The Ebonyi State chapter of the National Rescue Movement has accused its 2023 governorship candidate, Tony Usulor, of attempting to leverage the party’s structure for political bargaining ahead of the 2027 general Elections.
In a statement issued by the state chairman, Ogodo Stanley, on behalf of the party’s executive officers, stakeholders and members, the NRM dismissed Usulor’s claim that he had collapsed the party’s structure in the state into the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Ogodo said Usulor had abandoned party activities since the 2023 general elections and consequently lacked the political or organisational mandate to speak for or claim ownership of the NRM in Ebonyi.
“You cannot collapse what you abandoned,” Ogodo said, adding that Usulor’s status as former governorship candidate did not confer perpetual authority over the party’s structures, membership or leadership.
According to the chairman, the NRM had continued to reorganise its structures, conduct membership updates and hold internal elections at state, local government and ward levels in accordance with its constitution. Usulor, he said, had not participated in any of these activities and could not identify the current executive members at any level.
Ogodo described the claim that Usulor had moved or collapsed the NRM structure into the APC as political fiction, stressing that the party remained an independent political organisation governed by its constitution and recognised leadership.
The chairman further accused Usulor of attempting to deploy the NRM name as a bargaining instrument in his political engagement with the APC-led government.
While acknowledging Usulor’s constitutional right to defect to another party, Ogodo maintained that such a decision remained personal and could not be presented as a takeover or dissolution of NRM structures in the state.
The dispute highlights growing tensions within Nigeria’s smaller political parties as politicians position themselves ahead of the next election cycle, with party structures increasingly becoming assets in negotiated defections to larger platforms.
