An official said the NDC had already identified and confronted the affected aspirants, maintaining that such individuals would not secure the party’s tickets ahead of the primaries scheduled for Friday.
The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of sponsoring some aspirants seeking to contest for political offices on the NDC platform ahead of the party’s primary election.
The spokesperson of the NDC, Osa Director, disclosed this when he appeared as a guest on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday.
Mr Director stressed that the NDC had already identified and confronted the affected aspirants, maintaining that such individuals would not secure the party’s tickets ahead of the primaries scheduled for Friday.
“Do you know that there are aspirants who are in the NDC that are being sponsored by the ruling party? We know that from the various states, and because we also have our intelligence, we confronted them.
“During the screening, even though we did not disqualify any person, we confronted some of those aspirants,” he said.
“Those ones already know that they are not getting the ticket because we know that they are moles planted in the party.”
The spokesperson maintained that the NDC was determined to prevent “infiltration by political opportunists and agents” allegedly planted by the ruling party.
Mr Director stressed that NDC was not a special-purpose vehicle for any individual without election-winning pedigree.
He vowed that the party would not allow any individual seeking to ride on the popularity and alliance of its sole presidential aspirant, Peter Obi, and vice-presidential aspirant, Rabiu Kwankwaso, to win election.
The spokesperson emphasised that only aspirants with “verifiable political pedigree and demonstrated commitment” to the NDC’s principles and values would be considered for tickets.
“Like the national leader of the party, Seriake Dickson, said, NDC is not a special multipurpose vehicle for anyone, and that is the truth.
“We are ensuring that we are telling members that this is not a special multipurpose vehicle for you. We have some things we have put in place to checkmate these opportunistic charlatans who may want to take advantage of NDC as a vehicle,” he said.
Mr Director said the NDC had learnt lessons from the experiences of the Labour Party (LP) in 2023 and would not repeat such mistakes.
“We are not following the playbook of the Labour Party. It is only an inexperienced person that will not learn lessons from history.
“We have learnt from the incident of the past that happened in the Labour Party.
“And that was why during our screening, we took particular notice of the fact that a lot of people, especially people from the diaspora who have never participated in politics, rushed to pick forms under the platform of the NDC probably to ride on the Obi-Kwankwaso wave,” he said.
“And also because they see that the NDC is a vibrant alternative platform to the mess we are having in the country today. We are conscious of all that.”
During the 2023 general election, then-presidential candidate of the LP, Mr Obi enjoyed swelling support across Nigeria, especially in the South-eastern and South-southern part of the country where he scored over 70 per cent of the votes.
Although the LP candidate did not win the presidential election, his involvement in the race was believed to have helped many LP candidates – even those relatively unknown – to achieve surprise victories across the country.
However, many of the LP candidates dumped the party months after being sworn in.
PREMIUM TIMES contacted the national APC spokesperson, Felix Morka, for comments on the matter.
But Mr Morka asked our reporter to forward the video clip of the programme where Mr Director, the NDC spokesperson, made the allegations before he could respond to it.
Our reporter forwarded a clip of the TV programme to him.
However, the APC spokesperson declined to respond to subsequent messages and calls, hours after viewing the video clip forwarded to him via WhatsApp.
