A one time Governor of Kaduna State, Ibrahim Shekarau has mentioned the position of his group with the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) for refusing to implement the terms of an agreement it reached with the group before its defection to the party.

Mr Shekarau, who is the sitting senator for Kano Central District stated that his group was annoyed with the NNPP.

He went ahead to accuse the presidential candidate of the NNPP, Rabiu Kwankwaso, of betraying the trust of his group members following their defection to the party in May.

Mr Kwankwaso in an earlier interview with BBC Hausa Service had said the party was unable to meet Mr Shekarau’s demand because his group came into the party late when the window of substitution of candidates given by the electoral commission (INEC) had closed.

During the interview, Mr. Kwankwaso said “in politics, it’s a difficult decision to ask a politician to step down for someone”.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Mr Shekarau told his supporters that the NNPP has betrayed them as he submitted their demands to Mr Kwankwaso over three months before INEC closed the window of substitution of candidates and yet nothing had been done about it even as Kwankaso had given the group three days to submit a report on their demands.

The former governor said after he defected to the NNPP, apart from his nomination as a senatorial candidate, the NNPP nominated none of his members for the coming elections.

“Shortly after, I sought an audience with Kwankwaso and I presented our proposal to him, to which he said it was okay and in line with his intention.

“On 16 May, Mr Kwankwaso visited me and the proposal was discussed again and the idea of establishing a committee was reached with the NNPP Kano governorship candidate, Abba Yusuf, as the chairman, his deputy, Aminu Abdulsalam, Kawu Sumaila and Alhassan Rurum all as members ‘’Surprisingly, on May 19th, a list of candidates was released by NNPP in Kano without consideration to our demands. I was forced to immediately proceed to Abuja the next day to see Mr Kwankwaso over the issue, and he agreed to expand the committee with four others members from our group.

‘’They (NNPP) conceded 13 House of Representatives membership to us and 31 state assembly members, among others,” Mr Shekarau recounted.

Mr Shekarau said despite the reconstitution of the committee and the time frame given it, the chairman of the committee, Mr Yusuf, refused to call for a meeting.

“At a point in time, I spoke to the Kano NNPP chairperson, Haruna Doguwa, over the foot-dragging on the issue and he was even included as a member to fast-track the harmonisation of our candidates with their candidates but that also did not work,” Mr Shekarau added.

‘’I also spoke with the national chairman of the party so that the harmonisation of the two lists of the two groups could be worked out but it never happened until INEC closed the candidate’s list window of submission,” Mr Shekarau lamented.