2023: I never offered Kwankwaso nor anybody money – Obi

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has said he never offered the New Nigeria Peoples Party presidential candidate, Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso, money to step down for him.

Obi made this statement on Monday at an interactive forum with the Nigerian Guild of Editors in Lagos.

Obi said, “I never knowingly or unknowingly, offered anybody money to become president. In all my talks with Kwankwaso, I never offered him any money.”

The former Anambra governor also said nobody was funding his campaign. “Nobody as of today will say he’s funding Peter Obi. I’m funding myself. I don’t pay people to work for me,” he said.

Obi also spoke on how he would transform Nigeria from a consuming country to a producing nation.

Obi said all the country needed to work was leadership. “We must get the country to work; all it requires is leadership, and I can do it,” he stated.

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Speaking on borrowing, Obi said, “Nothing is wrong with borrowing if appropriately invested. Every nation in the world that I have studied, borrow. The problem with borrowing is what you do with the money.

“It’s okay to borrow for production but there’s a problem when you borrow for consumption. I will only borrow for production and I will explain to Nigerians why I’m borrowing. I must talk to the people because the job of a leader is to communicate with the people.”

Meanwhile, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State said the standard bearer of NNPP, Rabiu Kwankwaso can not match the pro-Asiwaju Bola Tinubu rally, the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC in Kano.

Ganduje made this assertion while speaking in an interview with Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday.

The Kano state governor challenged Kwankwaso, his predecessor to hold a rally in the state to test his popularity.

Ganduje defended the large turnout of supporters for Tinubu in the state earlier in the day.

He said, “Kwankwaso is a presidential candidate, there is no doubt about that. But equally, we are on the ground and many of his people are now in our political party,” he said.

“So, if Kwankwaso thinks that he can win the party, let him hold a march like this and compare what will happen if he can do so.”

On the possibility of his party losing ground to another of his predecessors turned political rivals, Ibrahim Shekarau, Ganduje questioned the political relevancy of the former Minister of Education over his switching of allegiance.

He said, “Pertaining to Shekarau, we won our election without Shekarau. Later, we invited him into our party and he decided to leave the party to Kwankwaso’s party from one party to another will lose followers.