TheCable

Rabiu Kwankwaso, presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says the All Progressives Congress (APC) is now like the PDP of 2015.

Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a programme on Channels Television, Kwankwaso said he and other members of the PDP defected from the party in 2015 because of its arrogance and impunity.

The senator representing Kano central returned to the PDP in July. He explained that he went back because the opposition party has learnt its lesson.

Kwankwaso said he thought the ruling party was the platform to pursue the interest of the country but realised that “APC refused to learn anything”.

According to him, the APC has now put on the cloak of impunity and arrogance that the PDP pulled off three years ago.

“Everyday, we are learning. PDP, in my opinion, learnt its lesson. In 2015, PDP was very arrogant, believed that no matter what happened, they would win the election. They never thought an incumbent government could lose the election,” Kwankwaso said.

“At that time, they had some level of impunity that some of us thought that was not the best way to handle the government, the party and of course the country and that was why we decided to defect to APC. To form the party, to work with the party across the country, mobilise the party and at the end of the day, we won the election.

“PDP learnt its lesson, unfortunately, the hard way and they started thinking positively and as far as I am concerned, PDP now is a better party that it was in 2015.

“Unfortunately, APC refused to learn anything, they didn’t understand and they don’t want to understand to the extent that APC today is the PDP of 2015 and PDP today is the APC of 2015.

“In fact, there was a swap between the two parties to the extent that in 2015, the entire leadership of those they would call the legacy parties, they had to go round the country to meet all of us, to plead with all of us to come and join the party and under that circumstance, we gave them the benefit of a doubt believing that this is a new party with people of good character and integrity.

“We now have a reformed PDP that has improved in terms of impunity and doing the wrong things.”