By Demilade Adeniyi
The Presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPC) Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso has told the nation’s President Muhammadu Buhari to stop punishing Nigerians with his anti-people policies that is inflicting pain on Nigerians.
Kwankwaso who said this in Benin City, the Edo State capital on Thursday, during the Presidential campaign and presentation of party flags to the party’s four governorship candidates and Senatorial candidates of the SouthSouth said the APC has since 2015 being inflicting pains on the people of Nigeria.
He said: “Let me sympathise with the Nigerian people for the pain they are currently going through as a result of the fuel scarcity as well as that of cash. These two policies which the party introduced in the twilight of their regime has thrown more people below poverty line. More and more people can no longer afford to eat, while many are dying in droves unable to even go to hospitals.”
kwankwaso who said nobody forced the APC to embark on changing the nation’s currency wondered why Nigerians with legitimate source of income would be denied their money just because you want to fight politicians who you suspect would want to buy votes and deprive people of their rights to vote for people of their choice.
“We should allow every Nigerians with legitimate source of income access to the new Naira so that they can continue their normal lives. Stop suffering Nigerians with policies and programmes that are ill-timed and are wrong headed,” the NNPP Presidential candidate added.
Touching on insecurity, Kwankwaso said the NNPP is ready to bring unity to all parts of Nigeria, urging all party faithful to go back to their various homes and begin aggressive door to door campaign that would enable them deliver their polling booths and wards. He urged everyone to be vigilant and be protect their votes.
He described the NNPP as the party for all Nigerians adding that within the last one and half years of its establishment, the party has structures in all the 774 local governments and all electoral wards in the country, adding that it has senatorial candidates in 109 out of the 190 senatorial seats in the country, and has uploaded to the INEC portal polling agents in all the polling wards in the country.
Kwankwaso said the NNPP has a robust plan on education, adding that this is in tandem with the party’s philosophy that all Nigerian child have a right to quality education, adding that NNPP would make tuition free for students at the primary and secondary levels while also promising the reintroduction of scholarship for students of tertiary institutions, including those in private schools.
He said under the NNPP, JAMB and NECO registration and examinations shall be free for all Nigerian students.
Addressing the issues of ASUU members and welfare of teachers of tertiary institutions, Kwankwaso assured that ASUU strike would be a thing of the past under his administration adding that the government would implement all outstanding commitments of the Federal Government to ASUU and to make the nation’s educational institutions a pride for the nation.
In his words the NNPP National Chairman Prof. Rufai Alkhali described the party’s presidential candidate as the youngest, the most brilliant and the best of all the leading candidates on parade at the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
He said the candidate, with a Ph.D, is an engineer, and has worked both at the executive and legislative arm of government over the past 24 years making him the man with the pedigree in public service among other contenders for the number one office in the country.
“This man is a man of impeccable integrity. He is not linked to any drugs or criminal cases, his certificates are not in doubt, he schooled here in Nigeria, we know his age, we know his pedigree in business and public service and he is not a burden whatsoever. He choose to travel by road on all his campaigns just so he knows the challenges that people are facing and the infrastructural challenges facing each part of the country first hand. I would urge all Nigerians who sincerely wish for a better Nigeria to vote for this man, whose movement slogan is Amana, which means trust or Integrity, to bring the desired change to the country.
The National Woman Leader Dr Maryam Jumma’i Yasin said Kwankwaso is a principled leader who is detribalised and committed to the development of all parts of the country. According to her the presidential candidate and the Presidential Campaign Committee has traversed 500 out of the 774 local governments in the country and would surely have touched all the 774 before Fenruary 22, when presidential campaigns are expected to come to an end.
The Chief host and the party’s Vice Presidential candidate Bishop Isaac Idahosa, praised his principal for choosing a candidate from Edo State as his preferred candidate. He said the party is determined to bring the desired change and reposition the country for the better from politicians who are out and are being driven by personal gains.
He assured the presidential candidate that the people of Edo State will reciprocate the gesture by voting massively for all candidates of the party, and would ensure that the NNPP is the party to beat in the Southsouth.
The party later received hundreds of new members who were dumping the All Progressives Congress and joining the NNPP to bring the desired hope to Nigerians. Welcoming them, the party’s chairman Prof Alkhali promised that they would all be treated as members, adding that the party does not have the tradition of segregation.
The new members laid down their brooms and were adorned with the red cap the symbol of the Kwankwassiya Movement adopted by the NNPP.