The National Chairman of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Prof Rufai Alkali, has said the alliance talks between his party’s presidential candidate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, collapsed because the LP camp insisted the NNPP concede the presidency to them.
Speaking with newsmen at the party’s secretariat Sunday in Abuja, Alkali said the NNPP was not given an option during the alliance negotiations.
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He said the party realised that Nigeria needed a new deal, having experienced unprecedented insecurity, and was desirous of keeping contact with any party that shared same values with it for alliance.
He said when the LP option came up the NNPP was optimistic but that LP came to the table with only one demand.
He said, “A technical committee was set up to work out the alliance, but for the eight hours that they met, the LP camp said just one thing; that Kwankwaso should concede the presidency to Obi, that it was the time of the South East to become the president.”
He further said the LP camp agreed that Kwankwaso was a good candidate with a track record of sterling performance in public office, but that it was the turn of the South East to produce the next President of Nigeria.
He also said the Obi camp leaked the deliberations on social media while the alliance negotiations were ongoing which led to the collapse of the alliance talks.
Alkali addede that when there was a stalemate, the LP camp announced to the media that there was a breakdown in the talks.