Peter Obi confirmed on Sunday afternoon that he is leaving the African Democratic Congress, saying the party has been overtaken by endless court cases, internal battles, suspicion and division. He said his decision was not driven by bad blood with Senator David Mark or Atiku Abubakar.
Obi said he will continue to respect both men, while insisting his exit has nothing to do with how he was treated by the ADC leadership. The former Labour Party presidential candidate said he is not desperate to be president, vice-president or senate president, but to see a country where a mother can be comforted after her child is kidnapped or killed on the way to school or work.
He said he wants a Nigeria where people do not live in internally displaced persons camps but in their own homes, drawing a line between political ambition and the public suffering he says should define the 2027 contest. Obi, who ran in the 2023 presidential election as the Labour Party candidate, said the same kind of crises and hostility that pushed him out of the Labour Party now appear to be gripping the ADC.
The timing matters because the move comes after reports on Saturday that Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso would leave the ADC, and amid broader opposition realignments ahead of 2027. The ADC has also been facing legal and internal hurdles, adding pressure to a platform that many opposition figures had viewed as a possible vehicle for a new alliance.
That friction spilled into the open on Sunday when Felix Morka, the All Progressives Congress spokesman, attacked Obi on X after the resignation was reported, calling him a “political rolling stone” roaming in search of a free, uncontested presidential ticket. He also mocked him as someone who “fantasises to be president on a ticket delivered only on a platter of gold,” and ended with: “Fare thee well, Nigeria’s inconsolable political drifter.”
Obi’s exit now leaves opposition forces to explain whether the ADC can hold together long enough to matter in 2027, or whether it is becoming the latest stop on a shifting political road already marked by suspicion, court fights and competing presidential ambitions.
