Sen. Seriake Dickson has brought Credibility, Growth and Stability to NDC Through Agreement Signing Process
Recent news coming out of the Nigeria Democratic Congress is that Sen. Seriake Dickson has just handed down a massive, game-changing verdict.
The new rule in town is simple but heavy. If you are vying for a legislative seat under the party’s umbrella, specifically the House of Representatives and the Senate, you must swear an oath and sign on the dotted line. While presidential aspirants like Peter Obi, his running mate Rabiu Kwankwaso, and governorship candidates are officially excluded from this mandate, the lawmakers are now firmly locked in.
Sen. Dickson is pushing this as the ultimate way to bring long-overdue stability, credibility, and growth to the NDC. Why the strict focus on lawmakers? Because historically, the brutal mass defections that completely wreck political parties almost always come from House of Representatives members and Senators. By making these specific legislative candidates swear this oath, the party is actively stopping them from abandoning ship the second the political winds change.
But let us pause and zoom out for a second. What does this actually say about us as a country? And more importantly, how does a simple agreement process help our political parties survive?
To answer that, let us look at the elephant in the room, which is cross-carpeting. We have all seen this movie before, and honestly, we all hate the ending. A political party finds a legislative candidate, invests heavily in them, rallies the grassroots, spends an absolute fortune on campaigns, and finally gets them elected to the National Assembly.
Everyone is popping champagne. But the minute the lawmaker gets sworn into office and tastes that Abuja power, they decamp to the ruling party or a rival faction. They completely leave the party that built them, and the voters who believed in them, stranded.
It is the political equivalent of letting someone pay for a lavish, expensive dinner, only for them to sneak out the bathroom window and go on a date with someone else. It is wild, it is unfair, and it completely destabilizes the democratic process.
Personally, we at Political Razzmatazz believe that politicians should not just be allowed to treat political parties like Uber rides, jumping in and out whenever it is convenient for their personal destination.
If voters align with a specific party’s ideology and cast their ballot for you based on that platform, your loyalty should actually mean something. You should not be able to just use a platform’s resources to climb the ladder and then kick the ladder away.
Sen. Seriake Dickson’s move to lock in commitment through this new agreement process might just be the exact reality check our political ecosystem needs. It demands accountability right out of the gate from the very people who are notorious for jumping ship, which are our lawmakers. Frankly, it is about time someone did it.