​Tied to the Ticket: NDC Orders Obi, Kwankwaso, Others to Sign Anti-Defection Pact

​The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has moved to curb the culture of political carpet-crossing by introducing a strict anti-defection policy. Under the new directive, all candidates seeking elective offices on the party’s platform must sign indemnity and affidavit forms committing to forfeit their seats if they defect after winning an election.

​The policy was unveiled on Tuesday at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja. The regulation is set to directly impact high-profile political figures and recent entrants who joined the party ahead of the 2027 general elections, including the NDC’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his running mate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.

​Shielding the Mandate

​Speaking at the signing ceremony, NDC National Chairman Senator Moses Cleopas explained that the measure is designed to preserve internal discipline and protect the party’s hard-earned electoral mandates. He lamented the routine practice where politicians utilize a party’s structures to ascend to power, only to abandon the platform shortly after.

​”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,” Cleopas stated. “This is not just a party for one man to rise and achieve his ambitions and do anything he likes… This is a political party that we desire to groom and hand over to the next generation.”

​The national chairman remarked that successful candidates often transform into “gods” once inaugurated, capitalizing on trivial excuses to dump their sponsoring parties for the ruling class.

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​Lessons from the Labour Party

​Defending the urgency of the pact, Cleopas pointed to the mass defections that hollowed out the opposition following the 2023 general elections, specifically citing the structural collapse experienced by the Labour 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,” he noted. “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?”

​Cleopas emphasized that while joining the NDC remains entirely voluntary, compliance with its institutional guidelines is non-negotiable for anyone running on its ticket.

​The Legal and Constitutional Framework

​The party’s National Legal Adviser, Reuben Egwuaba, provided legal backing for the administrative framework, asserting that political parties operate as voluntary associations governed by mutually accepted internal rules.

​Citing Section 222 of the 1999 Constitution, Egwuaba argued that an elected official acts fundamentally as an agent of the sponsoring political entity, meaning the mandate rests with the institution rather than the individual.

​”Once a candidate is declared the winner and inaugurated, until the expiration of the tenure upon which that candidate won the election… the mandate belongs to the political party, not any other,” Egwuaba affirmed. “If you otherwise choose to leave, go the same way you came and leave what you picked from here.”

​While the legal team commenced the oath-taking ceremony with available aspirants and candidates in Abuja, prominent frontrunners including Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso were notably absent from Tuesday’s event. Both figures possess highly mobile political histories, having traversed several major parties—including the PDP, APC, and NNPP—before their recent alignment with the NDC.