Crisis hits NRM as deputy national chair, northern politicians dump party

Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the National Rescue Movement (NRM) has been plunged into crisis as northern politicians abandon it over claims of marginalisation by their southern counterparts.

The party’s Deputy National Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Usman Jikamshi, who announced his defection from the party, on Wednesday in Abuja, at a media briefing, said majority of the National Working Committee (NWC) members are from the South East. 

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According to him, the national chairman and others in the leadership positions of the party were not carrying along the northern members in the decision-making process of the party.

He recalled that the party’s convention and primaries held in March and June respectively produced both the national chairman, Isaac Chigozie Udeh, and its presidential candidate, Okwudili Nwa-Anyajike from the South East zone in a manipulative manner that did not conform with democratic tenets. 

Jikamshi, who was the governorship candidate of the party in the 2019 Katsina State governorship race, said the development automatically portrayed the party as undemocratic.

When contacted, the founding national chairman of the party, Senator Saidu Dansadau, told Daily Trust that anyone was free to either join or leave NRM or any other party.

“We wish him well; we cannot stop anyone from leaving. We have many cases including a former president tearing his membership card of his party and quitting.

“There is no crisis in the party, the progress witnessed in the party in the last few months is remarkable,” Dansadau said.