By Akinjide Aina, Abuja
The intrigues in the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP which has now peaked with the expulsion, by the National Executive Committee, NEC, of the party, of former Kano state Governor, Senator Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso and the party presidential candidate in the February, 2023, presidential election may have been carefully orchestrated and stage-managed to provide a sound alibi for the former governor and his group, the kwankwasiya movement, to leave the party.
However, the NEC claimed it expelled Kwankwaso, following his alleged refusal to appear before the party’s Disciplinary Committee.
He had been earlier suspended by the party’s leadership.
Recall too that NNPP faction loyal to Kwankwaso had before now expelled the party’s founder, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam and the National Chairman, Agbo Major
An impeccable source within the party swore that the crisis was a smokescreen for defection from the NNP by Kwankwaso and his allies.
He told this magazine that the former Kano governor and his faction which breathed life into NNPP upon joining the party last year now realised that their political growth will be stunted if they remain in the party.
“NNPP managed to secure Kano where it produced a governor and several state and National Assembly members, and that’s the only state it has a foothold in Nigeria. And so, the Kwamkwasiya movement feels that their principal and his political loyalists will get stuck in a party that has no prospect of growth or expansion if they remain there because the next election is four years away.
“What you are seeing, therefore, is a carefully orchestrated, stage-managed crisis to provide a valid reason for total exit from NNPP by the Kwankwasiya movement,”, the source informed.
In the coming days, continued the source, “Kwankwaso is likely to “resign” from the NNPP, citing his “expulsion”. His exit will be followed by an announcement by the Kwankwasiya movement that it has pulled out of the party”
Meanwhile, between the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, it is not yet clear where Kwankwaso is headed if he exits NNPP. He was a former member of both parties.
Shortly after President Bola Tinubu was inaugurated, he paid him a visit at Aso Rock prompting speculations that he was lobbying to be appointed a Minister.
Last month, he met with the PDP Presidential Candidate in the February election, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, raising speculations about his alleged alliance talks with the former, in the hope that the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal will cancel the election and order a re-run.
