Hard-to -reconcile internal wrangling continues to pound the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) from all sides even as supporters of the two major gladiators-Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Dr. Boniface Okechukwu Aniebonam – throw jabs at one another over the superiority of their benefactors
By Udoka Ekeleme, Abuja
Usman Yakubu Dankaka is an indigene of Katsina State in the North west Nigeria. Dankaka is a political associate of Buba Galadima, one of the notable power brokers in the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), for many years. This medium, recently, had a chance meeting with Dankaka in Abuja where he attended a political event during the peak of the ongoing supremacy war that is threatening to tear the fabrics of the budding party apart.
The Katsina State – born politician who boasted about the political sagacity of the candidate of the NNPP at the February 25, 2023 presidential election, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, also insisted confidently that the man he prided as the “soul” of the NNPP, would emerge the victor by the time the raging inferno that has engulfed the party is quelled.
Dr. Aniebonam and Kwankwaso have locked horns in the past two months over the soul of the NNPP with their different supporters and aides fighting dirty to be in charge of the affairs of the party. This war of attrition has also resulted in the division of the party into two different camps loyal to both Aniebonam and Kwankwaso with the camps struggling to rubbish the other.
The Kwankwaso camp launched the first offensive against Dr Aniebonam when they purportedly labeled him overbearing Board of Trustees Chairman for which the camp slammed him suspension from the exalted BOT Chair.
Expectedly, the Aniebonam camp promptly embarked on a retaliation move which slammed its own red card on Kwankwaso, declaring the former Kano State governor suspended for six months. At the outset of the adoption of Kwankwaso as the presidential flag bearer of the NNPP, not a few political pundits had predicted that political alliance of Kwankwaso and Aniebonam would appear as a marriage of two strange bed fellows. These pundits had also predicted that the political marriage of the two NNPP arrowheads may not last long because of individual idiosyncrasies and clash of interests among their respective followers.
In the past two months these predictions have become prophecy fulfilled. Responding to the issue of ownership of the party structures by Aniebonam, Dankaka retorted, “It’s a lie. You people are pure liars, a party that came fourth during the last presidential election, you can’t say it’s a one man show. That era is gone. The party has it’s NEC (National Executive Council), it has its National Working Committee (NWC), so it’s a national party. You can’t say it belongs to anybody.
“Can I give you a sound bite? Take it or leave it, Dr Aniebonam cannot win in this battle, that is my honest take in this whole saga. Kwankwaso is the bigger picture here and I have my reasons; a former governor of Kano State, former Minister of the Federal Republic, a Senator and a presidential candidate. These are the real issues here. Let me assure you that Kwankwaso will emerge victorious in the end”.
Dankaka accused Aniebonam of various misdeeds for which he said the party has remained shaky despite his principal’s spirited efforts to keep the party’s flag flying after the lost presidential election. He hinted that during the electioneering for the presidential election last year August at the Sheraton Hotel Lagos, which he said was organised by Aniebonam, Kwankwaso, while addressing the audience at the event, had deliberately ignored the mention of Dr. Aniebonam’s name out of annoyance but only referred to the founder of the party as BOT Chair and spiritual leader.
According to Dankaka, he alleged that Aniebonam took a political rally to a hotel auditorium in a bid to spite the presidential candidate of the party and his numerous followers who came out in their numbers to cheer their political leader. He further alleged that the Kwankwasiyya movement members, a band of Kwankwaso’s political stronghold, who trooped to the Sheraton Hotel venue of the event that August were loitering around the hotel premises because there was no space for them in the hotel hall. Dankaka regretted that despite the huge amount Kwankwaso doled out to host the rally, his Kwankwasiyya political movement members were shut out of the event. The Kwankwaso follower revealed that due to the way and manner the Sheraton Hotel event was held, it failed to confer any political advantage on Kwankwaso’s presidential pursuit. Hence, he said for this reason, the Hausa community in Lagos and Kwankwaso have been looking at Aniebonam with suspicion.
Dankaka further accused Aniebonam of refusal to campaign for Kwankwaso anywhere in the whole of Lagos State. He accused the former NNPP BOT Chair of failure to go to Kano to congratulate the incumbent governor of Kano State, Abba Yusuf when the latter won the governorship election on the platform of the NNPP.
He boasted, “Kwankwaso produced the only governor the party has, he produced 50 percent of the Kano State House of Assembly members from NNPP, go and check your record, Aniebonam doesn’t have one House of Assembly member anywhere in the country. Kwankwaso was a governor, two times Defence Minister, two times senator; what is Aniebonam’s pedigree in politics?
“Was Aniebonam able to invite INEC officials to witness the Rockview Hotel meeting where he claimed to have suspended Kwankwaso? Let me educate you people in case you don’t know, the party’s BOT which Aniebonam parades himself today as the Chairman constitutes the party’s NEC; Kano State governor was not there, the National Secretary was not there, the Speaker of Kano State House of Assembly was not there. How can you gather traders and some Hausa people in Lagos and say you have suspended Kwankwaso?
“Aniebonam should tell how many people he has in our NEC and NWC except Oladipupo Olayoku who is the National Secretary?
“Let me also assure you that this crisis in the party is a win-win for Kwankwaso because he has achieved his ambition to run for the presidency, and he can use that to negotiate even with the ruling party”.
Dankaka warned that should the crisis fester, NNPP would lose Kano State, the only state it controls, and that in the event of such occurrence, NNPP would sink.
Galadima, a chieftain of the party and a staunch ally of Kwankwaso had also insisted that Dr Aniebonam does not have control over the party structures anymore because it had become a national party. Speaking on a television interview recently, Galadima claimed that Aniebonam is a trader who does not have knowledge of how to run a political party. He had advised him to concentrate on his business and leave politics for politicians.
But in a counter offensive, a credible source close to Aniebonam who volunteered comments on the issue but pleaded not to be identified in print because he is not authorized to speak officially on the squabble, insisted that Kwankwaso remained the villain in the saga that is now threatening to sink the party he claimed Aniebonam single handedly sustained for many years before Kwankwaso surfaced and is now deploying his alleged ill gotten wealth to hijack the soul of the party.
The Aniebonam sympathiser alleged that Kwankwaso is a shrewd and extremely dangerous politician who does not possess the kind of exaggerated political strength and clout which his associates ascribe to him.
The source asked, “What are the antecedents of Kwankwaso in politics? If he is a good politician as his supporters claim, why would Abdullahi Ganduje abandon him two years after he became governor of Kano State? Is it not because Kwankwaso demanded more than what Ganduje would accept to give him that disagreement started between them? Is that the kind of a man you expect Aniebonam to relinquish the party to?
“Kwankwaso wanted to become the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT); for that he visited Tinubu more than four times. Kwankwaso send his protege governor to pull down structures in Kano just to impress Tinubu, but Tinubu snubbed him and gave Nyesom Wike FCT Minister. Let me tell you that the real reason to pull down the structures in Kano is the fact that Kwankwaso was allegedly interested in some of the property and wanted to acquire them but Ganduje refused him the request. That is why out of malice he is using his stooge to pull down the property.
“This year’s general election has shown that Kwankwaso is not as strong as Peter Obi politically. The Kwankwasiyya movement is only strong in Kano but not in any other state. Kwankwaso you see has become a dent on Aniebonam’s pride because doctor is not known to be a failure. He started NAGAFF and nurtured it to become a big umbrella body of freight Forwarders”.
