Agbo Major, a New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) leader, has disclosed why the party sanctioned the expulsion of Rabiu Kwankwaso, the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election.
According to Major, who now serves as the party’s chairman, the decision to oust Kwankwaso resulted from an alleged attempt by the former Kano State governor and his followers to seize control of the party from its original founders.
Major maintains that the expulsion was important to protect the party’s integrity and prevent Kwankwaso and his followers from taking power.
“The whole idea was okay, this man (founder) is a good man, he is somebody who listens and so on and so forth, so let us dominate him and take over the party. That was what they wanted, but they found in us the commitment to ensure that that never happened,” Major said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.
He stated that Kwankwaso’s faction became part of the party in the previous year under the condition of an agreement, which allowed them to participate in the 2023 elections.
“They joined us last year for the purpose of the election. They joined us on the strength of an instrument, a MoU, which gave them an opportunity to run for various elective positions for the 2023 general election.
“That MoU explicitly stated that at the end of the election, they could go their way, or we come back again to redesign that marriage and see if we will be able to continue or not, but when we saw their activities, we discovered that there is no way the marriage is going to continue, we had to ask them to go, and that is the situation now,” he said.
Following the end of the 2023 elections, the NNPP has been involved in a crisis, with internal groups within the party resorting to tactics like as suspensions and expulsions against one another.
The Agbo Major faction is mostly made up of longtime party members, whereas the opposing camp is made up of those who support Kwankwaso, the party’s presidential candidate.
