As the support for the actualisation of the presidential ambition of Peter Obi continues to gather momentum across the country, Rabiu Kwankwaso, the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), has provided an explanation for the breakdown of his alliance with the presidential candidate of the Labour Party.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with News Central Television monitored by Daily Independent, Kwankwaso stated that he declined the offer to be Obi’s running mate because the mood of the North does not support a Southern presidency.
He claimed that the majority of Northerners desired that authority remained in the region even after President Muhammadu Buhari had served his eight-year term in office.
Being informed that the failure of the intended partnership with Obi had angered many young Nigerians, Kwankwaso said: “Yes, I did everything possible for that alliance to work for many obvious reasons. In Kwankwassiya, we are not in a hurry.
“In 2007, I could have tried to contest to become president because I was better qualified than almost everybody that contested at that particular time. I was a civil servant for 17 years; I was deputy speaker for the House of Reps; I was at the time the elected delegate for the Constitutional Conference of 2004-2005.
“I was governor of Kano for four years; I was Minister of Defence and to become president, is to become the president and Commander-in-Chief. This aspect of Commander-in-Chief is very important even in the military, to establish relationships with them and know them.
“We have already done that at that time. We were very close to each other and respect ourselves. But I was not in a hurry and I said I wanted to go back to Kano while many of my colleagues that were governors between 1999 and 2007 were all contesting to become president, I said I wanted to go back to Kano to finish that one term.
“After doing all that, the next thing was to contest for presidency and that was what I did in 2015 because I was in the game and of course, in any business you want to progress. Our people who know our value and capacity were putting all sorts of pressure that we should go and take it”.
“The issue at that particular time was that in Northern Nigeria, there is what we call ‘mood’ at any election cycle. In fact, if you look at it in 1992/1993 when MKO Abiola contested to be president of this country, the mood at that time was for us to support the South and that was exactly what we did.
“At the moment, the mood in the North today is that the presidency should be in the North. That is why I couldn’t accept to be his running mate.”
