A former governor of Kano State, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau, has given detailed reasons that made him part ways with the New Nigeria People’s Party presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Among other things, Shekarau alleged that Kwankwaso betrayed, manipulated and was not sincere with him.
The Senator representing Kano Central District and former Minister of Education, made the allegations when he was featured on Channels Television’s Politics Today Programme on Thursday night.
He said, “I think that is the least you can call it; betrayal and outright disregard, outright manipulation.
“Our guiding principle is the protection of our image, the protection of our integrity and you cannot have the protection of our integrity if there is no going to be integrity if there is not going to be sincerity.
The senator following his rift with Kwankwaso dumped the NNPP, a party he joined after dumping the ruling All Progressives Congress, and returned to his initial party the Peoples Democratic Party.
Speaking on his recent return to the PDP, he expressed optimism that “PDP will clear the votes in Kano.”
Further speaking on why he had to leave the NNPP he said, “We joined the party on the 18th of May. Long before then, almost two weeks earlier on, through my discussion with him (Kwankwaso), we made our proposals. At that time, it was the period of generating candidates for the various political offices to be contested in the 2023 general elections – state assembly, national assembly, governorship, and senatorial seats.
“We sat down with Rabiu Kwankwaso. I submitted this proposal, he accepted it and he said in about one or two, or three days, he’s going to prepare his proposal. And then I together with him will sit down to sort ourselves out and harmonise and see what we can do to produce electable people in our various constituencies”.
He noted that Kwankwaso gave him a senatorial form when he joined the party, he however said the NNPP candidate released a list that shut out his political associates who aspired to elective offices.
He said, “The same 18th of May by the night, midnight, we saw a list released by the party leadership in the state, handwritten list of candidates by their constituencies and indicating as having solved the entire constituencies’ candidate.
“In fact, in the list released on the 18th by the night, even some constituencies had no name. The following morning I met him (Kwankwaso) and I challenged the list released, we said this is unacceptable because in the entire list, except my name, no other name from our own movement from our own political association was reflected on the list”.
He frowned that after he and Kwankwaso resolved to set up a nine-man committee to harmonise the lists for both camps to have representative tickets, the committee which was given three days spent three months until the end of the deadline by the Independent National Electoral Commission for the submission of names elapsed.
“We convened a meeting, I had to call a meeting of my political associates, to brief them as to what we went through for three months. And we set up a committee of 30 to go and review the situation, but we still did not make it public.
“But to our surprise, a few days later, my brother Rabiu Kwankwaso was on air on the Hausa service of the BBC, saying that there was no way we could be attended to because we joined the party when it was too late,” Shekarau said.