Presidency: NDC, Like ADC, Has No Immediate Plan For Nigeria

.Says party lacks ideology and without manifesto four months after being registered

.Ardo raises fresh concern over NDC’s registration

Deji Elumoye and Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Presidency yesterday declared that the recently registered political party, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), has no immediate plan in the offing for the teeming Nigerian populace.

This was as the promoter of the League of Northern Nigeria and All Democratic Alliance (ADA), Dr. Umair Ardo, yesterday raised fresh concern over the registration of the NDC by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Ardo in a statement yesterday in Abuja, insisted that he has obtained a certified copy from INEC that the registration of NDC was allegedly shrouded in fraud. 

Presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, in a posting on his verified X handle, @aonanuga1956, submitted that the NDC and the Africa Democratic Congress (ADC) are birds of the same feather that don’t have the interest of the Nigerian people at heart.

He stated specifically that about four months after the registration of NDC as a political party it cannot boast of any known ideology and manifesto.

The Presidency, in the five-paragraph release stated inter alia: “Out of sheer curiosity, I have twice in the last few days googled the website of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the party that the political wanderer Peter Obi and his ally, Rabiu Kwankwaso, sought shelter in after abandoning the ADC midstream.

“I was interested in the party’s manifesto and whether it has enunciated a markedly different vision for the governance of Nigeria, one better than President Tinubu’s and the APC’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

“I was disappointed. Even though the site invited visitors to click on its manifesto to read it, the result was negative. “No document found” was the response I got each time I tried to download the manifesto. The party whose national leader, Senator Seriake Dickson, said would wage an ideological battle in the 2027 poll has not uploaded any manifesto since it was court-registered in February. What it flaunts are six policy nuggets that it characterised as pillars. 

“However, the nuggets don’t read like pillars. They sound more like the platitudes the party’s newest catch, Peter Obi, has bombarded the nation with in the last six years.

“Senator Dickson, I look forward to your vision and mission for Nigeria, as your party appears to be the camp for the politically displaced and desperate.”

Meanwhile,Ardo in a statement yesterday in Abuja, insisted that he has obtained a Certified Copy from INEC that the registration of NDC was allegedly shrouded in fraud. 

“Let me educate ignorant Nigerians who have been castigating me on the NDC matter. Please read this with an open mind. 

“No political association can be registered as a political party without filling INEC’s Form EC15A, which is INEC’s Party Registration Form. This form is online, and an association pays a mandatory N2 million Administrative Fee to be issued with INEC’s Access Code, with which the association will open the portal and make its application.

“In the application, it will upload the party name, acronym, logo, constitution, manifesto, names, addresses, ID cards, passport photographs, Indigene letters, etc. of its national executive members, address of national office headquarters, INEC’s payment receipt, bank account details, a sworn affidavit of truth, etc. 

“It is these documents that INEC will examine to see whether they comply with the requirements of the constitution, Electoral Act and its Guidelines. And until these documents are uploaded on INEC portal and INEC examines them and finds them to have 100 per cent complied, it cannot register the association as a political party, because that’s the requirement of the law,” he argued.

Furthermore, he said, “But in the case of NDC, it did not pay the N2 million mandatory Administrative Fee, it did not collect the Access Code, therefore it did not fill the Form EC15A and it did not upload anything – anything at all as required by law. So what documents did they put before the Lokoja FHC for court to say they fulfilled all the requirements of the constitution, the law and the guidelines?.”

According to him, “I have obtained the Certified True Copy of all documents and processes NDC placed before the court, including the judgement, and they naturally exhibited not one of these fundamental documents – not one! And it couldn’t because it did not fill Form EC15A and upload them into INEC’s Registration Portal! 

“The court was thoroughly misled to have made pronouncement without any due regard to these documents, making it a highly pervasive judgement. 

“It’s like someone contesting a presidential or governorship primaries and losing, and without filling INEC’s nomination Form EC13A or EC13B respectively and his party submitting to INEC. It means he was not on the ballot. But he goes to the tribunal and files whatever papers he deems fit and prays the tribunal to declare him winner as president-elect or governor-elect and the tribunal gives him a favourable judgement without regard to the facts, ordering INEC to issue him with certificate of return. 

“And INEC said it accepts this court order and will not appeal, and went ahead and issued him the certificate of return. I ask all honest and rational citizens, should Nigerians accept this scenario? Now this is exactly the case of the NDC! 

“But because Peter Obi and Kwankwaso and others have joined the NDC we are told that Nigerians must accept NDC! If all Nigerians will accept this perversion, I will not! Period!, he stated.

He concluded by saying, “I will challenge these irregularities in court.”