The New Nigeria Individuals’s Celebration (NNPP) has the potential for credible opposition and preparation for a greater outing on the subsequent normal elections. However typical of all of the opposition events, it’s displaying signs of a divided home, affected by command and management malaise, and maybe at larger temperature, KEHINDE OLATUNJI experiences.
One of many main impacts of the lingering disaster within the New Nigeria Individuals’s Celebration (NNPP), which at present controls essentially the most populous state, Kano, is that Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, is distracted as to which of the warring factions he would observe.
That is affecting governance within the state and in addition opening Kano for the Federal Authorities’s managed All Progressives Congress (APC) to penetrate at will. From the standard establishment to its politics, financial system and social endeavour, NNPP’s unresolved challenges are taking a toll.
Maybe this was what prompted the current outcry from a former governor of the state and presidential candidate of NNPP, within the 2023 normal elections, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, who alleged what he known as “Lagos”, of making an attempt to dominate Kano and different northern states.
Kwankwaso raised the alarm in the course of the convocation ceremony of Skyline College in Kano, the place he alleged that Lagos was meddling in Kano’s inside issues, notably within the number of the Emir of Kano.
The erstwhile Minister of Defence additionally alleged that there have been a variety of efforts from the Lagos axis to colonise Kano. He accused Lagos highly effective bloc of stopping Kano from selecting an emir, contending that some forces had been interfering within the financial system and politics of the state amongst others.
The NNPP imbroglio is at present fought on three totally different fronts with the Kwankwaso faction on one aspect, the celebration’s founder, Dr Boniface Aniebonam, on one aspect, and the Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf’s loyalists standing aside.
Aniebonam and Kwankwaso are at present locked in a bitter wrestle for the management of the celebration, which appears to have led to a sequence of dramatic developments, together with the suspension of Kwankwaso by the celebration’s Board of Trustees (BoT) for alleged anti-party actions and later expulsion, simply because the BoT additionally suspended the Nationwide Working Committee (NWC) of the celebration.
To claim his authority, the Kwankwaso-led faction in a fast response expelled Aniebonam, the founder and chairman of the BoT, together with another members. The transfer was introduced in a press release by Ladipo Johnson, a chieftain of the celebration loyal to Kwankwaso after a Nationwide Govt Committee (NEC) assembly.
The disaster started when the chairman suspected plans by Kwankwaso and his Kwankwasiyya Motion to vary the celebration’s emblem “to organize the NNPP for the duty forward.” Sensing a foul play, the founding father of the celebration wrote to the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) intimating it of the alleged plan by some teams to vary the celebration’s emblem.
The celebration additionally wrote Kwankwaso, to finish the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it entered into with the Kwankwasiyya group and The Nationwide Motion created by him for the 2023 normal election.
Kwankwaso, who had alongside different celebration devoted, factionalised the celebration, dared the celebration management and formally unveiled a brand new emblem for the celebration, describing the motion as being a part of their efforts to reposition NNPP.
In keeping with him, the choice was reached following NNPP’s 2023 post-elections efficiency evaluation, saying “the brand new emblem speaks to their need to have a broadly educated Nigerian populace. It additionally displays the celebration’s dedication to peaceable growth.”
This motion consequently triggered animosity between the 2, with Aniebonam claiming insubordination and an try by the previous governor to hijack the celebration from him.
From this angle, it’s trite to say that the unfolding developments could undoubtedly have important implications for NNPP’s future and its potential to stay a viable pressure in Nigerian politics come subsequent 12 months, simply as it might make it weak to the superior state’s energy of President Bola Tinubu-led Federal Authorities.
As the ability wrestle between Aniebonam and Kwankwaso escalates, it stays to be seen how the celebration will emerge from this tumultuous interval and retain its power forward of the subsequent normal election.
Recall that the ruling APC continues to be nursing the injuries of the way it was defeated by NNPP in Kano in the course of the 2023 governorship election and the incumbent Nationwide Chairman of APC, Umar Ganduje, the speedy previous governor of the state, whose most well-liked candidate misplaced to Governor Yusuf, continues to be determined to salvage his political profession in Kano. A comeback in 2027 will assure him this feat.
Satirically, the NNPP lingering disaster has led to a sequence of authorized battles, with every group suspending and expelling each other from the celebration.
One other bone of rivalry is the standing of the Kwankwasiyya Motion within the celebration, which some loyalists of Governor Yusuf are insisting that the incumbent should cast off. Their grouse is that the previous governor has no political grip in anyway on Governor Yusuf, whom in accordance with them gained the 2023 election on a private recognition and never on account of the Kwankwasiyya Motion.
As succinctly put by Bisi Olopoeyan, “Governor Yusuf was the candidate of the PDP within the 2019 governorship ballot and he almost defeated former Governor Umar Ganduje of APC, if the election was not manipulated. It was on the recognition of Yusuf that NNPP gained in 2023 and never due to Kwankwaso and or his Kwankwasiyya group. There’s subsequently no purpose the incumbent needs to be held to ransom by any godfather.”
On the implications of the disaster, who resigned his membership of NNPP on Wednesday, averred that Governor Yusuf is severely being distracted and hardly, is he concentrating on governance to yield the dividends of democracy to the folks.
Certainly sources inside the Kano NNPP additionally alleged that the governor himself has grown pissed off with Kwankwaso’s unilateral management over key selections, together with the appointment of native authorities chairmen.
In an interplay with The Guardian, Aniebonam confused that the group, which was a part of the NNPP earlier than the 2023 election, have lengthy left after the election. He disclosed that Kwankwaso had filed a go well with towards him (Aniebonam) within the Kano State Excessive Courtroom, saying it got here as a shock to him that the case was not too long ago withdrawn.
He acknowledged: “This was a case focused at rewarding me with embarrassment regardless of the extent of benevolence prolonged to them in my nation house in Umuawulu in 2022, once they got here to ask for my help to make use of the celebration’s platform for the 2023 normal election, a request I granted with none monetary consideration or dedication as an alternative I donated cash for operational take off.
“It is vitally easy to know the extent of in poor health recommendation Senator Kwankwaso has been getting from questionable characters round him. Those that lack competence of their choosen endeavours select to remain across the man to allow them service their stomachs as an alternative of going to practise their commerce if they’ve any, Aniebonam posited.
He maintained that Kwankwaso, Buba Galadima and your entire defunct and NWC members of the Kwankwasiyya group “masquerading” as NNPP are inconsequential within the celebration.
Talking on the disaster, the Lagos State Chairman of NNPP, Ronnie Dikko-Kila, dismissed the allegation that Kwankwaso is working to hijack the celebration, describing Aniebonam as simply one of many founders of the celebration.
She mentioned, “Nigerians, particularly the media, ought to perceive that by the provisions of our structure and the Electoral Act, it will be an aberration for one man to discovered or personal a political celebration.”
When requested what led to the disaster within the celebration, she acknowledged that there have been variations between a few of Aniebonam’s nominees to the Nationwide Working Committee (NWC), stating that “it received to a stage the place Dr Aniebonam felt he may override the choices of NWC and NEC, and so the unlucky motion towards him and a few others.”
She claimed that the Kwankwasiya and The Nationwide Motion (TNM) teams, that are factions within the celebration, at the moment are dominant within the celebration, including that any speak about hijacking is only sentimental and deliberately uncharitable. There was no ‘hijack.’ A celebration is run primarily based on democratic rules. It’s clear that the TNM and in addition the Kwankwasiyya Motion at the moment are the dominant teams (membership-wise) inside the celebration.”
Reacting to the experiences on how the courtroom had sacked Kwankwaso from the celebration, Dikko mentioned, “Aniebonam and co, received the spurious judgment from a nook of Abia State, with out serving the nationwide secretariat of the celebration, and with out informing the courtroom that there’s a subsisting judgment of the Federal Excessive Courtroom, Abuja Division, which has confirmed that they aren’t members of the NNPP.”
On the clarification concerning the founding father of the celebration, Dikko mentioned, “It isn’t a chance that Dr Aniebonam based the celebration. Every Nigerian joins the celebration as a person, and it’s open to all certified Nigerians.”
She, nevertheless, dismissed the reported expulsion of Kwankwaso from the celebration by Aniebonam, arguing that the so-called founder was referring to his personal unregistered and unrecognised NNPP, which isn’t the identical celebration that we belong to. The celebration we belong to is registered and recognised by INEC, the Electoral Act, and the Structure of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In the meantime, the Nationwide Chairman of the Celebration, Dr Main Agbo, maintained that the Excessive Courtroom in Abia state has transferred the duty of managing the celebration to its Board of Trustees (BOT)underneath the management of Aniebonam.
Whereas explaining that the disaster within the celebration escalated on account of administration points ensuing from breach of belief, corruption and excessive handedness on the a part of Kwankwaso, Agbo mentioned: “The unlawful dismissal of state chairmen and dissolution of celebration construction in about 11 states with out truthful listening to and in utter neglect of constitutional provisions and laid down disciplinary procedures had been a number of the distant causes of the disaster.”
Different causes had been the deliberate try and mutilate the colors, flag, emblem and slogan of the celebration with out session with the founding fathers of the celebration.
Agbo, who confirmed the alleged try by Kwankwaso to hijack the celebration however that the efforts had been foiled particularly with the current Abia Excessive Courtroom judgment, expressed concern that to unseat the ruling APC, it’s a should for opposition events to type an alliance, with out which it might be troublesome to attain.
With the beleaguered state of the foremost opposition platforms, President Tinubu could contest as an unpopular candidate in 2027 however and not using a credible opposition to problem him, if main opposition political events are left in persistent disarray.
In the meantime, a political analyst, Kunle Egbeyemi, who commented on the intra-party disaster rocking NNPP decried the actions of Kwankwaso, lamenting that Nigeria’s political house lacks integrity and values.
