Kwankwaso said the fastest route to a South-East presidency is for the region to accept a vice-presidential slot under his party, the NNPP.
The Presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, has declared that the South-East region stands on the verge of great accomplishment in 2023 only if it can get its politics right.
Kwankwaso noted that, while the South East is blessed with talented people who have always excelled at business, the region is still at the bottom of the pile as far as national politics is concerned.
“They should learn politics… in politics, they are at the bottom line,” Kwankwaso had said while addressing newsmen after a party function in Gombe State on Saturday, July 2, 2022.
He added that having lost out on the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the region stood a better chance if it could work with the NNPP.
He cautioned those saying, “even if my friend (Peter Obi) wants to accept vice presidential candidate, some people in the South East will not accept, that is not strategic.”
While suggesting how the South East can plot their way to the Nigerian presidency, he drew lessons from the political trajectory of the APC Presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, whose strategic support for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 has placed him in a vantage position going into the 2023 election.
“Today he is the presidential candidate of the APC,” Kwankwaso said in reference to the former Lagos State Governor.
He emphasised that the best option for the South East was for the region to partner with NNPP, saying, “this is a golden opportunity, if they lose it, it will be a disaster.”
Commenting on the choice of his running mate the former two-term Kano state Governor said, “we have options in the NNPP in the South to pick a good vice president and one of them is the Labour Party man you are talking about.”
He said if elected president in 2023, his vision would be to create opportunities for the youths of Nigeria to get employed, achieve their dreams and be empowered educationally and economically.