The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), on Tuesday, dissolved its state and national executives and constituted a caretaker committee to run the affairs of the party for one month.
New officers of the party would be elected during the national convention.
The party’s dissolution of the national and state executives may not be unconnected with desire of the party to reposition and expand its frontiers to accommodate new interests.
Earlier, the party’s national Secretary, Agbo Major, had told newsmen that the former governor of Kano state, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has joined and was bringing his entire political structures into the party.
Agbo Major, who stated this in an interview in Abuja, Tuesday, before the party’s extraordinary National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, noted that the party was repositioning as a prelude to its national convention.
Kwankwaso had last week launched a political group known as the The National Movement (TNM).
Prominent Nigerians expected in the TNM are the founder of The National Movement (TNM) and former governor of Kano state, Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and the former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prof Rufai Alkali, Engr. Buba Galadima, amongst others.
The NNPP national scribe said there was need for the party to adjust to be able to accommodate the interest that were coming adding that such crucial decisions to be taken at the meeting would midwife the party’s national convention.
On any possible merger, alliance or coalition with other political parties, the NNPP national secretary said his party would not venture into any of such, saying that repeated experimentation to forming an electoral alliance in the past did not yield the desired result.
He explained that NNPP has never been part of that of merger or coalition since is formation in 2002.
“We hold this meeting to review serious developments about the party but this is extraordinary, extraordinary in the sense that the whistle has been blown, Nigerians are getting set for the general election.
“We are meeting to reposition the party. It’s extraordinary in the sense that we are opening the frontiers of the party, a lot of Nigerians are coming in and there is need for us to adjust to be able to accommodate the interest that are coming in. These are the very crucial decisions we about to take that is going to midwife the national convention.
“We are expanding. A lot of interest blocs are coming in, so we are expanding the frontiers of the party.
“We have read Nigerians speculating, saying whatever they want to say but the only thing I can tell you as a secretary of the party is that we are in deep talk with Kwankwaso. In fact, we have almost concluded.
“In the next few days, we are reverting back to Nigerians to tell them what understanding we have had with the man. But I can assure you that he is on his way into New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP).
“NNPP is a very old party and so we have seen a lot of these things (merger, alliance and coalition) come and go. We have never believed in this coalition thing because we have experimented it, in 2007, we went into some form of electoral alliance, we didn’t get what we wanted to get and unfortunately, Nigerians do not seem to understand the difference between coalition and merger.”
“That’s why they will tell you that what you need to do is to come together. Coming together entails either a merger arrangement or a coalition. We have experimented coalition repeatedly, it has not given us any result.
“The only thing we have tried and has worked is merger and merger means letting go your party identity. So we are not discussing with any group or any other political party in any of these two directions. We have always gone alone,” he said.
