THE NEW Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) says its protracted three-and-a-half-year leadership crisis is officially over, and the party is now fully positioned to make an impact in the 2027 general elections.
The NNPP National Chairman, Dr Agbo Major, at a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja said the party had been cleared of all legal encumbrances, allowing it to focus entirely on its electoral strategies.
“Today, we are confident to say that we are now running as a party that is free of all legal encumbrances.
“We’re moving on, and we hope that we’ll be able to make impact. It may not be full but as a party that’s already known to Nigerians, one thing that we know is that we will do our best to ensure that we make impact, even if it is not maximal,” he said.
Major urged all members, who defected to other political platforms during the internal turmoil to return to the NNPP fold.
“There were temptations, and a lot of members who were impatient moved out because the trouble lasted for too long.
“For those, who left for other parties, they can always come back because we are prepared to receive them, no matter how late,” Major said.
The national chairman confirmed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has officially updated its portal to reflect his leadership and the National Working Committee (WC).
Major stated that political detractors had been completely purged from the party’s system.
He said past administrative anomalies on the INEC website had allowed expelled people to continue parading themselves as NNPP members.
He also disclosed that they had accessed INEC access code and had commenced uploading the details of its 2027 candidates onto the commission’s portal.
Major also added that the party had uploaded a placeholder candidate for the presidential election while finalising arrangements for a substantive flag-bearer.
He, however, said that due to the delay in court judgments and update of INEC portal to reflect his led leadership, the NNPP had formally requested a brief deadline extension from INEC to complete its uploads.
He added that to beat tight schedules, the party had opened its situation room for physical submissions of forms by candidates, noting that candidates, who submitted completed forms with full compliance will receive automatic clearance.
The national chairman also disclosed that the NNPP had restored its 2022 constitution and manifesto, and had requested INEC to immediately restore the party’s original logo on its portal.
Major commended the judiciary for staying resolute and resisting alleged attempts of intimidation, blackmail, and petitions aimed at compromising judges handling the leadership cases.
“We got to a level where petitions were written, and judges were being accused of taking bribes from us, which were lies.
“What we did was to stay by the truth, we knew what we wanted, and we were convinced that we were on the path of the truth,” Major said.
He also expressed gratitude to the party’s Founder and Board of Trustees (BoT) Chairman, Dr Boniface Aniebonam, alongside the National Association of Government-Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), for providing unwavering logistical and moral support during the crisis.
As part of strategic realignments, Major said that the party had appointed Shuaibu Adamu, from Bauchi state as the Deputy National Chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT).
He said the NNPP National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting comprising the BoT, NWC, and state, local government, and ward chairmen would soon be convened to ratify all interim decisions.
On the security challenge facing the country, Major urged the Federal Government to look inward and enhance its proactive intelligence-gathering mechanisms.
He also called on security agencies to end inter-agency rivalry and share critical intelligence to halt ongoing killings across the country.
Also responding to questions from newsmen, the National Secretary of the party, Mr Olaposi Oginni, assured all returning defectors of a level playing field.
“We are going to welcome everybody; NNPP is their home. This is a new dawn in NNPP. They are free to come back home, and a level playing field awaits them to contest elections,” Oginni said. (NAN)
