Seriake Dickson, the national leader of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), on Wednesday said Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the NDC, is not more qualified than him to contest the presidency.

While speaking in an interview on Arise Television’s ‘Prime Time’ programme on Wednesday night, Mr Dickson said, “No one is more qualified than me to run for president, I could have run for president before they (Obi) came. And for some reasons I did not want to. Don’t make it look like anyone is doing NDC a favour. No one is. Rather, the NDC, I and my colleagues, are the ones doing people a favour by granting our platform to them.”

The development comes days after the NDC issued an edict against members of the Obidient and Kwankwasiya movements led by Messrs Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso, the NDC’s vice presidential candidate, warning that the party will not operate as a personality-driven political platform.

In a strongly worded Sunday night statement, the NDC said it is determined to build a sustainable political institution founded on party supremacy, internal discipline, and transparency rather than the influence of individual politicians.

The NDC national leader further revealed why he left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and formed the NDC.

He added that he does not move with the crowd and that people join the ruling party for peculiar gains, while noting that opposition is salient in a democracy.

Mr Dickson said, “We should encourage people to be in opposition because there’s no democracy without opposition. People join the ruling party to be assisted by so-called federal might, to write results and have security support to terrorise and humiliate their people in the name of rigging elections, and so on.

“I am not a politician of that mode. Since 2015 when PDP lost federal power, I was the first opposition governor who bore the brunt of that federal loss of power. I have been in for some time as an opposition politician, so being in the opposition doesn’t scare me.”