High-stake leaders of thought of Edo extraction from across Nigeria converged yesterday in a solemn meeting in Abuja to appraise the state of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and the widely disputed outcomes of the party's primaries for the 2027 general elections, which held across the country on May 28 and 29, 2026.
The special emergency meeting, which held in the home of a prominent Edo businessman in the nation's capital, also drew representatives from the amalgamated Obedient-Kwankwaso and NDC grassroots support coordinators.
The conveners expressed deep distress and alarm over what they described as "unresolved scandals currently leading to nationwide loss of confidence in the NDC by Nigerians, attributed to widespread displacement and replacement of actual winners of the NDC primaries with either unlawful or entirely unqualified aspirants."
Speaking at the summit, a frontline stakeholder of the party in Edo state, Pa Victor Aguebor, stated: "In Edo state alone, documents of hundreds of petitioners and nearly a dozen court litigations we have assessed severely indict some officials of the party, especially the party's South-South zonal chairman and Edo state chairman of NDC, who headed the committee charged with the conduct of the party's primaries in Edo state."
According to the conveners, these documents graphically demonstrated that the indicted party officials encouraged, solicited and opened themselves to unpardonable corrupt practices.
They claim that these involved displacing aspirants who participated and clearly won the primaries with others who either lost primaries in their previous political parties before their emergency decamping to the NDC, or did not participate at all in the NDC primaries of Edo state, yet allegedly bribed their way "heavily" to emerge as the winners of those primaries.
Supporting their claim with a video shared on a large screen for the conveners, Aguebor stated: "The NDC South-South zonal chairman, Barr. Frederick Enderokeme Owotorufa, and Edo state chairman of the party, Mr. David Olukoga, are prime actors in this unfortunate and shameful misadventure in modern day Edo political history."
Aguebor asserted, "Working hand in gloves, as seen in this video, the South-South zonal chairman Barr. Owotorufa, announced that all results of the party primaries in the state should be submitted to his committee for official and prompt announcement in Benin, the state capital."
"Yet," Aguebor continued, "upon receiving the actual results of winners, both the zonal chairman, Barr. Owotorufa, and state chairman, Olukoga, did not announce the winners of the primaries till date. Only for them, it is widely reported, to compile their own names of individuals who sufficiently met their unpatriotic mercantile appetites, and shortlisted the supplanters to INEC as the party's candidates for the 2027 elections, thus replacing the winners with losers. Edo state shall be the last frontier in Nigeria to swallow this evil. Because this is an evil which comprehensively endangers the victory of the NDC in Edo state and entire Nigeria in the 2027 elections," Aguebor said.
The stakeholder of the party in Edo state went on to cite a specific scenario in Oredo Federal Constituency primary for which the alleged actual winner was allegedly displaced with a decampee from the APC who earlier failed at his APC party primaries and did not participate in the NDC primaries.
The stakeholders, however, commended highly other leaders of the party in the state. These include 3rd Republic Sen. Rolland Owie who is the Edo South leader of the party, Bishop Isaac Idahosa, who was the vice presidential candidate to His Excellency Rabui Kwankwaso in the 2023 presidential elections, LGA chairmen under Oredo federal constituency and ward party officials. These officials, they said, have consistently kept their hands clean from the Owotorufa and Olukoga candidates subversion scandal and crises till date.
At the end of the meeting, the Edo stakeholders hailed and endorsed a national petition from the South-East zone of the country against the NDC primaries. Issued by the Obi-Kwankwaso Movement Global (OKMG), and signed by its global coordinator, Anglican Rev. Pius Ndubueze Ukachukwu, the petition was addressed to the national leadership of the NDC and dated June 8, 2026.
Similar to the Edo stakeholders, the South-East petition highlighted that the negative impact of the pervading injustices recorded in the NDC primaries nationwide "threatens to become irreversible."
It stated, "Public confidence in the NDC has been shattered. Loyal members feel betrayed and are threatening defection. Young activists - the party's future - are walking away in disgust... Most critically, the collapse of grassroots mobilization directly undermines every effort and progress made toward the 2027 general elections."
The Edo meeting further aligned with the South-East petition in demanding "the immediate release of all authentic congress results, a forensic audit of all fraudulently awarded tickets, disciplinary actions against complicit officials, such as the party's South-South zonal chairman Barr. Frederick Owotorufa and the Edo state chapter chairman David Olukoga."
Similar to the South-East network, the Edo meeting also called for "urgent party support to authentic, verified and short-changed candidates to reactivate grassroots mobilization," which, according to them has lost momentum and flattened out since the "ill-fated party primaries in late May."
In an incisive, foreboding declaration, senior chieftain of the NDC in the state, Barr. Patrick Agbontaen, asserted, "We wish to reinforce the impeccable view of our South-East counterparts that "a party which cannot manage its own internal democracy cannot credibly ask the Nigerians for national mandate."
"Edo state is special in Nigeria's national politics dating back to pre-Independence demand for our country's liberation from colonial rule.
"It is not by accident that outside Lagos state, Edo was the hottest theatre in the MKO Abiola nationwide June 12, 1993 election protests, and twenty years later the epicentre of the 2023 Obedient ballot tsunami. Edo state, take it or leave it, is the cradle of modern Nigeria's democracy. Testing the will of our people by imposing unwanted and unpopular candidates on them against their preferred candidates will be fatal to the NDC nationwide in 2027. To be forewarned is to be forearmed," Barr. Agbontaen concluded.
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