June 25, (THEWILL) – The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, and that of the New Nigeria Peopled Party (NNPP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, are yet to reach agreement, on who will drop and become a running mate should an ongoing talks for alliance between the two parties come through.
Kwankwaso had in an interview about a week ago, confirmed that a committee was set up to work on the alliance and that conversation was ongoing.
He said, “We are in talks with Peter Obi and a committee is working to look into how to form a merger between us.
“The merger is important because as you can see, both the ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party did not pick their running mates from the South-East.”
Speaking to PUNCH, the running mate to Obi and director-general of his campaign organisation, Dr Doyin Okupe, said Obi and Kwankwaso are yet to reach an agreement.
He, however, stated that the joint panel had concluded its sitting, and meetings are still ongoing to decide how the alliance would go.
Okupe said, “A committee was set up before now, and the committee has completed its work. There have been informal meetings and third-party stakeholders interventions, and we have had structured official meetings too.
“In all, we came to two agreements; one is that we are going to work together as political parties in order to achieve this change that we all desire.
“What we did not agree upon was who would be the president and who would be the vice-president. We didn’t agree on that. But we left it open.”
He stated that both parties are working to agree on the issue before the deadline for political parties to submit the names of their final running mates.
Okupe said, “We are aware of the deadline, and we are working on it. When we adjourned our last meeting, we adjourned sine die. So, if there is a change, we will reconvene. But we are moving on. There is no problem. We have agreed to work together to create a platform for a national coalition, so that objective is still in place.
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