Political tensions are escalating within the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) after Ehiozuwa Agbonayinwa, a former House of Representatives member and Edo South senatorial aspirant, publicly accused the party’s national leader, Senator Seriake Dickson, of engineering his exclusion from the 2027 ballot.
In a Friday interview on Arise News’ News Day, Agbonayinwa described his experience since defecting from the All Progressives Congress to the NDC as moving “from the frying pan to hellfire.”
The dispute centres on the NDC’s Edo South senatorial primary held May 29. Agbonayinma claims he won the direct primary — adopted after consensus talks among aspirants collapsed — yet results remain unannounced a week later and his candidacy unconfirmed. “I have never experienced this being with APC or being with PDP,” he said.
Agbonayinma’s sharpest allegations target Dickson directly. He says it was Dickson who personally encouraged him to contest the Senate seat under the NDC, prompting him to consult local leaders and purchase nomination forms. His account turns dramatic with the claim that Dickson subsequently denied ever making that overture. “To my greatest surprise, the same man who asked me to go and buy the form — this morning we had a meeting and he said he never said so,” he stated.
The public fallout puts Dickson’s credibility and the NDC’s internal integrity under scrutiny ahead of 2027. For a party positioning itself as an alternative to transactional politics, the optics are damaging. Senator Dickson and the NDC had not responded publicly to the allegations as of press time
