₦airaland Forum

The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has introduced a new measure to discourage defections among its members after elections.

The measure requires all the governorship and National Assembly candidates to sign an indemnity form committing them to vacating their seats if they leave the party after winning elections on its platform.

The move was unveiled by the party’s national chairman, Moses Cleopas, during the signing ceremony at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday.


The occasion was attended by aspirants and candidates, ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Mr Cleopas explained that the development was not a witch-hunt but aimed at protecting the sanctity of electoral mandates and curbing what he described as “post-election political migration.”


He said the party would not tolerate situations in which elected officials abandon the platform that brought them to office while seeking to retain the mandate.

“The mandate belongs to the party and the people who voted through that platform. If you leave the party after winning, you cannot continue to hold the seat,” he said.

The national chairman explained that the policy was intended to ensure that candidates clearly accept the condition before contesting elections on the NDC platform. 

“We are putting this in black and white. Once you take the ticket, you are bound by it. If you leave, you leave with the seat,” he said.


Referencing political realignments across parties, including the Labour Party, he said such cases underscored the need for stricter internal safeguards.

“In the Labour Party, we have seen situations where people won elections on the platform and later moved elsewhere. That is the kind of thing we are trying to stop,” he said.

On the legal basis of the policy, Mr Cleopas cited provisions from both international and domestic legal frameworks, arguing that while freedom of association is guaranteed, it does not automatically extend to retaining elective office after defection.

He specifically referenced Section 14 and Article 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“It guarantees political participation and freedom of association, including the right to join or leave political parties,” he said.

Mr Cleopas also cited provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), arguing that democratic rights must be balanced with party-based electoral mandates.

According to him, elected officeholders are products of party nomination systems and therefore cannot separate their mandates from the platform that sponsored their election.


The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), further stated that the new anti-decamping initiative is a constitutional and moral safeguard against political prostitution and opportunistic defections.

The party clarified that the measure does not bar any elected official from leaving the party but insists they must relinquish the mandate obtained on the party’s platform.

“It’s an NDC-backed innovation to stop decamping and political prostitution,” the party said. “Anyone who wants to leave, they are free to leave, but you will have to vacate the seat. And that is even what the Constitution says. So our position aligns with the Constitution.”


The party drew a clear distinction between genuine party divisions and self-serving defections. “If there is a division in the party as defined by the Constitution, there’s no problem, you can go! The Constitution covers you in that case. But where you just feel on your own that you have won and you wish to leave to get a better deal with another party, you can go, but you will vacate the seat.”

The party emphasized that elected officials retain the right to exit but cannot take the mandate with them. “The elected official still reserves the right to leave the party, but what we are saying is that you can’t go with the mandate. Go and contest on a new platform. There will be a by-election for you to contest. This was the case in the First and Second Republics,” the party added.

Citing historical precedent, the party referenced former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido’s resignation from the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP). “Sule Lamido, when he left PRP, he resigned. It’s an honourable thing to do and that’s what people were doing — you resign and go to a new party and contest. Even in the UK, that’s the way it is.”


The NDC explained that the requirement for an affidavit under the new policy merely reinforces existing constitutional provisions. “The affidavit is not adding anything to the Constitution; it only reinforces the Constitution. This increases the moral standing of the party and authorises the party to pursue your declaration to ensure that the seat is declared vacant — in black and white, signed by you on oath.”


Addressing concerns about the party’s nascent stage, the NDC acknowledged teething problems but urged patience. The NDC, which is barely four months old, has faced challenges with primaries and other internal processes, issues he noted are common even among established parties in government.


“NDC is working towards becoming an inclusive and attractive platform for anybody to want to stay, and we want everybody to stay and build the party with us,” the statement said. “If things are not right, stay and make it right. Don’t destroy it and leave. If things are good, stay and make it better.”


The party leadership appealed to stakeholders to bear with the party’s “baby steps,” pointing to ongoing reforms such as the digitalisation of primaries and the anti-decamping initiative. The leadership described these moves as evidence that the NDC is building a genuine political institution rather than a one-man show or special purpose vehicle (SPV).


“We have always talked about building a party like the ANC, the Democratic Party, Republican Party, Conservative Party, and the Labour Party in the UK. This is the direction the NDC seems to be going, and aspirants, leaders and supporters need to key in,” the party leadership stated.



Explaining further, the party’s national legal adviser, Reuben Egwuaba, expanded on the constitutional argument, saying the NDC constitution itself contains enforceable clauses on defection.

Mr Egwaba cited Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the NDC constitution, which, according to him, establish that elected officials remain bound by the party platform through which they were elected.

“These provisions make it clear that once you are elected under the NDC, your mandate is tied to the party. If you resign from the party, you cannot retain the office,” he said.

BREAKING: NDC has introduced a strict anti-defection policy mandating all our candidates for elective offices to sign indemnity and affidavit forms, committing to vacate their seats if they defect from the party after winning elections.

By implication, any NDC candidate that… pic.twitter.com/Ih5jQ8XMu7

— Thεό Abu (@TheoAbuAgada) June 16, 2026

Kemetian:
They want to remove Tinubu from power so they can return to fuel subsidies and dual currency set up.

TimeManager:
Justice Lifu acted lawfully and justiciably. He had already announced June 15 as the date of judgement before the Appeal Court gave her own order of stay of proceeding days after. And there's no law stopping any court from delivering its judgement under any circumstances.
Besides, if Accord party obtained an order from the Appeal Court, how is that applicable to ADC, AA, ZLP and APP who were not joined in the suit?. Only Accord party can hold on to the order of the Appeal Court, others have to be deregistered.

-Kiss the truth!

Racoon:
The appellate court held that Justice Lifu’s action amounted to an affront to the hierarchy of courts. It ordered a stay of the execution of the judgment.

Amovingman:
Peter obi will serve them food and drinks as usual

DomPerignon:
Dickson approached INEC in 2017 to register his party, the NDC.

INEC for reasons best known to them refused to accept Dickson's application on the flimsy excuse that the NDC logo looked like another registered party's logo .

Dickson took them to court and INEC was stalling using every legal loophole and trick to postpone or adjourn the hearings.

The court got fed up with INEC and called for accelerated hearings.

When INEC could not present a registered party in their records bearing similar logo, they then went to manufacture a fake entity with same logo that was not even representing itself as a political party. INEC claimed copyright infringement as to why they can't register NDC.

The judge requested further information of the entity bearing similar logo as per CAC registration but INEC could not provide this in court.

The court then ruled that INEC had no right to stop NDC from being registered citing copyright infringement of a non existing entity and ordered INEC to register NDC immediately.

The reason INEC is affixing "by court order" next to NDC is because the ruling was retroactively applied to NDC to be registered as at 2017 before the electoral ammended Act of 2022 came into law in 2023.

NDC did not meet the conditions for a new party that will seek registration under the 2023 Act but since they were denied by INEC to be registered on flimsy excuse in 2017, the judge ruled that NDC should be registered under pre 2022 Act since they met all the conditions back then.


This is to avoid other parties taking INEC and NDC to court seeking the NDC being deregistered for not meeting the conditions of being registered as a new party under the ammended electoral Act of 2022.

Hope this explains this to you in the simplest form.

sreamsense:
Waste of time! The judge that jailed and threw Nnamidi Kanu into the prison dungeon he belongs, how many times has he been exposed till date? Tell us the new government you expect to take over that is capable of sanitizing our judiciary, but don't forget to show us examples of judiciary reform or similar that new government had done before to convince us. However, do noy try to be a joke of yourself by mentioning one Obi of Agulu that proposed of releasing an international terrorist serving jail term in Kano as mode of judiciary reform you want Nigeria to accept ?

You don't just remove person, you must make provision for more competent candidates that are better than Tinubu practically. At moment, prove that new government that will come and do magic for us with strong evidences of what they had achieved before to convince us how they are better candidates than Tinubu, but don't ever mention Obi or Atiku because those ones are still below Tinubu and will make judiciary worse

ybalogs:
Handwriting of what please?? His impending loss?? I seriously doubt that.

simpleseyi:
.
Cry well well. Cry to sleep and wake up to continue.

There are three tiers of government; Executive, Legislative, Judicial. If you are not controlling the three, then you are not in government yet.

DomPerignon:
Oshiomole no dey see yellow babes waka pass.

Mr Uduaghan, better watch Osho Baba.

I hear say the guy man gets sweet tongue.

Don't let that worwor face fool you , Osho nah heavy striker .

The National Chairman and presidential candidate of the Zenith Labour Party, ZLP, Dan Nwanyanwu, has said that the ruling delivered against his party and four others by the Federal High Court will end up exposing all that has been allegedly going on in that particular court.


He described Justice Peter Lifu’s ruling, which ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to immediately de-register the parties as a travesty of justice.

DAILY POST reported on Monday that Justice Peter Odo Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, has ordered INEC to immediately deregister the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Accord, ZLP and others from participating in the 2027 general elections over alleged constitutional breaches.

Justice Lifu issued the order while delivering judgment in a suit filed by a group of former lawmakers in the country.

By the judgment, former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the ADC Atiku Abubakar has no platform to stand for the forthcoming presidential election.

Similarly, Osun state governor, Ademola Adeleke billed to re-contest in the August 15 governorship election on the platform of Accord Party has been kicked out of the race.

The Court of Appeal has stayed proceedings in this matter. However, despite being aware of the order, Justice Peter Lifu went ahead this morning, after issuing notices for parties to appear in court, and delivered judgment.

Speaking about the judgement on Arise News, Nwanyanwu said, “What happened today is travesty of justice. What happened today can never be accommodated in the legal practice. Without going into too much details, the proceedings in this court has been stayed by the Court of Appeal, and this particular judge, Peter Lifu, wanted to give judgment on the fifth of this month, and when he saw the stay, he couldn’t deliver the judgment. We were in court that day.

“Just this morning, about 9 o’clock, he sent notices to all the parties to be in court, and he gave the judgment. So you ask yourself, is there no more respect to the hierarchy of courts? In fact, his attention was drawn to the appeal. His attention was drawn to the proceedings in the Court of Appeal.

“He said, ‘Yes, I know, yes, I know,’ and he chose to ignore it. That is irresponsible with the greatest respect. It is something that will now expose all that has been going on within the judiciary, particularly the federal high court.”

Penguin2:
I’ve never denied Leke’s membership of ADC.

Our contention has been that in the spirit of party supremacy, he was supposed to simply abide by the new leadership of his party after new leaders were appointed by virtue of the coalition.

Did APC not change from Ganduje to Nentawe? How many APC members called Nentawe a usurper?

Why should ADC change of leadership be different?

AhmeduandOkopi:
Na temu go deliver wike's sack letter

Ademola Adeleke, governor of Osun, says the judgement of the federal high court in Abuja which ordered the deregistration of Accord and four other political parties is a direct violation of a subsisting order of the court of appeal.

The federal high court Abuja court had on Monday ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister Accord and four other political parties, including the African Democratic Congress (ADC), over their failure to achieve the required electoral performance in the 2023 general election and subsequent by-elections conducted by the commission.

The other affected parties are the Action Peoples Party (APP), Action Alliance (AA), and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).

Adeleke is seeking a second term on the platform of the Accord, with his campaign scheduled to officially begin on Tuesday ahead of the governorship poll slated for August 15.

In a statement issued by Olawale Rasheed, his spokesperson, the governor described the court judgement as an abuse of court process.

He said the appeal court had ordered a stay of proceedings at the federal high court in respect of the judgement that was eventually delivered.

Adeleke expressed surprise that the lower court proceeded to deliver a ruling on a matter already acted upon by the court of appeal.

“It is on record before Honourable Justice Peter Lifu J that in the record of proceedings of the Court of Appeal of 22nd May, 2026 and which was put before his Lordship as Exhibit MAC 2, the Court of Appeal specifically pronounced that ‘the delivery of the judgment is still part of the proceedings of the court’,” the statement reads.

The governor urged Osun residents to remain calm, noting that the court of appeal would hear the matter on Tuesday.

“Efforts to stop Osun people from exercising their voting rights will fail by the special grace of Almighty God. The Rule of Law and Humanity shall prevail at the end of the day,” Adeleke said.

“I call on Osun people to remain calm and be assured that our rights will be affirmed and our party, the Accord, will be on the ballot on August 15.”

“We will not only be on the ballot, we will overwhelmingly win the forthcoming governorship election. We should remain calm and forge ahead with mobilisation of our people.”

The governor reiterated that the flag-off of his re-election campaign would take place on Tuesday as scheduled, noting that he would not be distracted in the race.

“Our lawyers are taking all the necessary steps to right the wrong,” he added.

BACKGROUND

At the hearing, the plaintiff asked the court to determine whether INEC is constitutionally required to deregister political parties that fail to satisfy the performance thresholds stipulated in section 225A of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

The group argued that the five parties had consistently failed to meet the conditions for retaining their registration, including securing at least 25 percent of votes in a state during a presidential election or winning elective positions at the national, state, or local government levels.

In his judgement, Peter Lifu, the presiding judge, upheld the plaintiff’s arguments and ordered INEC to deregister the five political parties.

yarimo:
that means peter obi is a member of APC by proxy

yarimo:
shay Anambra state governor is a member of APC ?

Misterone:
While your candidate Obi is moving in circles from one party to another

Burob:
In your imagination supported Tinubu indeed, because I told u in 2023 that he was going to win is not support, it is only reality, I am not like u that keeps wailing over an inevitability.

I am a Lagosian that despises Tinubu, we know his antecedents in Lagos State, but notwithstanding He will win again in 2027, if u like keep knocking your head on the wall.