By Ebuka Onyekwelu, Ph.D
The National Leader of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Senator Henry Seriake Dickson, has issued a serious warning to some members of the party who are going overboard with inflammatory comments against the party leadership. Responding to Arise TV’s Prime Time anchor Charles Aniagolu, who said that the NDC needs Peter Obi, Senator Dickson said that the NDC deserves some credit. “I could have run”, Senator Dickson declared. “Listen to me, Charles,” he continued, “This is a narrative that has to be carefully managed before you people make others feel bad, yeah, before you guys make others feel bad, okay? There is no one more qualified than me to run for the Presidency of Nigeria, none,” Dickson emphasized.
It is suspected that there is a growing coldness between Senator Dickson’s camp and Peter Obi’s Obidient camp. Similar coldness has also been variously reported between Dickson’s camp and Rabiu Kwankwaso’s Kwakwasiya group in the NDC. This suspicion has heightened following controversies arising from the party primary election two weeks ago, the official result of which has still not been announced in some constituencies.
While responding to Charles Aniagolu, the National Leader of NDC, noted that no one is doing anyone a favour by running on NDC’s platform. “Don’t make it look like anyone is doing NDC a favour. No one is. Rather, the NDC, I and my colleagues are doing people a favour by granting our platform to them, and that narrative is important. You cannot be supporting Peter Obi, and you are disparaging me, the leader of the platform itself. That is nonsensical. If it were easy for people to form a party, go and form yours, if it were easy,” Senator Dickson reiterated.
Speaking on the NDC’s membership before Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso joined the party, Dickson noted that the party had been working and had other members who were already in the party. “Before Peter and Kwankwaso came, Nigerians of all walks of life were coming to our party. I received Marafa from Zamfara, I received Binani from Adamawa, and several other people across the country for five months plus. So you see, people should be careful as we move on. The platform is there, Peter Obi is a cherished member of our party, and on our own, we have made him a sole presidential candidate, and that counts for something,” the NDC national leader said.
Yesterday, the NDC announced the appointment of Mr. Theophilus Abu Agada as the party’s Director of New Media and Brian Dennis as the Deputy Director of New Media and Strategic Communication. However, a 2023 social media comment by Theophilus Agada has surfaced where he said that they would never allow people to whitewash Peter Obi, whom he called a bigot. “To support Peter Obi, you must first be an idiot, a vile and vindictive person…we will never allow you idiots to rewrite the story of the man he was,” Mr. Agada tweeted on 30th December, 2023. Yet another tweet by Agada referred to Peter Obi as a religious bigot and cautioned that Nigeria is not Anambra State. “We want a Nigerian President and not a religious bigot. Obi has proven that he can’t manage a diverse nation like Nigeria. Nigeria is not Anambra, where he created the Catholic/Anglican dichotomy. He is a divisive leader, and he will be roundly rejected at the polls,” the tweet by Mr. Agada reads. The resurfaced tweet has gained attention, especially among Obi’s supporters.
