The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso on Sunday said failure of both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in turning around the fortunes of Nigeria made him to join the NNPP.
Kwankwaso disclosed this at town hall meeting organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development and Arise TV for Nigeria’s 2023 election presidential candidates.
“I’m angry, to the extent of leaving the PDP, and leaving the APC. We feel there are better ways to do things. We believe the system has failed that is why we decided to go to New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
“The security and economy, I’m happy you took this two, but we can’t separate them with other areas like health, education, agriculture, and so on, it is the failure of those areas that resulted to the insecurity that we see today and even the issue of economy.
“I believe if government is doing the right things, many people will put down their arms and those who refuse to do that, it is the responsibility to ensure they necessary steps are taken within the bracket of the law to ensure each and every Nigerian lives in peace.”
Speaking on the terrorist attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train and abduction of passengers, the former governor of Kano State recalled how the Olusegun Obasanjo administration under which he served as minister and presidential adviser secured every part of Nigeria and went ahead to restore peace in other African countries.
Kwankwaso said, “As a former Minister of Defence, I can assure you that the situation should not have been allowed. I am sure you remember that recently we unveiled our blueprint, and in our blueprint, we made it very clear that the number of military that we have today, which is about 250,000, is grossly inadequate.
“Therefore, we have made adequate arrangements to have about one million military Army, Air Force and Navy. With that, we believe we are going to take over every square metre of our land in this country. Police are about 230,000 at the moment; we also want to raise it to about one million; put together the SSS, Civil Defence and other security agencies. Within a very short period of time, we should be able to be in charge of our land.
Kwankwaso further pledged to improve national security by encouraging willing youth corps members to join the Armed Forces and other security agencies.
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He said, “Some of us who are extended family members of the security in this country are very much worried and concerned, and sometimes even ashamed that today, in 2022, security agencies could not identify locations of terrorists, especially when everybody including the criminals are using telephones, and these telephones are not difficult to identify, and these are the problems.”
Speaking about various agitations groups in the country, he said:
“We will be very willing to dialogue with anybody; anybody with grudges in any part of the country, our government will sit down with them and dialogue. At the end of the day, anybody who decides to think otherwise, definitely, the law will take its course.”
Responding to a question concerning the tribal bent of some candidates’ campaigns, Kwankwaso stated, “The Constitution of this country has taken care of that. Any presidential candidate that came out in defence of ethnicity, tribe, religion, region has lost the election even before the election.”
He observed that for a candidate to win a presidential election, he or she must have won the most popular votes and win in two-thirds or 24 of the 36 states.
“North cannot win elections on its own; South cannot win elections on its own,” he stressed.
Responding to him, the vice-presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP), Ifeanyi Okowa said Kwankwaso was part of PDP’s failure in the country.
“If my brother, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso is standing here tonight condemning PDP, that’s not quite well. You were part of PDP misrule as you’ve claimed,” Okowa said