By Moses Okorie
The leadership of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has administered indemnity agreement oath on their candidates never to defect from the party after winning election on their platform, saying all votes casted in favour of NDC belongs to the party while the candidate’s tenure of office remains.
Speaking on Tuesday at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja before administering the oath, the national chairman of the party, Senator Cleopas Moses Zuwoghe, decried the level of defection by opposition governors and lawmakers into the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), in recent times, and warned that NDC won’t tolerate such from any candidate who wins election from their party.
He emphasised that every candidate must fill, sign and attach the indemnity form to his or her other credentials before such candidate’s name would be submitted by the party to be uploaded on the portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“One thing all of us have come to observe in the present polity of this county is where people contest elections under political parties. And when they are privileged to win, they become gods. And in between the time that they ought to serve, they will just look for one minor excuse and dump the platform, and perhaps go into a ruling party.
“But in the beginning, they didn’t contest elections from the ruling 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.
“But now ask yourself, we are into another election cycle, go and check the arithmetic. How many of the people that won elections under the Labour Party that were inaugurated, are still members of the Labour Party? And 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 presidency.
“And when you see those kind of things happening, it is expedient that you start to think of how to guard your political party. And that is why, in the spirit of party supremacy, and not against the Nigerian constitution, which is a grand norm, which has guaranteed every citizen of this country freedom of association.
Speaking in the same vein, the national legal adviser of NDC, Barrister Rueben Egwuaba also lamented the high level of political ‘prosecution’ by some lawmakers and governors, which he said is killing Nigeria’s democracy and turning the country into a one-party state.
According to him, votes scored by each candidate of a political party before the person is declared winner and inaugurated, and until the expiration of the tenure upon which that candidate won, and was inaugurated, belongs to the political party.
“You must forfeit that seat. So in case any of our candidates who emerges in the forthcoming election decide to leave, we cannot force him to remain, but that contract, because the Supreme Court calls it contractual agreement, the person must forfeit that seat, because you can’t eat your cake and have it”.
Some of the governorship and National Assembly candidates of the party who were present at the event signed the indemnity form, while those absent, including presidential candidate and his running mate were advised to ensure they obtain the forms, fill and submit it, which is a prerequisite for submission of their names to the INEC.
“NDC Constitution and the National Working Committee of this party have resolved that without this affidavit being attached to your credentials that would be submitted alongside your nomination form, your name cannot be uploaded in the INEC portal, because we are very serious about it”, the legal adviser insisted.