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By 247ureports.com
Segun Sowunmi, convener of The Alternative, has said Peter Obi and his supporters, known as Obidients, are the biggest obstacle to the South-East producing Nigeria’s president, arguing that the region must negotiate power by building alliances and reducing hostility toward other groups.
Sowunmi spoke on the Selah Meditate Podcast, where he discussed the 2027 election and the prospects of the presidential contenders. “The biggest obstacle I see to the Igbo presidency is Peter Obi and his Obidients. Power must be negotiated,” he said. He argued that the region should start with solidarity across the South and extend its alliances to the Middle Belt and the North, and that winning the presidency requires relationships beyond one’s own ethnic or political constituency. “You can’t be asking for the presidency in a multi-ethnic, multicultural country when the level of bigotry and hatred and anger is too high,” he said. Asked to explain his view of Obi’s supporters, he cited “the quality of the irritation that his Obidients create all over.”
Sowunmi also contrasted the Obidients with the supporters of Atiku Abubakar, saying they can make provocative remarks without necessarily making them tribal. He also questioned what he sees as a contradiction between the economic weight of Igbo businesspeople, in markets, retail, real estate, banking and private airlines, and the grievances they voice about the country’s politics and economy, arguing that their commercial stake should encourage deeper engagement with the political system.
The remarks drew a quick rebuttal. Denge Josef Onoh, a former South-East campaign spokesman for President Bola Tinubu and chairman of the Forum of Former Members of the Enugu State House of Assembly, called the argument a flawed reading of the country’s political realities that unfairly places the responsibility for the challenges facing an Igbo presidency on Obi and his supporters. He said the South-East does not need to apologise for its political choices or seek permission to aspire to national leadership.
The exchange touches a long-running argument over how far the region’s presidential hopes depend on Obi, who is the Nigeria Democratic Congress’s candidate against Tinubu and Atiku, and how far on the willingness of other regions to support a candidate from the South-East. Obi’s supporters say their conduct is a response to what they see as a failing system, while critics say the intensity of online confrontation narrows the coalition he needs. Obi had not responded to Sowunmi’s remarks at the time of this report.
