The National Leader of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Senator Seriake Dickson, has warned supporters of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his running mate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, against disparaging the platform and running it down.
Speaking on Arise TV’s Prime Time programme, Dickson dismissed rumors of an internal crisis, asserting that the party is doing the candidates a favor by granting them a platform, not the other way around.
Addressing overzealous supporters, Dickson emphasised the foundational sacrifices made by the party’s leadership before the political heavyweights joined the fold.
“The NDC leadership is intact and there is no crisis whatsoever,” Dickson stated. “Peter Obi is a cherished member of our party. On our own, we have made him sole presidential candidate, and that counts for something. None of them was part of the formation when we were registering this party, they were not there. They didn’t pay one naira, no presidential candidate paid ‘shishi’. You have to grant NDC some credit. Stop making it look like anyone is doing NDC a favour, No one is. Rather the NDC and my colleagues, are doing them [candidates] a favour, by granting them our platform, You cannot be supporting Peter Obi and you are disparaging me the leader of the platform itself.”
Dickson also flatly denied allegations that the NDC sold nomination tickets to the highest bidders as being peddled.
“The NDC doesn’t sell nomination ticket to people. “What we have done, because we are self-funding party, is to have aspirants make contributions and donations to the party account, and it applies to all categories of aspirants including the presidential aspirants. Presidential aspirant is to make donation to the presidential campaign account, not to anybody, we gave our platform to them [aspirants] without discussing money.”
On NASS and direct primaries, he said, “The NASS had no business in prescribing mandatory direct primaries. The the issue of mode of primaries should be left for the party to decide. When you say direct primaries, most of those saying they have won, they are brandishing results; those result may not be the results the national body will recognise; they go to the field, people gather crowd and declare themselves that they’ve won. That is why I talk about institutional capacity on the part of the regulator (INEC) and on the part of the political party.”
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