The National Democratic Congress has introduced a compulsory affidavit for all candidates seeking elective offices on its platform, requiring them to forfeit their seats if they defect from the party after winning elections.
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The National Chairman of the party, Moses Cleopas, announced the policy during an indemnity signing meeting held at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja.
Cleopas said the requirement applies to all candidates of the party, including those contesting governorship, National Assembly and presidential elections.
He explained that the policy was not designed as a witch-hunt but as a measure to protect the sanctity of electoral mandates and discourage what he described as post-election political migration.
According to him, elected officials should not be allowed to abandon the party platform on which they won elections while still retaining the mandate obtained through that platform.
“The mandate belongs to the party and the people who voted through that platform. If you leave the party after winning, you cannot continue to hold the seat,” Cleopas said.
He said the party was putting the condition in clear terms so that every candidate would understand the obligation before accepting the NDC ticket.
“We are putting this in black and white. Once you take the ticket, you are bound by it. If you leave, you leave the seat,” he added.
Cleopas said recent political realignments across parties, including cases involving the Labour Party, showed the need for stricter internal safeguards against defections after elections.
“In the Labour Party, we have seen situations where people won elections on the platform and later moved elsewhere. That is the kind of thing we are trying to stop,” he said.
Speaking on the legal basis of the policy, the NDC chairman argued that although freedom of association is protected under domestic and international law, such freedom does not automatically include the right to retain an elective office after abandoning the party that sponsored the candidate.
He cited provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, including rights relating to political participation and freedom of association, as well as provisions of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
Cleopas said those rights must be balanced against the party-based nature of Nigeria’s electoral system, where candidates emerge through political parties and voters cast ballots for candidates presented by those parties.
According to him, elected public officers are products of party nomination systems and cannot completely detach their mandates from the platforms that sponsored them.
The party’s National Legal Adviser, Reuben Egwuaba, also defended the policy, saying the NDC constitution contains enforceable provisions on defection.
Egwuaba cited Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the NDC Constitution, which he said establish that elected officials remain bound by the party platform through which they were elected.
“These provisions make it clear that once you are elected under the NDC, your mandate is tied to the party. If you resign from the party, you cannot retain the office,” he said.
He added that the affidavit would serve as a binding legal undertaking to be signed by candidates before they are cleared to contest on the party’s platform.
According to him, failure to sign the affidavit would disqualify any aspirant from having his or her name submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
“Without this affidavit, your name will not even be uploaded to the INEC portal. It is a strict requirement,” Egwuaba said.
The legal adviser said the measure was intended to close what he described as legal loopholes that allow elected officials to defect after winning elections without facing consequences.
He added that the new rule aligns with the party’s internal disciplinary framework, which empowers it to demand resignation from members who abandon the party platform while still holding offices won through the party.
The NDC maintained that the affidavit policy was necessary to strengthen party discipline, preserve voter intent and prevent what it called the distortion of electoral mandates through opportunistic defections.
Some governorship and National Assembly candidates present at the meeting signed the affidavits before the end of the event.
However, the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his running mate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, had not arrived for the signing as the process was still ongoing as of press time.
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