NNPP replies Ganduje, denies factions in the party

By Musa Baba Adamu

The National Publicity Secretary of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Ladipo Johnson, has dismissed recent remarks made by Abdullahi Ganduje, Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), regarding alleged divisions within the NNPP.

Speaking on Politics HQ, a programme on News Central monitored in Abuja, he said Ganduje’s words “hold no weight” and criticized his understanding of political terminology.

“Well, the first thing I say is that Ganduje’s words are inconsequential,” Johnson said.

“Two, Ganduje needs to go and open the dictionary and learn the meaning of the word ‘factions’, or ‘faction’, or ‘factionalised’. He really needs to go and learn it. We don’t have a faction, we don’t have factions within the NNPP.”

Ganduje had claimed that the NNPP has continued to “suffer serious lacerations due to an intractable and untreatable factionalization.”

But Johnson pushed back, arguing that the so-called factions are actually expelled individuals still using outdated party materials.

“You have some people who are expelled, who carry the logo, an old logo that has been changed. The logo is not before INEC. INEC is clear as to who, or which person, or who the national chairman of the NNPP is.”

Johnson went further, accusing the expelled members of manipulating the judicial system to obtain a favorable ruling.

“You see, these renegade group of people went to some corner of Abia state, got a default judgment,” he said. “They served themselves. But they took before that court an old constitution. INEC was not there. We were not there.”

He explained that a motion has already been filed to set aside the judgment, with a ruling expected in June.

“When you went to do that, did you tell the courts that, ‘oh, there’s a subsisting judgment of the federal high court that says we are no longer members?’ They didn’t say that,” he continued. “They went, they misled the court in Abia. I’ve forgotten the town. Some corner of Abia, not in the middle, or not at the city centre. And that is what they did.”

According to Johnson, the judgment was based on false pretenses.

“So as far as we’re concerned, it was obtained by fraud, et cetera, et cetera. But are we disobeying it, pending the setting aside? The answer is no,” he said.