The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has suspended its 2023 presidential candidate, Dumebi Kachikwu, for alleged anti-partisan activities.

His suspension was contained in a statement issued Saturday by the party’s National Vice President (Politics), Bamidele Ajadi.

In the statement, Mr. Ajadi accused Mr. Kachikwu of making “defamatory” statements that contravene ADC’s values. He also accused him of other anti-partisan activities.

It said the decision on the candidate’s suspension was made on Friday at an emergency meeting of the National Labor Committee (NWC) held at a location it did not disclose.

Ajadi described the action of the party’s 2023 presidential standard-bearer as a sign of “gross irresponsibility, gross indiscipline, false scandalization” and an attempt to blackmail party executives into doing his bidding.

He said that such an attitude is inappropriate for someone who wants to be president of Nigeria.

“The NWC viewed with great concern the baseless and defamatory video made, published, and distributed by Mr. Dumebi Kachikwu, which was intended to disparage and impugn the integrity and image of a peaceful and transformation-oriented African Democratic Congress and its national officials,” Mr. Ajadi wrote in the statement.

“Act(s) of conduct or statements that are likely to bring the party to hatred, contempt, or ridicule; engage in dishonest practices, defrauding the party, its members or officials; participate in anti-partisan activities; unauthorized publicity of the dispute or division of the Party or the creation of parallel organs of the Party at any level; engaging in any other activity that may cause discontent among Party members or that may disrupt the peaceful, lawful and efficient conduct of Party business; belong to any of those faction groups or bodies; collusion or conspiracy to convene unauthorized meetings will constitute acts of serious misconduct.

At the time of this report, we were unable to locate the video referenced by the vice president.

In addition to Kachikwu’s alleged infraction in the video, Ajadi said the candidate, since his June 9 appearance, has also “refused to share with the party any meaningful, constructive or reasonable presidential campaign roadmap for the next presidential elections.

“Your negative actions and/or inactions thus far have jeopardized the fate and prospects of all of our candidates running for various offices across the country. The committee of the entire Chamber, in very clear and unequivocal terms, fully condemned said video and described it as blackmail and ill-conceived discredit, for which it unanimously recommended its immediate suspension from the party as of today, Friday, September 2, 2022.

“This resolution will be sent to the National Executive Council for further action,” Ajadi wrote.

While Article 14(2) of the ADC constitution empowers the National Vice President (Politics) to preside over meetings in the absence of the president, it was unable to confirm the whereabouts of the latter when the meeting took place.

It is also unclear whether the chairman, Ralph Nwosu, supported the NWC’s decision. Calls to his known phone number went unanswered.

This newspaper called ADC National Secretary Baba Abdullahi and Mr. Kachikwu to discuss the latest developments, but neither of them answered their phones.

Before the latest development, there was tension at the ADC national secretariat in Abuja earlier in the week when the presidents of 27 party states called for Mr. Nwosu to resign.

They said that the national president had overstayed his term in office. Nwosu has reportedly been the party’s chairman for 17 years.