The national chairman of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Seriake Dickson, has appealed for patience from aggrieved aspirants of the party in view of some irregularities noticed during the recently conducted party primary.
According to him, such an enormous exercise carried out in such a short time period has proven too much even for well-established political parties.
In an interview with Arise TV, he said that the new political party was constrained to go through an extremely short schedule involving processes such as registration of members, ward congresses, national conventions, primaries and appeals all done within four months since its establishment.
Dickson maintained that the challenges encountered during the voting process have been common in other parties apart from the NDC.
Blaming the existing legal framework of the nation, he accused the majority ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC), of making a serious mistake in compelling Nigerian political parties to conduct direct primaries.
According to him, even seasoned political machines such as the APC, which has extensive influence over the presidency and 33 governors, not forgetting the two-year-old African Democratic Congress (ADC), have not been spared of serious wrangles and chaos due to the complicated nature of direct primary.
“Concerns regarding malpractices in direct primary elections cut across all political parties, and not only NDC,” Dickson observed.
Additionally, he argued that considering the relative newness of the party and the large number of candidates it had to cater for, the performance of the secretariat had been impressive.
Dickson advised the general public not to rely on the list of winners being floated on social media.
He went further to clarify that none of the political parties – NDC inclusive – has officially released any list of winners from the weekend activities. Primary election results, according to him, cannot be announced at whim; the way some people announce grades after school tests.
Moving forward, Dickson assured that whatever difficulties the party might encounter in administration during the exercise would never happen again, noting that it was a once-in-a-lifetime affair.
Moving on to the theme of internal accountability, Dickson challenged the leaders of the state caucuses and the people responsible for conducting the regional meetings to rise up to the occasion and lead the reconciliation process.
In no uncertain terms, he declared that the bulk of the proposed flagbearers had been chosen from among these local big men, as opposed to being picked by himself and the national leadership of the party.
He stressed the need for the state leaders to accept responsibility and not push the blame onto the national secretariat, but rather take the lead in running the newly established Reconciliation Committee established at the 2nd NEC meeting.
Dickson then commended the party faithful for funding the movement on their own initiative without any use of the government machinery or even help from the states.
In concluding his speech, he made a plea to the donors and other members to overlook the internal differences, and rally around the party’s presidential and vice-presidential flagbearers – Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso.
