Rabiu Kwakwanso, presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, is responsible for the loss of Governor Yusuf Abba at the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, Akande Onilewura, a chieftain of the party, has said.
The Source magazine reported that the Kano’ state governor election was, on Wednesday, invalidated by the tribunal which declared Nasir Gawuna, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, winner of the governorship election.
One of the reasons for sacking the governor, according to the tribunal is that he was not validly nominated to contest the election.
The party has been factionalized recently, with a faction expelling Kwakwanso from the party.
Onilewura is a member of the faction.
According to the Justice Oluyemi Akintan-Osadebay-led tribunal, Gawuna scored the highest valid votes to win the election, after over 160,000 invalid votes were deducted from that of Abba.
The votes were deducted because they were not stamped or signed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC in line with the Electoral Act.
The judgment has elicited angry reactions from some NNPP chieftains, who blamed Kwakwanso for the loss.
Some members of the party has accused the former governor of selling out the party to the ruling APC.
In his reaction, Onilewura, a chieftain of the party from the south west blamed Kwakwanso for his anti-party activity, saying that’s responsible for the loss at the tribunal.
He said the former governor selfishness gave the APC the ammunitions they used against his party at the tribunal.
According to him, “This loss is a big one for us at NNPP and it only happened because of the selfishness of Kwankwaso, who sold the party to the highest bidder.
“While we are still waiting for the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the tribunal judgment, it is important for the world to know that this would not have happened if Kwankwaso had followed due process and given the ticket to the most qualified candidate, but his in-law.
“It is unfortunate that some of us sweat to get the party to where it is today, only for someone like Kwankwaso to make all our efforts a waste. We are happy that someone like that has been expelled from this great party.”
“We also want to use the avenue to warn him to steer clear of NNPP; we don’t want a betrayal in our party and we would do anything humanly possible to secure our party from hijackers, who are more concerned about personal gain,” he added.
Kano state is the only state won by the NNPP in the last governorship election.
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