The political dispute between Peter Obi and his former 2023 running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, has intensified following a fresh defence of the former Anambra State governor's record and capacity to lead Nigeria.
The latest response came after Baba-Ahmed said none of the politicians challenging President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election, including Obi, could improve Nigeria.
Baba-Ahmed, speaking on the Mic On Podcast, advised Tinubu to prepare to leave office but argued that none of his current challengers should succeed him because, in his view, they had previously been part of Nigeria's established political order. He specifically included Obi, his former running mate.
Reacting to Baba-Ahmed's remarks, the speaker in the broadcast took a sarcastic approach to the former vice-presidential candidate's position.
He argued that if Baba-Ahmed believes none of the current candidates can improve Nigeria, then he should explain who Tinubu is expected to hand power to.
The commentator said Baba-Ahmed himself is not currently on the ballot and suggested tongue-in-cheek that Tinubu should simply hand over to him if he believes he possesses the solution to Nigeria's problems.
The intervention also challenged what was described as a contradiction between Baba-Ahmed's current assessment of Obi and the 2023 Labour Party presidential ticket on which the two men campaigned together.
The speaker strongly rejected the suggestion that Obi lacks the capacity to improve Nigeria, arguing that Obi's record in Anambra State should form part of the assessment.
“Politicians, leaders like Peter Obi come probably once in a generation,” the commentator said, describing Obi as a politician with a combination of public-sector and private-sector experience.
He highlighted what he described as Obi's emphasis on prudence, lower government expenditure, investment and institutional discipline during his tenure as Anambra governor.
Obi served as governor of Anambra State from 2006 to 2013, with his tenure including a period after he successfully challenged his initial removal from office.
Obi himself has already responded directly to Baba-Ahmed's criticism.
In an interview aired by Arise Television, Obi pointed to his record in Anambra as evidence that he could improve Nigeria if given the opportunity to govern at the federal level.
“I passed through Anambra State, and I improved the state in critical areas of development. And I can do the same thing in Nigeria,” Obi said.
He also promised to focus on reducing the cost of governance, tackling corruption and waste, strengthening law and order, improving security and investing in healthcare and education.
The latest defence also places considerable emphasis on Obi's background in business and finance before entering politics.
The speaker listed several companies and financial institutions with which Obi was associated and argued that his private-sector experience gave him an understanding of financial management that could be applied to public administration.
He further argued that Nigeria needs leaders capable of managing scarce resources efficiently rather than simply increasing government spending.
However, several of the specific corporate positions, dates and financial figures cited in the lengthy broadcast would require documentary verification before being treated as independently established facts.
The central argument from Obi's supporters is that his record as governor should be judged against measurable outcomes rather than his previous membership of political parties.
Baba-Ahmed's criticism, meanwhile, is built partly around Obi's previous membership of the Peoples Democratic Party, which was the ruling party at the federal level when Obi belonged to it. Baba-Ahmed has presented himself as different, saying he was a member of the Congress for Progressive Change when it was an opposition party and left before its merger helped form the APC.
That disagreement has effectively shifted the debate from personalities to political history: does changing the individual at the top of government amount to meaningful change, or does Nigeria require a fundamentally different political system?
The dispute is particularly striking because Obi and Baba-Ahmed jointly contested the 2023 presidential election on the Labour Party platform.
Three years later, Baba-Ahmed has become one of Obi's most vocal critics, while Obi is campaigning under a different political platform for the 2027 presidential election.
Baba-Ahmed's comments have already attracted responses from Obi's political camp, with the debate increasingly centred on whether the former running mate's latest assessment contradicts the message sold to millions of Labour Party supporters during the 2023 campaign.
The disagreement is likely to remain part of the wider opposition debate as the 2027 election approaches, particularly as voters weigh the records, political histories and proposed programmes of Tinubu, Obi, Atiku Abubakar and other contenders.
For Obi and his supporters, the argument is straightforward: his record in Anambra and his private-sector experience demonstrate that he has both the experience and capacity to attempt a different style of governance at the national level.
For Baba-Ahmed, however, Nigeria requires something more fundamental than replacing one established politician with another.
The coming election will ultimately give voters the opportunity to decide which argument they find more convincing.
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