The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections in Nigeria, Peter Obi, has announced to his supporters that he will no longer be a party to the new coalition, African Democratic Congress (ADC), offering reasons for doing so and hinting of his next party.
A report by The Eagle Online said that the former Anambra State governor disclosed this at a parley with his supporters in Lagos.
Obi reportedly said that he was not going to continue with the coalition because the party failed to zone its presidential candidate for the 2027 elections to the South.
He told a select group of his supporters that he was resolved to take part in the 2027 presidential election as the main candidate and not a vice-presidential candidate.
He specifically expressed his frustration at how the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar did not yield to the pressure of forcing him to step down from contesting the next presidential election.
Abubakar, Obi said, was more likely than him to emerge as the presidential candidate of the ADC and, therefore, would move out of the coalition party any time soon.
A source at the meeting revealed that Obi would begin his exit process from the ADC and is already negotiating with Action Alliance (AA) for him to move in.
Part of the negotiations is that he would emerge as the presidential candidate of the party.
Obi, it would be recalled, moved out of the main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), when he noticed that he would not win the presidential ticket in 2026.
He then joined the Labour Party (LP).
It was gathered that some South East leaders at the meeting pointedly told Obi that he would not have a clear headway to winning the general election if he refuses to form critical political alliances.
A source at the meeting said: “Some of the leaders told him it would be difficult to win a presidential election without support from the North and the South West.
“Those leaders told him to align himself with the coalition, pledging their support for Obi to emerge as the ADC presidential candidate.
“Peter Obi disagreed with them because he said he could not defeat Atiku in the primary election and it was better for him to join a party where he would not have to go through the process of primary election.”
Obi has been part of the coalition to defeat the incumbent government of President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 elections.
His current position of pulling out of the opposition effort to present a common force will further fragment the ADC.
