Peter Obi dumps LP, joins ADC officially
By: Abudu Olalekan
Peter Obi has now done it, officially. No more “sources said” and no more guessing game. The former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections has formally defected to the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and he announced it on Wednesday at an event in Enugu.
It happened at Nike Lake Resort. A calm place, usually. But politics doesn’t respect calm. The hall drew party leaders and familiar faces, including the ADC national chairman, David Mark. You could tell this wasn’t a casual visit. It was a statement, and it landed like one.
Obi, speaking at the event, tried to paint it as the start of something bigger than party labels. He said they were “ending this year with the hope that in 2026 we will begin a rescue journey.” Those words—rescue journey—have been following him around since the last election cycle, and he’s still holding tight to it. Same theme, new vehicle.
He also went straight to elections. Not later. Not after small talk. Straight there.
“We will resist rigging of election by every lawful means in 2027,” Obi said.
Then he dropped another line that sounded like both advice and warning, depending on who was listening: “We still have a one-year window for everyone to go and verify the schools they attended.”
That part was not said for decoration. Nigerian politics has seen enough certificate wahala to fill an entire shelf in the court registry, so Obi’s message was basically: go and clean your records now. Don’t wait until it turns into a legal fight with deadline and drama.
He added, “We do not want to return to court again only to be told it is a pre-election matter. The pre-election process should start now.”
Short sentence. Big meaning. He’s saying the paperwork, screening, and all the quiet checks that people ignore should begin immediately, not when campaign posters have already taken over street poles. In his view, the system should be tightened early, so the same old court arguments don’t start flying after votes have been cast.
Still, this defection didn’t happen in a vacuum. It came just a day after Abia State Governor Alex Otti addressed the rumours swirling around—claims that he would be leaving the Labour Party too, and that he and Obi were basically moving as a unit. On Tuesday, during his monthly media briefing in Umuahia, Otti shut that down.
He said clearly that he is staying put, at least for now.
Otti explained that Obi had personally told him about his plan to leave LP. No proxy, no whispering through aides. Direct communication. He said he respected the decision and even supported it, but he won’t be joining him at this moment.
“If you remember, I joined the Labour Party before Peter Obi, so I did not join the party with him,” Otti said. That line matters because it’s his way of saying, “I’m not anybody’s plus-one here.”
He continued: “He has communicated to me that he is leaving the Labour Party. I gave him my blessings. But I will remain in the Labour Party, and I told him that I would continue the struggle to rescue the Labour Party.”
Then he got even more specific. According to him, LP is the party that brought him to power as governor, and he feels an obligation to fight for it and try to reposition it. He didn’t close the door forever, though. He added that if they reach a point where the party can’t be fixed, then they can talk about other options. But right now, he said, he is not defecting.
So here we are: Obi in ADC, Otti in LP, and everybody else watching the chessboard like it’s a live match.
What happens next will be less about the announcement and more about structure. Can ADC build real nationwide footing fast enough? Will Obi’s supporters follow smoothly, or will it scatter into different directions? Politics is not just passion, it’s organisation. And 2027 is not as far as it sounds.
