The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has introduced a strict anti-defection policy tantamount to telling its candidates that they must not defect to other parties.
Should they do in the course of the 2027 presidential election, then, they would be obligated to vacate their seats.
The party made known the policy at its national secretariat in Abuja, today, with the NDC National Chairman, Moses Cleopas, saying the new rule aims to checkmate politicians defecting to rival parties after winning elections.
“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”, Cleopas 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.
“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 things happening, it is expedient that you start to think of how to guide your political parties,” the chairman added.
To each candidate therefore, he made it clear: you must sign that you’ll not defect
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“If you want to contest the election under the platform of the NDC, you are free to come. Nobody is forcing you. But when you come, you should know that there are certain rules by which we, as a political party, guide our members.
“One of them is that if you contest an election under our platform and win, under no circumstances, as against what is provided for in the 1999 constitution, that you will just wake up to say that I don’t like the NDC again, or I don’t like the face of my national or state chairman.
“If you win, the mandate is owned by the party. If you otherwise choose to leave, go the same way you came and leave what you picked from here.
“That is why we brought our National Legal Adviser and his team to prepare documents that include affidavit and indemnity forms for every candidate in all categories to fill and take the oath,” he stated.
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