Obi, Kwankwaso, others to sign NDC anti-defection pact

NDC National Chairman, Senator Moses Cleopas displaying the indemnity form at the commencement of the oath-taking ceremony in Abuja on Tuesday... Photo: Adebayo Folorunsho-Francis

The Nigeria Democratic Congress has introduced a strict anti-defection policy requiring all its candidates for elective offices to sign indemnity and affidavit forms committing to vacate their seats if they defect from the party after winning elections. The policy, unveiled on Tuesday at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, is expected to affect prominent members, including the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, his running mate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, and other recent entrants into the party ahead of the 2027 general elections. Speaking during the signing ceremony attended by some candidates and aspirants, NDC National Chairman, Moses Cleopas, said the move was aimed at protecting the party’s electoral mandates and strengthening internal discipline. According to him, the decision was informed by repeated cases of politicians winning elections on party platforms only to defect to rival parties after securing office. He said, “In our last NEC meeting, a motion was moved, supported, and established that when we take over the government, people elected on the platform of our party must respect the party’s instrument. “This is not just a party for one man to rise and achieve his ambitions and do anything he likes with the party. “This is a political party that we desire to groom and hand over to the next generation.” He said the NDC had observed a trend in which elected officials abandoned the parties that sponsored them for personal or political reasons. “One thing we have come to observe is that in the present polity, when people contest elections and win under political parties, they become gods. “And in between the time that they ought to have, they will just use one minor excuse to dump the platform and perhaps go into the ruling party,” he said. Cleopas cited the experience of the Labour Party after the 2023 elections as justification for the new policy. “A very typical example that we have all seen in the last three years is the Labour Party, where so many individuals won elections under the platform of the party. “Now, we are in another election cycle. Go and check their history. How many of the people who won elections under the Labour Party and were inaugurated are still members of the party? “If all of them had remained, you and I can imagine how the Labour Party could have been today, even if they had not won the presidency. When you see these kinds of thi