Dickson Invites Defectors to NDC Ahead of Polls

The National Leader of the newly registered Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Henry Seriake Dickson, says the party is prepared to absorb politicians left dissatisfied across Nigeria’s political spectrum ahead of next year’s general elections.

Speaking at the party’s inaugural National Executive Committee meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, the former Bayelsa State governor said internal disputes and tight power structures in established parties would push many aspirants to seek alternative platforms.

Dickson said the NDC anticipated an influx of new members and had established internal safeguards to ensure that defectors would not undermine the party’s cohesion. 

He presented the party as a stable option for politicians unsettled by leadership rows or selection processes elsewhere.

Addressing journalists after the meeting, he urged disaffected members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the All Progressives Congress (APC) and other parties to consider the NDC, arguing that uncertainty and internal conflicts had weakened their prospects. 

He believed the new party offered clarity of leadership and purpose at a time of widespread political realignment.

On the party’s mission, Dickson announced the NDC was founded to advance inclusion, fairness and national integration. 

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He argued that Nigeria had drifted from the ideals set out by its founders and called for a renewed commitment to building a country “where no man is oppressed.”

The senator added that the party’s ideological framework would guide how new members are integrated, insisting that growth would be managed without compromising internal discipline.

He said:

"We call on all those who are stranded in the other parties, loyal members of the People’s Democratic Party who do not want to be in a party that is a clown of All Progressives Congress to come to this platform because it is their platform.

"Those who are aggrieved and dissatisfied and sidelined from the APC itself, which is now about to collapse under the influence of its own weight of its own creation out of greed, those who cannot find space because the ruling party is too top-heavy to join the NDC because it is their platform.

"For those in LP who are still confused over who is the national chairman, this is their party. For those in the ADC who don’t know whether the party is a collision or a coalition, this is your party. 

"And if you don’t know what will happen tomorrow, don’t be confused because NDC is your patty. There is a certainty about NDC. As they are joining, we have put mechanisms in place as an ideological party. We have a way of handling them."