Nigerians’ll no longer vote for APC, PDP –Kwankwaso

From Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja

Presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, has said both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were losing support all over the federation because they have been tested by the masses and discovered to be bunch of failures.

Kwankwaso made the disclosure while chatting with newsmen in Lokoja, Kogi State, yesterday, after meeting with party faithful who thronged out to welcome him.

He said Nigerians were tired and needed a paradigm shift which, he said, his party represents, adding that what the two major parties were losing were gains for the NNPP.

Kwankwaso, who expressed disappointment with how the ruling party had run the country’s economy aground, said the security situation fuelled by unemployment has turned Nigeria into a Banana Republic  where anything goes. He said if elected, he would embark on holistic transformations of every sector, saying his comprehensive blue print on how he would run the country will be unveiled in a couple of weeks

Answering questions on his recent frosty relationship with his political ally and friend, Ibrahim Sekarau, who claimed the former betrayed him and opted for the PDP, Kwankwaso stressed that neither him nor his political party betrayed him as claimed, saying, as at the time Shekarau joined the NNPP, all elective positions were already shared out.

He said it would be an injustice, and morally wrong for him to ask those who were already elected to step down for Shekarau’s candidates and that was why an agreement was reached to concede some positions to his camp if they win the presidency, but he later decided to join the PDP.

The presidential candidate, who said he was totally in charge of Kano State, said there were no big names in NNPP but the party boasts of the masses who were, indeed, the people that would troop out on election day.

He appealed to the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to immediately close rank and put an end to the lingering strike which has closed down public universities. He stressed that the students should be returned to classes as soon as possible.