By Sunday Ani
The founder of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Dr Boniface Aniebonam, has described the move by Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso and his Kwankwasiyya Movement to hijack the party structure as a betrayal of trust.
Aniebonam stated this at press conference in Lagos on Friday.
He said he gave Kwankwaso the platform of the party to achieve his political ambition of becoming Nigeria’s president on a platter of gold.
He 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 2023 general election.
He said the delegation that approached him on behalf of Kwankwaso was led by Buba Galadima. “Also in the delegation were Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi and Prof Sam Angai. They came to my country home in Anambra State to plead for us to accept Kwankwaso in the 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 the NNPP as the sole candidate of the party.
“I believed that Kwankwaso was not aware of the internal crisis in the party until he came out openly on a live television, displacing a new logo and flag for the NNPP, and mutilating its constitution.
“It is disturbing, and if I keep quiet further, 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 while I’m alive, my brother and good friend, Kwankwaso, for whatever reason, is destroying the party I built from 2002 to 2022 when he joined us to contest the 2023 presidency,” he stated.
He said he funded the party for 22 years and wondered how Kwankwaso thinks he could hijack it even when he is not a member of the board of the trustees of the party.
He said he founded the NNPP after he founded the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), stressing that NAGAFF is the parent body of the NNPP.
Aniebonam recalled that Kwankwaso and others had been expelled from the party for anti-party activities, but noted that as a life member of the board with inherent powers, he could 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 yesterday ruled that the NNPP issue is an internal crisis and not justiceable.
“This means that the issues can only be settled using the party’s constitution. However, we are ready to pursue the interpretation of the constitution up to the Supreme Court,” he added.
The NNPP founder said with the way Kwankwaso has carried on, particularly his move to hijack the party, he would no longer enjoy the sole candidacy of the NNPP if at all he is eventually pardoned. “Yes, he has really added value to the party but he can’t enjoy the party’s sole candidate again. He will go and contest with other candidates for the party’s ticket at the primary election,” he said.