Fact-Check: No, Goodluck Jonathan Did Not Establish the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC)

Claim: A post by an X user claiming that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) was started by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Verdict: False

Full Text:

An X user, @Tope_soft, posted on 2nd May 2026, claiming that the Nigeria Democratic Congress (ADC) was an idea of the former President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, in a post which reads, “So NDC was started by Goodluck Jonathan and his guys.’ Interesting.”

The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) was one of the parties the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) registered following a court order. The NDC contested its non-registration by INEC in court, asserting that it had fulfilled all the requisite conditions for registration.

NDRFactcheck found out that the post has garnered 141.9k views, 30 comments, 452 retweets, and 4.3k likes and has gotten several remarks and comments showing that there is a need to verify the claim for proper context and clarity.

Screenshot from the X handle

Verification

NDRFactcheck conducted a Google search to ascertain who started the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC). A report published by Premium Times, shows that Seriake Dickson is the founder of the party. This was revealed when he announced his resignation from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where he commended the Independent National Electoral Commission for its approval of the party, even though the registration should have come earlier.

“The Senator also commended INEC for registering the party, although he noted that the registration should have come earlier. Last week, INEC issued a certificate of registration, and we now have the newest party in Nigeria, known as the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC).”

Another report published by ThisDay newspaper also stated that Dickson is the founder of the new political party, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), which was captioned on its headline.

There is no evidence to link President Jonathan to the formation or establishment of the NDC. In a tweet on the personal X handle of Seriake Dickson, he referred to himself as the builder of the party, “my role as a party organiser and builder”. Also, he stated that we started the NDC registration process in 2017 and that INEC approved it at that time, before the process was put on hold. We reviewed and revised our previous application when party registration began last year, which shows our understanding of the political party.

A corroborating report published by the Nigeria Democratic Report (NDR) indicated that Seriake Dickson is the founder of the Nigeria Democratic Congress. In his reaction to the crisis rocking the party, he gave a history of how the party registration process began in 2017, and the process stalled because the former Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Mahmood Yakubu suspended the registration of political parties.

Conclusion

Our investigation couldn’t find any report or information linking former President Goodluck Jonathan as a founding member of the Nigeria Democratic Congress.

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