The NDC has opened a digital membership registration platform for Nigerians abroad. If you are an Obidient Movement member outside Nigeria, your five-day clock is running too.

The Obidient Movement's statement after the NDC defection explicitly included Nigerians at home and abroad in its call to register. A digital platform has been created. Ward-level registration is being pushed across the country and, according to the statement, internationally.

Here is what diaspora registration in Nigerian party politics actually means in practice. A party membership register submitted to INEC is structured by ward. Every member is registered to a specific ward in a specific local government in a specific state. For a Nigerian in London or Houston, that ward is back home. The state of origin ward. The family compound ward. The place you haven't voted in since you left.

What the NDC is offering diaspora members is symbolic political belonging. A way to say you are part of this. The digital portal makes that feeling easy to act on.

What it cannot do, for now, is translate that registration into a vote. Nigeria does not yet have diaspora voting. You can register your solidarity before Sunday. You cannot register your ballot.

That gap has existed in Nigerian democracy for decades. The diaspora sends roughly $20 billion home every year in remittances. That money feeds families, pays school fees, and keeps households running in ways the government does not. But the people sending it have no formal vote in who runs the government that benefits from what they send.

The NDC membership portal closes that symbolic gap a little. It opens the question of whether the structural one will ever close.

If you're registering from abroad, check the NDC portal for ward-level guidance before the Sunday deadline. Being registered to the wrong ward may mean your registration doesn't count when it matters.