The National Chairman of All Progressives Congress, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, has expressed his readiness to receive the Presidential Candidate of the New Nigerian People Party, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso if he agrees to defect to the ruling party.
Ganduje made the statement at a media briefing with some selected media organisations in Kano.
This was shortly before the former Kano governor received a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party and former Secretary to Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, at his residence in Abuja on Sunday.
He said, “Nobody will say Kwankwaso is not a good politician, at least he was a two-term Kano Governor, although, in disrupted tenures, he was Minister of Defence, even though he doesn’t know what is defense, and was once a Senator, even though he never said anything throughout his stay there.
“But, if he is willing to decamp to APC, our door is open, especially now that someone from his state is the party chairman, it will be easier for him to lobby.”
When quizzed on why Kwankwaso was shut out from President Bola Tinubu’s list of ministerial nominees, Ganduje disclosed that the NNPP candidate was never given such promise in the first place.
According to him, he first heard the news from Kwankwaso himself when he returned from his meeting with the President in Paris, France.
“It is true that President Tinubu has promised to run a unity government, and he stood by his words. Nyesom Wike, from PDP, is now a Ministerial nominee. But he [Kwankwaso] is the one who said he will be given appointment initially, and not the President himself,” he added.
The APC chairman’s first official media parley is coming four days after his appointment as national chairman of the party at Thursday’s meeting of the National Executive Committee held at Transcorp Hilton in Abuja.
In the same vein, Ganduje hosted Anyim at his residence in Abuja on Sunday.
Although details of their chat have not been made public, Anyim’s presence at the residence of the APC national chairman has fuelled the growing speculation that he may be planning to decamp to the ruling party.
The former SGF had paid the President an unusual ‘courtesy visit’ at the Presidential Villa in early July.
PUNCH
