Former Kano State governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso has opened up on how the North-Southeast political alliance within the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was formed.
He said on Monday, during an appearance on Arise Television, that the northern political leaders deliberately assessed potential allies before settling on Peter Obi.
He dismissed worries of a secret power struggle between his camp and Obi’s.
“And I looked around with our leadership in the north and said, okay, who do we think is capable? Who can come and work together and honestly move this country? Along the line, we discovered Peter Obi is leading it. That’s why we all agreed to work together,” he said.
In response to a question about whether the alliance hid a silent rivalry between the two camps, Kwankwaso argued that the friction between the principals and their deputies was due to greed and not structural tension.
The problem people have, especially leaders, is they are too greedy and start having problems. So much to do. ‘You don’t have to fight your deputy,’ he told him.
He said his record as a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives and later governor of Kano State showed that political partnerships could withstand pressure.
“I got to work with my speaker and we had a very good working relationship. “I was in Kano for eight years despite the difficulty of my then deputy governor. “We were able to work for eight years amicably to the extent that I handed over to him,” he said.
He rooted the alliance in Nigerian political history, highlighting a legacy of fruitful North-Southeast partnerships from the first republic to date.
“This sort of alliance has been in existence right from the beginning. “Now we are going back to what Tafawa Balewa did in their time,” he said.
He was emphatic that regional sentiment alone did not drive the choice of Obi.
“Not just because we are going to the South-West, just because of the South-West. No. “We saw that Peter Obi is ahead of it and that is why we agreed to work together,” he said.
