The founder of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Dr Boniface Aniebonam, says the move by Sen. Rabiu Kwankwaso and the Kwankwasaya Movement to hijack the party structure is a betrayal of trust.
Speaking at a news conference in Lagos on Friday, Aniebonam said he gave Kwankwaso the platform of the party to achieve his political ambition of becoming Nigeria’s president on a platter of gold.
Aniebonam said he singlehandedly registered and nurtured the NNPP from 2002 until 2022 when Kwankwaso and his team approached him to fly the flag of the party in the 2023 presidential election.
He said: “Buba Galadima led the delegation, including Sen. 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 its sole candidate.
“I believed that Kwankwaso was not aware of the internal crisis in the party until he came out openly on live television, displaying a new logo and flag for the NNPP and mutilating its constitution.
“It is disturbing and if I continue to keep quiet, it will not be in the interest of the soul of the party as the founder and at some point, its board chairman.
“The party’s constitution says the founder is a life member of the board and even when I’m alive, my brother and good friend, Kwankwaso, for whatever reasons, is destroying the party I built from 2002 to 2022 when he joined us to contest the 2023 presidency.”
According to him, “I funded the party for 22 years and Kwankwaso wants to hijack it even when he is not a member of the board of trustees or the leader of the party."
Aniebonam said he founded NNPP after he founded the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) and NAGAFF, therefore, is the parent body of the NNPP.
He recalled that Kwankwaso and others were expelled from the party for anti-party activities but as a life member of the board with inherent powers, he would grant him pardon if he purged himself of what he was doing.
“The kangaroo convention even when there was a court order stopping it, is null and void because a Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday ruled that the NNPP issue is an internal crisis.
“This means that the issues can only be settled using the constitution. However, we are ready to pursue the interpretation of the constitution up to the Supreme Court.”
The NNPP founder said with this singular action, Kwankwaso would no longer enjoy the sole candidacy of the NNPP should he even be pardoned.