The founder of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, has said the move by Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso and the Kwankwasiyya Movement to hijack the party structure “is a betrayal of trust.”
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos on Friday, Aniebonam said he gave Kwankwaso NNPP platform to achieve his political ambition of becoming president on a platter of gold.
“He joined this party for one good reason that he wanted to be president of Nigeria, in the last 2023 general election,” he said.
He said he singlehandedly registered and nurtured NNPP from 2002 until 2022, when Kwankwaso and his team approached him to fly the flag of the party in the 2023 general elections.
“Buba Galadima led a delegation including Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi and Prof Sam Angai to my country home in Anambra to plead for us to accept Kwankwaso in NNPP.
“After the talks, I placed a call to Kwankwaso and after asking him questions about his intentions for Nigeria, I offered him the platform of NNPP as the sole candidate of the party.
“All this time I want to believe Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, my very good friend, is not aware of what is happening in that party. I want to believe so because, the National Working Committee has been directly involved in the day to day activities of the party under the leadership of the national chairman,so I kept quiet, but now, just last week I was shocked to see Senator Kwankwaso on a live television programme displaying a new logo for NNDP, displaying a new flag for the party.
“It underscores the mutilation of the constitution of the party. Before this time, I was having this feeling that his body language seems to be supporting what is going on, but for him to come openly in a live television programme, then I want to believe something is wrong, and if I keep quiet it is not for the interest of the party, and that is the essence of this gathering.”
Aniebonam also said he founded NNPP after he founded the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF); therefore, NAGAFF was the parent body of the NNPP.
He said with this singular action of Kwankwaso he would no longer enjoy the sole candidacy of the NNPP should he even be pardoned.