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Peter Obi has changed parties again, and this time he brought Rabiu Kwankwaso with him. The two opposition heavyweights formally joined the Nigeria Democratic Congress on Sunday in Abuja, collecting membership cards amid supporter chants and the kind of choreographed optimism that has accompanied each of Obi’s previous political relocations — from APGA to PDP to Labour to ADC, and now to a party most Nigerians were not closely watching until Sunday afternoon changed that.
Obi’s explanation was consistent with what he has said at each previous departure: the crisis follows him rather than originates with him. He accused the federal government of deliberately seeding instability inside opposition platforms, engineering litigation and internal conflict to keep credible challengers perpetually distracted. “The government of today has ensured that they put up crisis upon crisis, which led to several lawsuits in our party that made us abandon those parties,” he told those gathered at Sunday’s reception. He described the ADC, which he had joined only last December, as a repeat of the Labour Party experience — same dysfunction, different letterhead.
Read also: Peter Obi, Kwankwaso Defection Still Under Probability – NDC
What drew him to the NDC, he said, was a simple promise: no court cases. National leader and former Bayelsa governor Seriake Dickson had apparently guaranteed as much. Obi treated that guarantee as the primary selling point, pleading openly with members not to litigate internal disputes. “We want to build a party. Please don’t come here with cases. Let there be peace,” he urged. The appeal was equal parts political manifesto and desperate prayer.
Kwankwaso brought ideological alignment and organizational muscle. He said he and Obi had met Dickson and found shared positions on education, youth empowerment and security. He also noted that the NDC’s membership registration closes May 6, and used the occasion to rally his Kwankwasiyya movement and former NNPP members to register immediately. The political infrastructure Kwankwaso commands in the Northwest gives the new arrangement something Obi’s previous platforms often lacked — a northern anchor with demonstrable grassroots depth.
Dickson received them with the enthusiasm of a party leader who understands exactly what two nationally recognized names do for an organization’s visibility. “Both of you are personifications of the crowd,” he said, gesturing at the supporters who had shown up despite the visit being unannounced publicly. He described Obi and Kwankwaso as “part of the biggest brands in our political history” and promised the party would provide the stable platform they had been denied elsewhere.
Read more: Peter Obi, Regional Leaders In Private Jonathan Meeting
The ruling APC was not interested in allowing the moment to breathe. Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga fired immediately, calling Obi “a political nomad” and dismissing his statement about leaving the ADC as “illogical musings.” He suggested the real reason for the exit was Obi’s unwillingness to contest the ADC presidential ticket against Atiku Abubakar and Rotimi Amaechi. “Peter Obi is a politician made of jelly, an opportunistic fellow. He can’t fight Atiku or Amaechi for the ticket. He pursues the easy road,” Onanuga wrote on X. The party’s national publicity secretary Felix Morka catalogued Obi’s party history without editorial comment, letting the list do the work.
Obi’s supporters rejected the framing entirely. Obidient Movement coordinator Yunusa Tanko said the NDC move had expanded rather than damaged Obi’s reach, pointing to a new support structure called the Peter Obi 4 President Movement now active across 19 northern states. “In all their efforts to stop him from running, his popularity keeps increasing,” Tanko said.
Obi himself addressed the broader atmosphere in a statement posted on X before the ceremony, describing Nigeria’s political space as “toxic” and himself as someone who has been treated like an outsider inside every house he helped build. “Even within spaces where one labours sincerely, one is sometimes treated like an outsider in one’s own home,” he wrote. He was careful to exempt David Mark and Atiku from personal blame while placing responsibility for the instability squarely on federal government interference.
The NDC is the fifth platform from which Obi will pursue the presidency. The 2027 election is 23 months away. The party has until May 6 to close its registration. The litigation-free guarantee is either the foundation of something real or the next clause in a familiar story.
Sunday’s ceremony leaves that question open. The membership cards have been issued. The ship, as Obi put it, is about to sail.
