that some APC governors had dragged the federal government, the CBN and the Attorney General of the Federation to court over the new naira redesign policy.

The APC chieftains faulted President Buhari’s government for implementing such a policy when the country was already battling many issues.

Reacting, Kwankwaso said the state leaders reacted that way because the policy had eventually rendered their loot useless.

The NNPP presidential candidate said: “In each state, you have branches of banks, and in some states, you have even the national headquarters of those banks. On the one hand, we thought they (governors) would take all the billions from government houses and so on.

“But we realized these same governors were abusing their leaders, insulting them; I was shocked. I never thought some of them could abuse Buhari to that level.

“On another hand, I was surprised that facts were coming out, and we began to wonder what was wrong with them. Maybe EFCC was right that some governors are keeping billions of naira in their compounds across the country.

“Now the policy has made that looted money completely useless; I think that is why they are angry. So we are so happy with the federal government on that; the money they have collected is completely zero; it has expired.”