For Peter Obi, the flood of governors lining up behind President Bola Tinubu ahead of 2027 tells a story that has little to do with who Nigerians actually want in power.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, the Nigeria Democratic Congress presidential candidate pushed back firmly against the idea that near-unanimous gubernatorial backing translates into electoral victory, insisting that political endorsements from the top rarely reflect sentiment on the ground.
“36 governors support the president. The people in the states are not necessarily with them. It is one thing for a governor to support the president and another for the people to support him,” Obi said, framing his real demand not as a rejection of Tinubu’s chances but as an appeal for the process itself to be trustworthy. What he wants, he said, is an election free enough and credible enough to stand as part of the president’s legacy, and he is counting on the country’s youth to help make that happen.
To make his case, Obi reached back to a past example of a leader who reshaped Nigeria’s electoral integrity by admitting its flaws. He recalled how former President Umaru Yar’Adua acknowledged the faulty process that brought him to power and pledged reform, a promise Obi said was actually kept. That shift, he argued, is what allowed candidates like himself and Adams Oshiomhole to win second terms in elections that followed.
From there, Obi turned his attention to what he sees as a deeper rot in Nigeria’s party system, one where ideology has become meaningless. He argued that no party currently operating in the country stands for anything beyond convenience, taking aim specifically at the ruling APC’s tendency to absorb politicians facing corruption allegations. “Otherwise, the ideology of the APC would be that if you are corrupt and you move to the APC, you are no longer corrupt,” he said.
Obi also accused the ruling party of actively working to weaken opposition movements, drawing a direct line between the internal turmoil currently facing the African Democratic Congress and his own NDC, and what previously unfolded within the Labour Party. He suggested the pattern was intentional. “When opposition parties are having problems, that is his wish. Because of it, they are destroying the judiciary,” he said.
If elected, Obi promised a different approach entirely, one where regulators stay out of internal party affairs and focus solely on delivering credible elections, while political parties retain full freedom to choose their own candidates. He described his own migration through the PDP, Labour Party, and now the NDC as evidence of a broader institutional failure, one he says must be corrected through stronger, fairer institutions.
