The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has introduced a strict anti-defection policy requiring all candidates seeking elective offices on the party’s platform to sign affidavits committing to vacate their seats if they defect after winning elections.
The policy was unveiled on Tuesday at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja during a signing ceremony attended by candidates and aspirants ahead of the 2027 general elections.
NDC National Chairman, Moses Cleopas, said the move was aimed at protecting the party’s electoral mandates and strengthening internal discipline.
“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,” Cleopas stated.
The party chairman explained that the NDC was founded after a careful assessment of Nigeria’s political landscape and the persistent weakening of political parties through defections by elected officials.
“If you win, the mandate is owned by the party. If you otherwise choose to leave, go the same way you came and leave what you picked from here,” he said.
The party’s National Legal Adviser, Reuben Egwuaba, defended the policy, describing political parties as voluntary associations governed by rules accepted by members.
Without the required affidavit, “your name will not even be uploaded to the INEC portal. It is a strict requirement,” Egwuaba stated.
The policy requires all candidates, irrespective of the office they are seeking, to sign affidavit and indemnity documents before being allowed to fly the party’s flag.
The development is expected to affect prominent members of the party, including its presidential candidate, Peter Obi; his running mate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso; and other recent entrants into the party ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The new policy is designed to bind candidates to the party—a lesson learned from the experience of the Labour Party after the 2023 elections, where several elected officials defected after winning office.
“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 the presidency,” Cleopas said, explaining the rationale behind the measure.
The anti-defection policy carries particular weight given the political histories of the party’s two top candidates.
Peter Obi has been affiliated with at least four political parties in his political journey. He began with the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), where he served as Anambra State governor from 2006 to 2014. In 2014, he joined the Peoples Democratic Party and became the party’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2019 election, running alongside Atiku Abubakar.
In May 2022, Obi left the PDP shortly before its presidential primary and joined the Labour Party, where he emerged as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2023 election, finishing third behind Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar.
Following internal crises within the Labour Party, Obi joined the African Democratic Congress (ADC) on December 31, 2025, before eventually moving to the NDC in May 2026.
Rabiu Kwankwaso has also moved across multiple parties. He was a founding member of the PDP in 1998 and served as Kano State governor. In 2013, he helped form the All Progressives Congress (APC) and later became a senator. However, he left the APC for the PDP in March 2017.
In 2022, Kwankwaso joined the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and became its presidential candidate for the 2023 election. He later moved to the ADC before joining the NDC.
The new policy aligns with earlier remarks by the party’s National Leader, Senator Seriake Dickson, who had previously warned politicians against using the NDC as a mere springboard for personal ambition.
Addressing party members in a gathering weeks before the announcement, Dickson had declared: “You cannot use our party to win election and then decamp. The NDC is not a special purpose vehicle for any human being no matter how big or small you are.”
The former Bayelsa State governor had also stressed that new entrants must see themselves as co-builders of a long-term political project rather than opportunists seeking temporary advantage. “This is not a platform for transactional politics. It is a platform for ideological commitment and nation-building,” Dickson said at the time.
Tuesday’s formal announcement by Cleopas and Egwuaba effectively institutionalised Dickson’s earlier stance into a binding legal requirement for all NDC candidates.
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