Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The leadership of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) has said it still related well with the presidential candidate of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi and Vice-Presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
The party dismissed allegations that former Kano State governor and Vice Presidential candidate of the NDC, Rabiu Kwankwaso bought 69 nomination forms of candidates of PRP.
National Chairman of PRP, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, who was a guest on the Arise Television Morning Show, said though Obi and Kwankwaso had both parted ways with his party, he was still friends with them.
“I’ve said this many times. Yes, they did come to our party. We spent some time discussing whether they could come into the party, whether they could join the party.
“In the end, they decided that there wasn’t enough evidence on the ground that their needs would be met by the party, and they moved on, and we parted as friends, and we’re still friends with them,” Ahmed said
On the allegation that Kwankwaso bought PRP nomination forms, Ahmed said: “This is complete fiction, and I am grateful for this, the opportunity to clarify this with the state chairman, the real state chairman of the PRP in Kano had already stated, released a statement saying this is just complete false account.
“There’s no way former Governor Kwankwaso could have bought 69 forms from from the PRP in Kano. We don’t sell forms in Kano, we sell forms from Abuja.”
He said the man who said they had sold 69 forms to Kwankwaso, was not known to the party at all.
“He has no position. He is not in any position, he has has no authority to sell any forms. We don’t know him. It is possible that this entire thing has been contrived as part of some problems or some politics in Kano.
“As far as the PRP is concerned, we sold forms as we sell to everybody else from Abuja. We sold forms to candidates from Kano. They registered, they contested, they went through primaries more than a month ago.
“We’ve got the candidates have emerged from there, and we have, we are forwarding their names to INEC, so we are also, we were both amused and, to be quite honest, shocked that somebody could come out of the blues and make this kind of comments.
“I’ve spoken to Kwankwaso myself, and he’s as amused as everybody else that he would buy 69 forms for non-existent candidates, he’s not a member of the party, so that’s about the forms. You asked a second question, whether it is true that former Governor Obi and former Senator Kwankwaso came to our party.”