Former Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson has formally unveiled the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as a new opposition platform, declaring it a movement committed to service, inclusion, and multi-party democracy at the party’s inaugural national convention in Abuja on Friday.
Addressing delegates and party leaders, including former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi and his Kano State counterpart Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Dickson said the NDC was founded to “reverse dangerous trends” in Nigeria, especially worsening insecurity, economic hardship, poverty, and declining public trust in government.
He described the party as an “ideological party determined to do politics differently — politics of service, dialogue, consensus-building, inclusion, and unity.”
The NDC, he noted, is barely three months old but has already gained “unprecedented acceptance and trust” from Nigerians across all regions.
He credited the party’s registration to a December 2025 Federal High Court judgment that upheld the group’s constitutional right to freedom of association after years of bureaucratic delays dating back to 2017. INEC complied and issued the certificate of registration in February 2026, he said.
Dickson also announced that former presidential candidates Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso had officially joined the NDC after weeks of consultations.
He thanked their supporters in the Obidient and Kwankwasiyya movements, saying the partnership represents “a unique convergence of political experience, administrative competence, and national reach.”
The former governor traced his own political journey from the Alliance for Democracy and ANPP to the PDP, where he said he remained in opposition even after the PDP lost power in 2015. “I resisted every pressure and inducement to join the ruling party — not because I hate anyone, but because some of us must make sacrifices to entrench democracy,” he said.
Dickson stressed that the NDC is not an enemy of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), but a political alternative offering a “better path” for Nigeria since 2015. He urged opposition parties to cooperate to preserve multi-party democracy and warned against Nigeria sliding into a one-party state.
The convention’s primary purpose, he said, was to affirm and elect the party’s protem national leadership, ahead of selecting flag bearers for various offices, including the presidency. He called on members to mobilize peacefully and avoid violence, stating that political differences “will be decided at the polling units, and not through violence.”
Dickson concluded by pledging to build the NDC into an enduring institution modeled on parties like the ANC in South Africa, the Congress Party and BJP in India, and the Democratic and Republican Parties in the U.S., founded on values rather than personal ambition.
