2023: NNPP won’t collapse structure for Tinubu or anyone – Nat. chair

The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has denied any move to collapse the party’s structure with other political parties.

The national chairman of the party, Prof. Rufai Alkali, said the party was not ready to surrender its legitimacy as a duly registered political party to any other party.

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Alkali, who spoke with newsmen in Lagos, was responding to speculations that the supporters of its presidential candidate and National Leader, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, were in talks with the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Responding to the issue, the NNPP chairman said the room for mergers among political parties had already closed, citing the rules and guidelines for the 2023 elections released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Rufai also spoke about the recent defection of former Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, from the party, saying the party respects his decision but “we will not allow ourselves to be dragged into any controversy.”

He insisted that the party remained a veritable alternative for the APC and PDP and said any alliance with any of the parties ahead of the election would be based on equal partnership.

It would be recalled that the alliance talks between the party and the Labour Party collapsed over who becomes the Presidential candidate and Vice-Presidential candidate between Kwankwaso and Obi.

Making a veiled reference to the talks, he said alliance and merger talks were not done on the pages of newspapers or on Twitter.

He said, “NNPP is open to discussion and conversation with any political party based on: one, they understand our ideological position, they understand our principles and they share them. They understand our aims and objectives but what is happening is that if you notice some parties are sophisticated in propaganda.

“They don’t want to give but they want to take. And what is the best way to say, ‘come and merge with us’ which is patronizing.

“A party that is already registered with INEC, even if they have 1000 members, is equal to the party that has 10m members before the law and politically too because a small party can come out today as an albatross to the bigger ones at certain levels. So anybody who wants to deal with NNPP should deal with NNPP on equal partnership.

“There is no way we surrender our certificate, we surrender our personnel, we surrender our resources because we want to please somebody.

So anybody who wants to discuss with NNPP should discuss with NNPP as a partner and the whole idea is that they share our common concern about the future of Nigerians, that is the situation.

“The other one is that when you are negotiating, you don’t negotiate on the pages of the newspaper. Unfortunately again some of them negotiate on the pages of newspapers.”

Speaking further, Rufai refuted belief in some quarters about the status of NNPP, saying the party is not “a personal matter or an ethnic matter.”

“It is a Nigerian project. This is the alternative for Nigerians,” he added.

“Are we happy with what is happening in Nigeria today? Are we happy with what PDP has been doing or what it has done? What has APC been doing or has done especially in terms of management or otherwise of the security sector, education system, healthcare system, infrastructure, interpersonal relations among Nigerians? Are we happy? If we are happy then we don’t need an alternative.”