The National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Chief Ralphs Okey Nwosu, has revealed that the party rejected 30 serving members of the House of Representatives that had wanted to defect from their respective parties to the ADC.
The chairman said the party rejected their desire to join the ADC because of the selfish pre-condition they had placed before the ADC during discussions and negotiations.
He revealed that some of the would-be defectors are third and fourth terms members of the House of Representatives but had demanded guaranteed tickets in the forthcoming general elections adding that the ADC does not believe in imposing candidates on the electorate.
According to him, the party would rather insist that every aspirant goes back to its constituency and seeks the mandate of the people noting if the electorate desire that anyone irrespective of the number of terms he or she had served merits being given another mandate it would not hold back from allowing them to fly on its ticket.
“It is true some of the defected members of the House of Representatives had come to us.
They had wanted to join the ADC and requested that we guarantee them automatic tickets to re-contest their current positions in the forthcoming 2019 general elections.
“We declined because we don’t guarantee third and fourth term members automatic tickets.
That should be the prerogative of the electorate if they, based on the performance of any lawmaker, want to return them to the National Assembly.
We don’t mind first tenure candidates but third and fourth term would amount to imposition which we don’t want to be associated with.
“Our ideology is such that we don’t decide for the electorate who represents them but we want constituencies to decide who bears their mandate in all the elective positions”, he said.
According to the ADC chairman, the party intends to make a difference in peoples’ live by doing things differently from what the All Progressives Congress is currently doing, adding that people are being subjected to undue hardship because the unfriendly policies of government and outright maladministration