2023: Why I Dumped APC, PDP – Kwankwaso

The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s party, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has defended his defection to the party after spending several years with the All Progressive Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic party,PDP.

He gave his defence during an event on Maritime Agenda organized by the party on Tuesday.

He said he was a founding member of the PDP and the APC but regretted that the two parties governed the country in the last 23 years and “failed woefully.”

Kwankwaso was a former governor of Kano state under the PDP but defected to the APC in 2013.

He later returned to the PDP and contested the 2019 presidential primaries.

He joined the NNPP in March 2022 and secured the party’s presidential ticket.

Urging his supporters to back his candidacy, Kwankwaso maintained that he decided to make the sacrifice of doing away with both parties because both of them have derailed from the original vision set forth for them by its founders.

He said, “Both of them have failed woefully in putting Nigeria and Nigerians first.

“Both of them have failed woefully, and have brought untold economic hardship to Nigerians.

“Both of them have visited Nigerians with an unacceptable level of insecurity never imagined.

“And both of them have failed to provide qualitative and competent leadership that is dearly needed to steer the ship of the Nigerian nation in unity and prosperity.

“If these failures are not there, if the expectations of Nigerians have been met, if the leaders are competent, patriotic and sincere, we would not have been where we are today.

“This is why I have to seek and to be at the driver’s seat of this nation through the NNPP so that those expectations, a New Nigeria of our dreams can be realized.”

He argued that the choice in the 2023 general elections should be for a new and better Nigeria that the NNPP is poised to put in place.

“We believe that Nigerians are tired of the status quo, and are very eager to do away with both the APC and PDP,” he said.