The National Chairman of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Prof Rufai Alkali, has explained why the alliance talks between his party’s presidential candidate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, collapsed.
Alkali said the Kwankwaso/Obi alliance talks collapsed because the LP camp insisted the NNPP concede the presidency to them without giving them an option during the alliance negotiations.
The NNPP Chairman stated this while speaking with newsmen at the party’s secretariat yesterday in Abuja.
He explained that having experienced unprecedented insecurity, NNPP realized that Nigeria needed a new deal and was desirous of keeping in contact with any party that shared the same values with it.
He further stated that when the LP option came up the NNPP was optimistic but that LP came to the table with only one demand.
Alkali said, “A technical committee was set up to work out the alliance, but for the eight hours that they met, the LP camp said just one thing; that Kwankwaso should concede the presidency to Obi, that it was the time of the South East to become the president.”
He added said the LP camp agreed that Kwankwaso was a good candidate with a track record of sterling performance in public office, but that it was the turn of the South East to produce the next President of Nigeria.
According to Alkali, the Obi camp leaked the deliberations on social media while the alliance negotiations were ongoing which led to the collapse of the alliance talks.
He also said that when there was a stalemate, the LP camp announced to the media that there was a breakdown in the talks.
