2023: Why I’m happy APC, PDP gave presidential tickets to ‘wrong candidates’ – Kwankwaso

The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, said the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and major opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gave their presidential tickets to “wrong persons.”

NewsClick Nigeria reports that Kwankwaso stated this on Wednesday while inaugurating his presidential campaign office at the old Presidential Lodge in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.

The APC fielded then Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) as presidential candidate in 2015 and was reelected in 2019. The party has now fielded a former Lagos State Governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for the 2023 poll.

The PDP on its own part fielded then President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in 2019 and has now being picked to fly the party’s presidential ticket in the forthcoming 2023 elections.

Kwankwaso, a former Kano State governor of Kano State, said the experience the nation had under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) administrations worsened in the last seven-year reign of the APC.

In his words: “Of course, I would be very happy that people like Dave here, people like my friend, Wike, and many others, I would have been very happy with them as presidential candidates.

“But we didn’t want them as an opposition to go there, because we know these are people who have performed. You know that as an opposition, we want people who we can just easily walk on and win. And that is why we are so happy and comfortable now at the national level.

“In the north now, we are the party to beat. There is no APC. APC has failed the nation. That is why we left it. PDP has failed the nation. Eight years plus 16 years, which is 24 years, is what we are seeing here.

“You will not understand what we are saying because you have a good governor. The security is solid; the economy is not as bad as elsewhere and so on and so forth. But those of us coming from the north, we know what is happening — and even in parts of the east and across the country.

“So, we are so happy that the strong ones could not get or buy the tickets during the primary elections.”

“We were five governors that started APC to produce President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. Unfortunately, when we were angry with PDP, APC became worse. And one big mistake APC made was giving its presidential ticket to the wrong person,” Kwankwaso said.