Former U.S. lawmaker Mike Arnold has kicked against a possible presidential ticket involving former governor Rabiu Kwankwaso.

Former presidential candidate Peter Obi and Kwankwaso recently defected from the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), hoping to emerge as the party’s presidential flagbearers.

Reacting to the combination, Arnold stated that he’s opposed to Kwankwaso running alongside Obi because Kwankwaso is part of the Sultan of Sokoto’s inner circle.

Arnold also criticised Kwankwaso’s movement from different political parties, adding that throughout the period, he “never once strayed from fealty to the throne”.

“When the future Sultan was — as a senior officer of an OIC nation — operating in the shadows during the war on terror, his assignment from the Nigerian government was to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Every active jihadi theatre of the post-9/11 era. One Nigerian Defence Attache who is a descendant of Muhammed. Five radical Islamic countries. Three years. There are only two other people in the Nigerian government who knew what he was up to. The President. And Kwankwaso, who was serving as Defence Minister at the time,” he said in a Facebook post.

Arnold pointed out that not long after the now-Sultan returned from this post in 2006, the top ten reform-minded generals of the Nigerian Army died in a plane crash. “The committee Obasanjo had assembled to clean up the military, gone in one flight,” he said.

“A few weeks later, the sitting Sultan, his son and heir Senator Badamasi Maccido, and several grandchildren were killed in another plane crash. The Abuja airport radar was turned off when their plane went down. The Aviation Minister declared it pilot error within 24 hours. The President ordered arrests of aviation officials within 48 hours. Question closed.

“The future Sultan was turbaned four days later. Record time. Skipping past Maccido’s surviving adult sons and past dozens of older brothers in the line — Sa’ad Abubakar was the youngest of 52 children of Sultan Siddiq Abubakar III. The Sultanate Council reached past all of them.

“And not long after that, all those terrorist groups from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia started showing up in Nigeria — where they have been slaughtering Christians and raping the land ever since,” he said.

Arnold pointed out that the Defence Minister at every one of those events was Kwankwaso, noting that it is not the only stain on his record.

Arnold highlighted that as Governor of Kano State, Kwankwaso formally declared Sharia law on June 21, 2000, and established the Hisbah Board — the religious enforcement agency that has been arresting Kano residents for “improper dress” and “indecent mixing of the sexes” ever since.

“He lost his re-election in 2003 anyway, for being insufficiently Islamic for the Kano clerical establishment. Obasanjo handed him the Defence Ministry the same year. When he returned as Kano Governor from 2011 to 2015, he left behind allegations that he misappropriated roughly N10 billion in pension contributions from Kano state workers. The EFCC interrogated him over it in 2021 and sealed his property. The investigation has stalled. A separate panel found that the EFCC chairman at the time had personally directed his operatives not to investigate Kwankwaso.

“Today, his nephew Musa Garba is under criminal investigation in Kano for a multi-billion-naira pharmaceutical procurement fraud allegedly tied to a contract awarded to his company without due process. Kwankwaso is publicly accused of interfering with the investigation to protect himself.

“Sharia. Hisbah. Pension funds. Pharmaceutical contracts. The defence ministry during a genocide. A different party every cycle. And now the vice presidency.

“That is why I will actively oppose any ticket with Kwankwaso on it. No matter who is on top. Peter Obi, if you want my open mind, pick a running mate who is not a puppet of the Sultan,” he said. (Guardian)

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