Why The North Chose To Align With Peter Obi – Kwankwaso

Former Kano State governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso has explained 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 evaluated potential allies before settling on Peter Obi.

He brushed off fears of a clandestine tussle 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 together and work and honestly get this country moving? We found out that Peter Obi is leading it along the line. “That’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.

When asked if the alliance concealed a silent rivalry between the two camps, Kwankwaso denied that there was any structural tension, attributing the friction between the principals and their deputies to greed.

The thing that people are having problems with, especially leaders, is they are too greedy that they start having problems. So much to do. “You don’t have to fight your deputy,” he told him.

His record as a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives and later governor of Kano State showed that political partnerships could endure pressure, he said.

“I had a good working relationship with my speaker and I got to work with him. “I have been 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 kind of alliance has been in existence right from the beginning. “Now we are going back to what Tafawa Balewa did during their time,” he said.

He was adamant that the choice of Obi was not simply driven by regional sentiment.

“Not for that we are going to the South-West, just because of the South-West. No. “We realised that Peter Obi is ahead of it and that’s why we all agreed to work together,” he said.