Rabiu Kwankwaso’s presidential campaign spokesperson, Ladipo Johnson, has stated that the former governor of Kano State is not prepared to resign for anyone.
On Channels Television Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, October 26, 2022; he made the remark amid rumours that the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) candidate might abandon his campaign in favour of another.
“No merger talks, well it’s too late for mergers but there is no talk of collapsing the campaign, his campaign, or the NNPP campaign at any level at the moment with any of the party or any of the candidate, that is not on the card yet,” he said on the show.
“What I mean when I say not yet is that we are going all the way to February 25 next year.
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“As I said, we are focused on the elections. If you have the elections and as people are realising or postulating, there might be a situation for the first time where you do not have an outright winner, then you all have to talk to each other.
No one takes it off the table, but to use a football metaphor, Senator Kwankwaso is contesting, and I can assure you that we are going all the way, Johnson continued.
He branded as malicious those who continue to claim that Kwankwaso will let other candidates win by tearing down his support system.
When questioned about his thoughts on theories that the election is only a three-horse race instead of a four-horse contest, which eliminates his party, Johnson pointed the finger at the media.
“I can tell you for certain that these rumours started months ago, so it’s not out of what they see now, it is out of mischief and we have treated this several times, and I keep saying that he has no reason to want to step down for any of the other candidates. But we will listen to any of them who think they want to work with us not us working with them.”
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“I can easily tell you why that happened, a lot of the press are situated down here in the southern part of the country. I don’t want to say just Lagos, and I have told a lot of my friends in the press that you can’t call elections in Nigeria without knowing what is going on elsewhere in the core north. We have made that mistake many, many times.
“In the activities that I said we have been involved in for the past two to three months, Senator Kwankwaso is going around. I must admit that for one reason or the other, it was mostly an in-house thing, so except for pictures and videos that appeared via social media from members recording and whatever, we didn’t officially invite the press there.
“So, I say that is one of the reasons why there might be views being postulated in that direction. I assure you that once things kick off next week, and you begin to see the activities, then you will realise the groundswell of support that he has around the country.”
“He declined the offer from the Northern Elders because he believes he has solid grounds to suspect some of those involved were supporters of one of the presidential candidates, and he has already had his fingers burned by some of those folks in 2019.” So he answered, “No, I’m sorry, I won’t be attending that.” “Not to belittle the people of the North or the other organisers,” Johnson clarified.
