Shortly after former Anambra State governor and Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, migrated to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) on December 31, 2025, supporters of former vice president Atiku Abubakar began assailing him for eyeing the presidential ticket of a party whose takeover was inspired and financed by someone else. For weeks, both camps in the ADC, a previously existing but fringe party chosen by a coalition of opposition forces to wage the 2027 electoral battle, have engaged in heated exchange of words, insulting and bruising each other in anticipation of the primary to determine the party’s standard-bearer. The reason is that the two gladiators, Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi, know that the 2027 poll will be their last, but feared that they won’t get the traction they received in 2023.
While Mr Obi, whose supporters resent supporting any other person for the presidency save their champion, had been fairly reticent about the scurrilous Obidients, Alhaji Atiku appeared to have had enough of the heated exchange to post on social media last week of the need for supporters of the ADC presidential aspirants to stop the brickbat. According to the former vice president, “Anyone who insults Obi or Atiku does not mean well for the leaders, the Coalition ADC and for Nigeria and Nigerians. The only people who benefit from such a civil war are the APC urban bandits who want to maintain the satanic status quo. We are better together!” This admonition came on the heels of some Obi supporters damning the impatience of Atiku supporters who denounce the intolerance and irreverence of the vulgar Obidients.
Around the same time Alhaji Atiku posted his admonition, the convener of the League of Northern Democrats, Umar Ardo, also a fellow Adamawan, told Channels Tv, that Mr Obi was nothing but a pretender to the throne. According to him: “Well, the ADC, as currently constituted, if it goes for primaries a hundred times, Atiku will win a hundred times. There is absolutely no doubt about that. How Peter Obi and his supporters react is what will determine the election. I am not saying that Peter Obi cannot be the candidate of the party; however, he can only be the candidate of the party if Atiku steps down.” Mr Ardo’s confidence infuriated the Obidients, and they doubled down on their precondition for joining forces with the ADC, which is that they expect their champion to get the ticket for the 2027 poll, or nothing else. Mr Obi, they exclaimed, was the only one fit and modern and electable for the presidency.
Alhaji Atiku is, however, a more consummate politician. He knows many things the naïve and exuberant Obi supporters don’t. When the former LP candidate was still trying to make up his mind which political platform to use, Alhaji Atiku quietly and efficiently organised the takeover of the ADC and imbued it with life. With his men positioned in key organs of the party, he forbade them from talking about any predetermined presidential ticket. Their singsong was that the ADC needed to be built first before talking of candidacies. Of course he knew there were talks of matching Mr Obi with former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai for the presidential ticket, or failing that, matching Mr Obi with the proud and domineering former Kano governor and NNPP leader Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso for the ticket. And he knew much more that in the Southeast or anywhere for that matter, if push came to shove, ADC members always knew on which side their bread was buttered.
So Alhaji Atiku sits grimly and contemplatively in near anonymity, poised for the big day when the party would make its choice for the ticket. To him, the priority was to get Mr Obi into the party, and then after that, the bridge. Last December, frustrated that the LP was engrossed in litigations, and fearing he could be left stranded, for he was a joiner not a founder or builder, Mr Obi finally defected and directed his men to join the grand coalition. But he did not burn his bridges. He left room for retreat if it became inescapable, for he knew that there was not a cat in hell’s chance he would be given the ticket either on a platter or even if he schemed for it with all he has. Above all, the former Anambra governor knew that any opposition to Alhaji Atiku would be half-hearted, ultimately doomed by regional permutations and financial necessities. After all, despite his misgivings, Mr Obi knows he has really nothing to campaign with: no divisive religious themes, and no convincing proof he has a clue how the economy works beyond mouthing comparative statistics of global development.
The former vice president has now called a truce, and Mr Obi has little appetite for any abusive exchanges. But at bottom, their edgy supporters, particularly the implacable Obidients holding Mr Obi hostage to their utopian ideals, have made up their minds which way to go. They will keep a tentative truce; but with their hands on the trigger and their guns cocked, they will fire at will when any provocation arises. However, with both men in the same creaky boat, and sailing midstream in a river with billowing waves, it would be insanity to attempt to bail out. As Mr Ardo mused, the ADC fortune will be determined by how the supporters of both Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi react when the chips are down and the presidential ticket secured. The alternative is too grim to contemplate.
