My rivals have questionable credentials – Kwankwaso

The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party and former governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, said his rivals and presidential candidates of other political parties had questionable academic credentials.

This was as the NNPP lamented that Nigerians made a serious mistake in 2015 and 2019 by electing the All Progressives Congress and the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), into power.

The party, which was responding to the worsening insecurity in Nigeria and failing economy, on Tuesday, said the mistake had placed the country on political life-support.

The National Publicity Secretary of the NNPP, Agbo Major, slammed the APC during a workshop on social media training for party officials ahead of the 2023 general election with the theme, “Approaching 2023 general election with social media as a tool for mobilisation.”

He called on Nigerians and eligible voters in the country to vote wisely and avoid the mistakes made in 2015 and 2019.

According to him, the NNPP was ready to “sweep away political parties that put Nigeria on life-support as well as retire permanently the cabal that hold the nation captive for its personal aggrandisement.”

Major said, “The mistake of voting into power the outgoing All Progressives Congress in 2015 and repeating same mistake in 2019 is what put Nigeria on political life-support which our great Party, the NNPP, is strongly determined to rescue and give a new lease of life to our impoverished, oppressed and subdued people.

“The NNPP’s voice must be heard and resonate across the nation with its message of hope for a New Nigeria that has a future for all Nigerians. We see light at the end of the tunnel. We see a glorious future for our nation.

“We see a new Nigeria (which) citizens will be proud of as the great arsenal of democracy in Africa. We see hope for the hopeless, help for the helpless, unity in diversity, prosperity for the impoverished, freedom for the oppressed and captives, voice for the voiceless and goodwill to citizens of the world.”

He said the the training would afford various NNPP spokespersons and social media influencers to interact and brainstorm on the way forward.

Kwankwaso, represented by the party’s Kano North senatorial district candidate, Abdullahi Bichi, said he was more academically qualified than other candidates contesting the 2023 poll.

He criticised some of the presidential candidates for having questionable academic backgrounds, adding that “one of the candidates has a suspicious primary school certificate. One of the candidates has a suspicious secondary school certificate.

“Kwankwaso’s education is verifiable. He is the most educationally qualified among every candidate contesting for President.”

The former Kano State governor also lampooned the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for setting up universities for profit reasons.

“When Kwankwaso was governor of Kano, he set up universities where both the children of the rich and the poor attended school without paying.

“Today, you can hardly take a flight in Nigeria without finding a beneficiary of Kwankwaso’s contributions in the Kano State education system working as a flight attendant, or as something else there.”

The national chairman of the NNPP, Prof. Rufai Alkali, urged the participants to blow the party’s trumpet loud enough so that others can hear and see it.

He, however, warned them against going foul of existing cyber laws, adding that participants must follow due process.

Alkali also maintained that the NNPP’s cyber tigers must also use other media to reach out to voters as “the vast majority of Nigerians don’t depend on the social media for news.

“In most parts of the north, people depend on their transistor radios for news. So, we must also be able to reach those who’re not on social media”, he said.