Despite earlier doubts over Peter Obi’s participation in the 2027 presidential election, his emergence as the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate has unsettled President Bola Tinubu’s supporters in the South-East, exposing divergent strategies to mutually contain growing influence, LEO SOBECHI writes.

“OBI kererenke, Obi”; “Okwuteee…” These songs and eulogies announce the entry of the NDC presidential candidate, Peter Obi, at various social gatherings across the five South-East states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.

Going by the names of presidential contenders uploaded on the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) portal, former governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi, will be among the candidates to challenge the incumbent, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in next year’s polls.

Recall that, against his avowed determination to return to the Presidency for a second term with a wider national spread of votes, Tinubu had, at the dawn of his first term, sought to raise zonal flagbearers to champion his re-election plans. Based on that thinking, some notable chieftains of the ruling party in the South-East were upbeat about the challenge the President threw at them.

That could explain why, in the early days of the Tinubu-led Presidency, Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, who is also the Chairman of the South-East Progressive Governors’ Forum, sought to assume the office of Governor-General of the South-East. He was, however, to receive pushback from the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dr Benjamin Kalu, who, as the highest elected official on the APC platform in Abia State, saw himself as the equivalent of its governor.

Nonetheless, seeing that the window for political relevance and future electoral survival seemed to lie with the ruling party, the erstwhile lone Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor in the zone, Mr Peter Mbah, quickly moved to the APC. And, having joined the ruling party, Mbah’s attempt to assert his authority as an incumbent governor brought him into conflict with the ‘Governor-General’.

The first sign that a new countervailing power was emerging in the South-East came during the process of appointing a new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).

The UNN VC tussle was not the only time Uzodimma and Mbah clashed over control of APC leadership in the zone, influence, and the allocation of perks. During the APC national convention, the interests of both leaders collided once again.

While Uzodimma wanted to retain Emmanuel Eneukwu from Enugu West Senatorial District as the APC Deputy National Chairman (South), Mbah fought against the move, arguing that, as leader of the party in Enugu State, Uzodimma should no longer call the shots in the state or recommend those to occupy positions allotted to it.

At the height of the power play, the Enugu State governor had to activate his personal relationship with President Tinubu to ensure that his preferred candidate, Dr Ben Nwoye, replaced Eneukwu. But, insistent on asserting his influence as Governor-General, Uzodimma fought back and replaced Nze Chidi Duru with Emeka Okafor, against the President’s directive to return National Working Committee members to their various offices.

The supremacy battle between Uzodimma and Mbah reached its apogee in the attempt to change the leadership of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), when Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun led other like-minded governors to project Mbah as the new NGF chairman.

Although the President had to intervene in the NGF crisis, support for his re-election is rekindling divisions among the governors and APC stakeholders in the South-East. Making matters worse for the APC leaders and the governors is the fact of Peter Obi’s presidential aspiration on the platform of the NDC.

Across the five states in the region, the following are some of the ways the governors and stakeholders are grappling with their declared intention to support President Tinubu in next year’s presidential election.

Abia State: Echoes of OON
The ruling APC has a hard nut to crack in Abia State, due largely to the political designs of Governor Alex Otti. In governance, the Abia State chief executive is ranked as the best-performing governor in the entire South-East.

Politically, he is walking a zigzag path, especially in the lead-up to the 2027 general election. Before he crossed over to the Labour Party (LP), on whose platform he won the 2023 governorship election, Otti was, at various times, a member of the ruling party.

When the heat was on in the LP, accentuated by the leadership crisis orchestrated by Julius Abure, the Abia State governor was invited to return to the APC by some chieftains of the party, including Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Benjamin Kalu, and former two-term representative of Ikwuano, Umuahia North and Umuahia South Federal Constituency, Sam Onuigbo.

Kalu even went a notch higher, issuing an ultimatum and boasting that, whether Otti defected or not, the ruling party had resolved to capture the state, stressing that the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Presidency and the magnitude of infrastructure projects in the zone would not accommodate the opposition.

However, it was gathered that while talks about Otti’s possible defection were ongoing, the sharing formula could not be agreed upon. Perhaps to show his reluctance to enter into a political arrangement that would saddle him with godfathers, Otti instead demanded total control over the APC’s state structure. It was a stance that none of the leaders, including the two Kalus in the Senate and House of Representatives, could subscribe to. It was obvious that the talks had hit a dead end.

And with the collapse of the defection and harmonisation talks, the APC leaders in the state began attacking Governor Otti’s policies and programmes, culminating in Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s claim that the incumbent was busy repainting structures built in the state during his tenure as governor.

In response, Otti’s supporters and loyalists began to hype his accomplishments, summed up in the Otti Or Nothing (OON) chorus. Although the political developments within the Labour Party and the failed defection plans suggested that Otti could end up as a party-less politician, he continued to reach out to the Presidency alongside his cousin, David Umahi Nweze, the Minister of Works.

The political window of opportunity opened by the Presidency culminated in the plan to adopt the Chukwuma Soludo methodology, which suggests inter-party collaboration. But the snag was that even if Otti consented to progressives working together, it was unthinkable that the Labour Party, to which he belongs, would admit to open dalliance with the APC.

Sources confided to The Guardian that a scheme to allow President Tinubu to earn a generous share of the presidential votes was worked out, even as Otti insisted that the LP would produce representatives from the state in the National Assembly, particularly for Abia North and Abia South.

While the governor ensured that his longtime political ally and founder of Bourdex Telecoms, Dr David Ogba Onuoha Bourdex, picked the LP senatorial ticket for Abia North, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, who learnt of the arrangement, quickly crossed over to the LP from the African Democratic Congress (ADC), instead of joining the 2023 LP presidential candidate, Obi, in the migration to the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC).

It was against the backdrop of ongoing conversations about the direction of the election in the state that Governor Otti swiftly confronted Senator Uzodimma when the latter announced that the five South-East governors had resolved to work for President Tinubu’s electoral triumph.

Anambra State: Progressives working together
If there is any state in the South-East that is on edge over the forthcoming January 16 presidential poll, Anambra takes the slot. The fact that the state’s former governor, Obi, is to be on the ballot has been at the core of incumbent Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s political worries.

The defection of the late Senator Ifeanyi Patrick Ubah from the Young Progressives Party (YPP) to the APC presented the initial scare for the incumbent. Ubah was preparing to contest the governorship election on the platform of the ruling party before tragedy struck in London, leading to his demise.

With that hurdle out of the way, Soludo’s path to re-election for a second term brightened. Before that unexpected incident, the incumbent was enmeshed in a protracted tussle for the soul of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) between Chief Edozie Njoku and Ozonkpu Victor Oye, which he inherited after winning the November 2021 governorship election in the state.

Shortly after the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of his camp, Soludo was further troubled by reports that Njoku had emerged as the national chairman of the National Rescue Movement (NRM), ostensibly to provide an alternative platform for members of his camp in APGA.

Alarmed by the possibility that a formidable platform was in the offing, the Anambra State governor reportedly tipped off the Presidency that Njoku was preparing the NRM for Mr Peter Obi to contest the 2027 presidential election following the quagmire in the LP.

The judicial stalemate in the recriminations over the correct status of the NRM is being traced to Governor Soludo’s assurances that President Tinubu and the APC will not get less than half of the total votes to be cast in Anambra State.

However, APC stakeholders in the state continue to build a wall against the governor’s attempt to become the eyes and ears of the Presidency in the state. While Governor Uzodimma’s candidate in the APC NWC has not found his footing in the political machinations of Anambra State, some sources claim that the crisis that trailed the APC state congress, which produced Senator Emma Anosike as chairman, is part of that supremacy battle in the state.

Former Assistant State Secretary of the party, Sam Osita Oraegbunam, argued that the party’s position is that, since progressives working together favoured Soludo in the governorship poll, the APC is not prepared to sacrifice its candidates for both the Presidency and the National Assembly.

It was gathered that although Governor Soludo has won re-election, his interest in the presidential poll is informed by the need to avoid a situation in which the Peter Obi momentum could throw up unexpected candidates for the State Assembly, a development that could fuel impeachment plots.

Ebonyi State: Divided loyalty
The popular sentiment in the Salt of the Nation is that the Presidency has decided to anchor its campaign for President Tinubu’s re-election around the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Ifeanyi Odii.

It was gathered that the need for an additional platform for Tinubu arose from the cold war between Umahi and the incumbent, Builder Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru, over control of the state APC structure.

Although the governor and the Minister of Works signed a joint statement assuring total support for President Tinubu, the replacement of Hon. Iduma Igariwey, the governor’s candidate for the Afikpo/Edda Federal Constituency, with Joseph Ekuma Nkama, Umahi’s preferred candidate, exposed the silent battle between political godfather and godson.

Further, Governor Nwifuru is accused of owing allegiance to his Imo State counterpart, Uzodimma, rather than to Umahi, who supported him to become governor in 2023. Insiders disclosed that the speculated replacement of the Deputy Governor, Princess Patricia Onyemaechi Obila, who was nominated by the Minister of Works, was botched at the last minute to avoid blowing open the political misgivings between the former governor and his successor.