- Dickson: It’s Nonsensical, Support Groups Don’t Sponsor Candidates, Set Up Parallel Campaign Councils
- Lawal Officially Joins NDC, Backs Obi-Kwankwaso Ticket
The crisis between the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and the Obi-Kwankwaso (OK) Movement has taken a fresh turn, with the party’s National Leader, Senator Seriake Dickson, warning support groups against assuming the role of political parties or establishing parallel campaign structures.
Dickson, a former Bayelsa State governor, said support groups were established to mobilise grassroots support for political parties and their candidates, insisting that they must not compete with the parties whose candidates they support.
His comments came amid the escalating dispute between the NDC and the OK Movement over a 59-member Presidential Campaign Council unveiled by the movement to mobilise support for the NDC’s 2027 presidential ticket of Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Speaking on the role of support groups, Dickson said, “Support groups don’t compete with the political party that is sponsoring candidates. Support groups don’t compete for supremacy, for space. Support groups are what they are.”
He added: “Support groups. They don’t play the role of a political party. They don’t sponsor candidates. They provide grassroots support, mobilization support.”
According to the former governor, support groups should not transform themselves into critics of the political parties benefiting from their activities.
“They don’t convert themselves to become critics of the political party sponsoring. They don’t attack the political party sponsored. They don’t do that,” Dickson said.
He argued that the distinction between political parties and support groups was well established in political practice across the world.
“Never in the history of political lecture. Everywhere in the world,” he declared.
Dickson acknowledged the importance of support groups to electoral mobilisation, stressing that the NDC would continue to welcome them.
“But support groups have a role to play. Yes. Not only one support group, you just call two. We have thousands of support groups and many more are welcome,” he said.
He disclosed that the party had a dedicated structure for coordinating such organisations.
“In fact, there is a department of the party responsible for coordinating and registering and managing support groups. Every party. Every party,” Dickson said.
How The NDC-OK Crisis Started
The latest confrontation stems from growing tensions over the organisational boundaries between the NDC and the OK Movement, an independent grassroots platform mobilising support for Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso ahead of the 2027 election.
The OK Movement describes itself as a grassroots movement built around the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket. It draws support from the Obidient and Kwankwasiyya movements and has maintained that it is an independent organisation with its own leadership and structures.
The relationship came under greater strain in August when OK Movement leaders rejected proposals to merge the organisation with the NDC and endorsed its founder, John Ughulu, to continue as Director-General. The movement said its grassroots structure had been built around his leadership.
The immediate flashpoint, however, was the unveiling of a 59-member Presidential Campaign Council by the OK Movement in September.
The NDC subsequently dissociated itself from the council, with National Chairman, Senator Cleopas Moses, declaring that the structure had not been authorised by the party.
“The party hereby dissociates itself in totality from the said OK Movement PCC announcement. It did not emanate from the party and should be disregarded by the public and the media,” Moses said in the statement.
The party also warned that no individual, candidate or support group was authorised to constitute or announce a campaign structure in the party’s name without approval from its National Working Committee.
The NDC’s position triggered a sharp response from the OK Movement, which rejected what it described as an attempt to subordinate or intimidate the organisation.
The movement’s National Secretary, Saadatu Sani, insisted that the OK Movement remained an independent political organisation with its own leadership, structure and internal processes. The group also demanded an apology from the NDC over statements concerning its campaign council.
‘None Of Them Will Dare Set Up PCC’
Against that backdrop, Dickson appeared to draw a clear line between the party and its support organisations, citing support groups associated with previous administrations.
“You have Buhari’s Support Group, you have several support groups and so on. Several. Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan had several support groups,” he said.
He argued that even support organisations aligned with the ruling party do not ordinarily constitute themselves as alternative presidential campaign structures.
“Even if you take the other party, the ruling party, that we want to defeat. They have so many support groups,” Dickson said.
“None of them will dare say they are setting up a presidential campaign council. It’s unheard of. Nonsensical.”
He consequently called on individuals and institutions responsible for educating political actors to intervene.
“And those who have a duty to educate and call people to order should do so,” the former governor said.
The dispute now centres on a fundamental organisational question: whether a major support movement mobilising for the NDC’s presidential candidates can maintain an independent structure while also creating a campaign council bearing a role traditionally associated with the sponsoring political party.
For the NDC leadership, Dickson’s intervention reinforces its insistence that the party remains the formal political vehicle through which its candidates are contesting the 2027 election, while support groups remain partners in mobilisation.
The OK Movement, however, has maintained that its independence does not prevent it from organising its own structures and mobilising Nigerians around Obi and Kwankwaso.
The dispute comes as the 2027 campaign season gathers momentum, putting the organisational relationship between political parties and the increasingly influential grassroots movements backing their candidates under intense scrutiny.
In another development, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, has officially joined the NDC, nearly four months after quitting the party over its presidential primary.
Lawal announced his defection on Tuesday in Abuja after a meeting with the NDC leadership led by the party’s National Leader, Dickson.
The former SGF, who served under former President Muhammadu Buhari, also declared his support for the presidential ticket of Peter Obi and his running mate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, ahead of the 2027 general election.
Explaining his decision, Lawal said Nigerians concerned about the worsening security and economic situation would have little choice but to support the NDC ticket.
“I have nothing much to say, except to say that anybody, anybody at all in Nigeria that has the interest of our country at large, has the sympathy for the suffering that is going on in our country, which include insecurity, economic deprivation, hunger, ignorance and disease, will have no choice but to join a party that presents Peter Obi and Kwankwaso as its presidential candidate and running mate,” Lawal said.
Dickson Welcomes Ex-SGF
Presenting Lawal with his NDC membership card, Dickson described the former SGF as an experienced political organiser and mobiliser.
“He has seen it all. He has seen parties that are promising, parties that promise, and also parties that have failed to deliver change,” Dickson said.
He added that Lawal had witnessed political administrations that had allegedly taken the country in the wrong direction.
“And parties that have taken our country from the top to the bottom. And now, they are even digging the ground to put the country,” the NDC leader said.
Dickson subsequently welcomed Lawal into the opposition party.
“Sir, on behalf of this national working committee, our colleagues and teeming members of the Nigeria Democratic Party (NDC), Nigeria’s fastest-growing opposition party, and on behalf of the National Chairman and all the senior officers of our party, I welcome you to the NDC,” he said.
Lawal’s Bitter Exit From ADC
Lawal’s defection to the NDC comes almost four months after he resigned his membership of the ADC on June 1, following the party’s presidential primary won by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.
Atiku secured 1,846,370 votes at the primary, defeating former Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen.
Lawal rejected the outcome, alleging that the exercise had been manipulated in favour of Atiku, who, like him, is from Adamawa State.
Following his resignation from the ADC, Lawal appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he criticised Atiku and vowed to oppose his presidential ambition.
The former SGF described Atiku as “Kachalla”, a term he associated with leaders in bandit camps.
Lawal’s latest defection therefore marks a further realignment of opposition forces ahead of the 2027 presidential election, with the former SGF now openly campaigning for the NDC ticket.
The former Buhari administration official is also regarded as an ally of Nasir el-Rufai, former Kaduna State governor and a prominent ADC figure who is currently facing a corruption trial.
Lawal had opposed President Bola Tinubu’s presidential ambition ahead of the 2023 election and openly backed Obi.
His move is the latest high-profile departure from the ADC, coming shortly after the resignation of Jafaru Sani, the party’s National Vice-Chairman for the North-West.
The development further underscores the continuing realignment within Nigeria’s opposition political landscape as parties and political figures position themselves for the 2027 elections.
