THERE have been low-quality rumours and preponderant propaganda circulating that Senator Henry Seriake Dickson has been meeting at unholy hours with the All Progressives Congress (APC) with the sole intention of selling the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) to Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his flock.
It is not true. Those regurgitating these stale tales sourced from the same origins which have challenged NDC, castigated its candidates, and tested NDC in court have refused to understand that NDC is not for sale. No matter the price.
The rumours and blackmail are admissions that the election that Tinubu thinks he has enough “strategies” to win will be fiercely contested by NDC, with the Peter Obi and Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso partnership, which thoroughly terrifies Tinubu, reducing to new incoherences.
What those attacking Dickson would fail to disclose is what they have offered, just as they are desperate to have him in the ruling party. He has always said, which he did again when he left the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, with regrets over the party’s unwillingness to resolve its issues, that joining Tinubu’s party was never an option.
A further lie told about Dickson is that he cannot be bought – he has no price. Again, Dickson has a price which they miss when they parlay their desperation to have him with an eye on the devastation of the common good.
Dickson stands with the people and for the people. He has come too far in this to ruin his politics with promises of positions and elite prosperity.
He would not be allies with those who entrench policies that cast Nigerians into deeper poverty, scramble for Nigeria’s resources as if the country has a few more years before expiring, yet broadcast fairy tales of their nationalism and sacrifices.
When Dickson calls himself a federalist and progressive, he is not throwing words about or striving to grab the next headline. His political and personal life has built bridges across Nigeria. Those bridges are useful as he aspires to a Nigeria where no man is oppressed.
Dickson has always played for service, inclusiveness, the common good, governance that cares for many, and the use of education as a pulley to get millions of our people out of grinding poverty.
As a young lawyer practising in Port Harcourt, he experienced, first-hand, how governments – military or civilian – were not about the welfare of the people. The Ogoni and Ijaw struggles for their voices to be heard in decisions on the use of the oil and gas resources that wasted their environments, hit him harder with government’s killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his kinsmen without waiting for the appeal window in the matter to close.
“I am not one who is scared of standing alone or afraid of saying NO when NO is the right answer. My political life is defined by service, courage of conviction, compassion, patriotism, consensus-building, and steadfastness, while living a simple life,” Dickson said of himself.
Those qualities are the price of Dickson, for which he has won prizes. Those who have such convictions and are interested in investing in searches for solutions that would improve the conditions of Nigerians and enhance Nigeria’s global standing are his allies.
Dickson’s presence in politics is primed around the people, service, integrity, prudent use of state resources for the greatest good of the people, and accountability. He is also shameless about bringing up the ruinous mining practices in the Niger Delta which, while delivering billions of Dollars to federal coffers, have diseased many places in the region and made them uninhabitable.
In August 2025, John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu, now 76, Ugandan, retired Anglican Bishop, and Life Peer, who was Archbishop of York and Primate of England from 2005 to 2020, delivered the summary of the report on the almost irredeemable devastation of the environment in Bayelsa State and the Niger Delta, in a quivering voice that appeared propelled by anger at what human beings can do to other human beings so they could profit from oil and gas exploitation.
Dickson commissioned that investigation when he was Governor of Bayelsa State and required scientific evidence for his duels to draw Nigeria’s attention to how oil and gas exploration was killing the peoples of the Niger Delta. He expected Nigeria to reverse the situation.
Nigeria has not cared, even with available weighty evidence like the Sentamu report. Pollution of the Niger Delta remains a marginal issue for the multiple agencies assumed to cater for the region.
Oil was at the centre of a key decision that Dickson made in 2002 when he left the Alliance for Democracy, AD, the legacy party under which Tinubu was Governor of Lagos for eight years. AD transmuted into Action Congress of Nigeria and eventually All Progressives Congress.
In 1998, as pioneer Chairman of AD in Bayelsa State and its National Legal Adviser, by 2002, Dickson built the party with lean resources to produce a Senator, a Member of the House of Representatives, and three seats in the State House of Assembly in 1999 due to his dedication, commitment, strategy and the people’s belief in him.
He disagreed with the national leadership of the AD after Chief Bola Ige, the Attorney-General of the Federation, an AD member, instituted the onshore/offshore case, which was against the agreement made with Dickson and his associates when they chose AD over other parties.
Senator Dickson considered the suit against the interests of Bayelsa, the Ijaw Nation and the Niger Delta, and that his membership of AD was no longer tenable.
The latest version of Dickson that encapsulates his growth over the years was laid bare at the 10 May 2026 inaugural National Convention of NDC, a party he formed with like minds to liberate Nigerians from the vice grip of the All Progressives Congress.
“We have assembled at a defining moment in the life of our nation – a time of worsening insecurity, economic hardship, deepening poverty, growing national division, and declining public trust in government and institutions. Our duty in the NDC is to reverse these dangerous trends,” Dickson, NDC’s National Leader, told delegates at the very successful inaugural National Convention of the NDC in Abuja.
“The NDC was founded as an ideological party determined to do politics differently – politics of service, politics of dialogue, politics of consensus-building, politics of inclusion, politics of respect for all Nigerians, politics of unity rather than division, and politics that restores dignity to our people and pride to our nation.
“All of us gathered here today have a long history of sacrifice and service, particularly within the opposition. We have endured intimidation, propaganda, deprivation, blackmail, harassment, and countless obstacles in our democratic journey. And if those pressures did not break us before, they will not break us now, and they will never break us,” Dickson said. Pointing out that NDC was a product of the dogged years of focus, vision, integrity, transparency, and sacrifices that are the ingredients of his politics.
Politics for the people, politics of service, not to self, but to the people. Politics that protects those without voices or who, when they speak, louder interests drown their concerns, remains his message.
Dickson has nothing to do with the ruling party. His focus is to work with friends and allies to remove the burdens that the ruling party has unapologetically heaped on Nigerians.
The realisation that Tinubu’s days are numbered is leading him and his supporters to unleash all sorts of distractions on the opposition, as “Tinubu must go” appears on apparels and in native songs that echo the agonies of our peoples across regions and religions.
Finally…
. TINUBU keeps shifting the goalposts. From crashing transport fares to celebration of the CNG buses, and reduction of fuel prices at the sprinkling of NNPC stations across Nigeria. Nigerians are not fooled. They will vote out Tinubu in 2027.
. WATCH the kidding and napping of the Tinubu government over 42 school kids abducted in Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno State since 15 May 2026, 149 days. Nothing is being said about it, as Amnesty International keeps reminding Nigerians.
. PARENTS of 20 NYSC members who were kidnapped on the ever-busy Onitsha-Owerri Road, on their way to Abia State to commence service, claimed they paid at least N5 million each as ransom to secure the release of their children. Imo State Government insists no ransom was paid. Who then in Owerri organised the collection of the ransom and advised the parents to convert the money to US Dollars to enhance portability?
. PLEASE answer this question honestly: How has Tinubu’s government improved your life?
My condolences to families, friends, and the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) on the death of officers and civilians who were in its craft that crashed in Igbokoda, Ondo State. May the Almighty rest them. The calls for auditing of maintenance records of NAF’s fleet deserve attention.
. ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues
