A former spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has said that Peter Obi is unlikely to secure the presidential ticket of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) ahead of the 2027 general election.
Speaking on Channel TV’s Politics Today with Seun Okinbaloye on Tuesday, Baba-Ahmed said former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is almost certain to emerge as the party’s presidential candidate, a development he warned could trigger defections and internal crisis within the party.
“ADC will bleed after its convention because almost certainly Vice President Atiku Abubakar will get the ticket,” Baba-Ahmed said. “When he does, some people will walk out.”
He said the party is made up of several competing interests, many of them represented by members who have been in the ADC from its early days and have remained within its internal structures.
“You know the only one with ambition here? Look around you in this room,” he said. “There are one or two people who have been here from day one, and they are sitting there waiting.”
Baba-Ahmed said friction arises when new entrants appear to dismiss internal party processes or expect to be automatically elevated.
“You walk in and say conventions don’t matter, or that you just go there to be anointed,” he said, adding that such figures are now being told to “join the queue.”
They Are Now Loudly Telling Peter Obi to Join the Queue
Obi appears determined to assert that he is not in politics to play second fiddle or wait his turn. The insistence — “look at me, this is Peter Obi” — signals a refusal to be absorbed into the traditional hierarchy of serial aspirants and negotiated consensus.
However, Baba-Ahmed’s warning suggests that ADC insiders are responding differently. What may have begun as polite whispers has now hardened into a blunt message: join the queue.
In a party where Atiku’s ambition is already well-known, well-funded, and deeply networked, Obi’s refusal to accept a subordinate or waiting role may paradoxically weaken his prospects rather than strengthen them.
Baba-Ahmed warned that if Atiku secures the ticket at the convention, the impact on the party could be severe.
“When he does get the ticket, some people would walk out,” he said. “ADC will bleed. It would be severely damaged.”
Peter Obi’s Strategic Dilemma: Join Then Again or Build Alone
Peter Obi’s dilemma is not tactical; it is structural and historical. At its core lies a stark choice between two paths that cannot easily be reconciled.
The first path is slow, difficult, and uncertain: building a genuinely reformist political party from the ground up—one organised around ideas, policy competence, and economic self-interest rather than ethnicity, religion, or elite bargaining. This path demands patience, organisational discipline, ideological clarity, and a willingness to lose elections in the short term while building durable political capital over time. It requires turning protest energy into party membership, transforming supporters into organisers, and converting slogans into governance-ready programmes. It is the path that could, over a decade or more, alter how Nigerian politics works.
The second path is faster, familiar, and electorally pragmatic: joining or anchoring a large, multiethnic coalition dominated by the same political class Obi’s supporters blame for Nigeria’s misrule, dysfunction, and underperformance. This route accepts Nigeria’s existing political logic—elite coalitions, personality-driven platforms, transactional politics—as immutable. It offers proximity to power but at the cost of ideological dilution. In such a coalition, Obi risks becoming another elite negotiator rather than a system challenger, and his reformist appeal risks collapsing into mere symbolism.
The evidence from 2023 suggests that Obi’s electoral breakthrough owed more to national frustration and protest sentiment than to organisational strength or policy mobilisation. Labour’s campaign mirrored the rational amateurism of Nigerian politics it sought to oppose: weak policy articulation, poor voter persuasion, and reliance on identity and mood rather than structured ideas. That success created momentum—but momentum without institutionalisation dissipates quickly.
Obi’s post-2023 moves, particularly repeated party switching and elite coalition manoeuvring, intensify this contradiction. Each defection strengthens the perception that parties are vehicles of convenience rather than institutions of reform. Each shortcut undermines the claim that his project represents a break from Nigeria’s personality-driven political culture.
History offers little comfort to Nigerian progressives who attempt reform without first building organisations. Moghalu, Ezekwesili, Utomi, and others failed not because Nigerians reject ideas, but because ideas were never embedded in mass political structures capable of surviving elections, defeats, and elite resistance. Without such structures, reformists remain commentators, not governors.
Peter Obi stands at a narrowing crossroads. If he chooses coalition politics dominated by the old guard, he may gain relevance in the short term but lose the moral and political distinctiveness that made his movement powerful. If he chooses party-building, he risks delay, sabotage, and electoral defeat—but retains the possibility of fundamentally reshaping Nigerian politics.
The question is no longer whether Obi can win an election. It is whether he is willing to lose a few in order to change the game—or whether he will ultimately be absorbed by it.