2027: As NDC, OK Movement Clash over Control of Campaign Structures…

Nigerian Democratic Congress-Obi/ Kwankwaso Movement’s dispute over campaign structures exposes deeper tensions over organisational authority, as Presidential candidate of the Nigerian Democratic Congress, Mr Peter Obi, backs the party while the movement insists on retaining its independence and grassroots machinery. Sunday Aborisade examines the issues at stake.

What began as a disagreement over a 59-member Presidential Campaign Council has evolved into a potentially consequential organisational dispute within the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), with the party leadership insisting on the supremacy of its formal structures and the Obi-Kwankwaso (OK) Movement refusing to surrender its independent political machinery.

The disagreement took a new turn on Thursday night when the NDC presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, publicly backed the position of the party’s leadership and rejected the campaign council constituted by the OK Movement.

Obi’s intervention is significant because it places the party’s presidential candidate directly at the centre of a controversy that had hitherto been largely defined by an exchange between NDC leaders and the leadership of the movement supporting his joint ticket with the party’s vice-presidential candidate, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso.

Speaking during an interview on Arise Television’s Prime Time, Obi said the NDC remained the political party to which he and his supporters belonged, while the OK Movement, Obidient groups, Kwankwasiyya and other platforms should function as support organisations.

According to him: “NDC is the political party we all belong to, and I agree entirely with the position of the leader. OK Movement, Obidient Group, Kwankwaso and other supporting groups are supporting groups.

“They must play their role as supporting groups, supporting the party. They should not play the role of the party.”

Asked specifically whether the 59-member campaign council announced by the OK Movement had his approval, Obi was unequivocal. “Not at all. And I say it here, it is wrong,” he said.

The former Anambra State governor further indicated that activities undertaken in the name of the joint Obi-Kwankwaso ticket would require the express approval of the two candidates.

His position has potentially altered the dynamics of the dispute, given that the OK Movement had repeatedly argued that its organisational independence was separate from its support for the NDC candidates.

The immediate trigger was the unveiling, on September 17, of a 59-member campaign council by the OK Movement.

The structure included zonal and state coordinators and directors responsible for areas such as mobilisation, women affairs, strategy, security and legal matters. John Ozyl Ughulu, the movement’s Director-General, was named Director-General of the campaign council, while Saadatu Sani, its National Secretary, was named secretary.

The NDC responded by publicly dissociating itself from the structure, declaring that the list did not emanate from the party and should be disregarded.

The party’s position was that the official Presidential Campaign Council of the NDC could only be constituted through the appropriate organs of the political party.

That response immediately raised a broader question: where does the authority of an independent political movement end and that of the political party begin when both are campaigning for the same presidential candidate?

For the NDC leadership, the answer appears straightforward. The party is the legal political platform on which Obi and Kwankwaso are contesting the 2027 presidential election, and therefore campaign structures representing the candidates and the party must be authorised by the party.

For the OK Movement, however, the relationship is different. The movement has maintained that supporting the NDC ticket does not mean surrendering its identity, leadership or organisational structures to the party.

The dispute became more heated after the NDC National Leader, Senator Seriake Dickson, publicly criticised the campaign council. Dickson described the decision to establish the council as “unheard of” and “nonsensical”, arguing that support organisations should mobilise for political parties rather than establish structures that could compete with the parties themselves.

He said, “Support groups don’t compete with the political party that is sponsoring candidates. Support groups don’t compete for supremacy, for space. Support groups are what they are — support groups. They don’t play the role of political party. They don’t sponsor candidates. They provide grassroots support and mobilisation. They don’t convert themselves to become critics of the political party sponsored.”

He argued that support groups exist within virtually every political party and that their responsibility is to strengthen, rather than challenge, the formal party organisation.

The intervention by Dickson turned what could have remained an internal administrative disagreement into a public political confrontation.

The OK Movement subsequently rejected the description of its organisation as merely a support group and insisted that it was an independent political organisation.

Its Director-General, Ughulu, said the movement was neither an appendage of the NDC nor an extension of another political group.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the OK Movement is an independent political organization. It is not a support group created as an appendage of any political party or another movement,” he said.

According to him, the movement was independently organised, managed and structured through its own mechanisms.

He also argued that political organisation in Nigeria had evolved beyond conventional party structures.

OK Movement’s counter-position

The movement’s argument is not that it wants to replace the NDC. Rather, it says it wants to preserve its independent organisational machinery while collaborating with the party in pursuit of a common political objective.

Ughulu insisted that the movement would continue to campaign for Obi and Kwankwaso and defend their votes, but would not allow its own structures to be absorbed into the NDC.

“Our cooperation with the NDC party should therefore be understood as political collaboration, not organizational subordination,” he declared.

The movement has also argued that it does not need the personal approval of an individual NDC leader to organise its members and volunteers.

Its National Secretary, Saadatu Sani, similarly stated that the organisation did not require the “personal validation or approval” of any individual within the NDC before undertaking what it considered legitimate organisational activities.

Ughulu went further, insisting that the movement’s national, state, local government and ward structures would remain under its control. He said the movement would resist any attempt to appropriate, dissolve or absorb those structures without authorisation from its legitimate organs.

“We will not surrender our identity,” he said, adding that the movement would continue to participate peacefully and lawfully in the democratic process.

That position has created the central contradiction in the current dispute.

The OK Movement says it supports the NDC candidates but is not subordinate to the NDC organisationally.

The NDC, on the other hand, recognises the importance of support groups but insists that they cannot establish structures that replicate or compete with the party’s official campaign machinery.

The controversy became even more pronounced after the NDC began moving to establish its own Presidential Campaign Council.

In an indication that the party was determined to retain control of the official campaign structure, the NDC authorised Obi and Kwankwaso to nominate principal officials of its campaign council.

The positions reportedly include the Director-General, Deputy Director-General for the North, campaign spokesman and deputy, Head of New Media, Finance Director and Deputy Finance Director. The arrangement followed consultations involving Obi, Kwankwaso, Dickson and other party leaders.

This development creates a clear distinction between the two structures.

While the NDC’s proposed council is the official campaign machinery of the political party, the OK Movement says its own structures are designed to mobilise its members and supporters for the same ticket.

The question now is whether the two organisations can operate side by side without creating confusion over authority, messaging, mobilisation, fundraising, campaign events and the deployment of grassroots structures.

Obi’s latest intervention appears to have settled one part of that question from the candidate’s perspective.

By rejecting the OK Movement’s campaign council and backing Dickson’s position, the NDC presidential candidate has effectively affirmed the distinction between the official party campaign structure and support organisations. But his intervention may not, by itself, resolve the deeper disagreement over the organisational identity of the OK Movement.

A wider battle over political machinery

At the heart of the dispute is not simply the nomenclature of a campaign council. It is the question of who controls the political machinery that will mobilise supporters for the 2027 election.

The OK Movement claims to have built extensive structures across the country, including at state, local government and ward levels. It has also described itself as a political movement whose members may come from different political backgrounds but share support for the Obi-Kwankwaso project.

That model differs from the conventional structure of a political party.

The NDC’s concern, however, is that an independently controlled structure operating at the same levels as the party could eventually create competing centres of authority.

That concern explains why the party has repeatedly warned against parallel structures.

The dispute also comes against the backdrop of earlier tensions among the various movements associated with Obi and Kwankwaso.

The Obidient Movement, Kwankwasiyya and the OK Movement have distinct histories and organisational identities, although they converge around the current presidential ticket.

In August, 2026,National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement Worldwide, Dr Yunusa Tanko, dismissed claims that the Obidient Movement had collapsed into the OK Movement, saying several groups were working towards the same objective of supporting Obi and Kwankwaso.

That history of multiple support platforms adds another layer to the current debate over coordination and control.

Despite the increasingly sharp rhetoric, neither the NDC nor the OK Movement has announced a break over the dispute.

The OK Movement continues to declare support for Obi and Kwankwaso, while the NDC continues to recognise the importance of grassroots mobilisation by support organisations. That common ground could provide the basis for an accommodation.

But the language used by both sides shows that the disagreement has gone beyond a simple misunderstanding.

The NDC wants a clear distinction between the official political party and external organisations supporting its candidates.

The OK Movement wants the same distinction, but from the opposite direction: it wants its independence recognised even while campaigning for candidates of the NDC.

The difference is therefore not over whether the two sides support Obi and Kwankwaso. Both say they do. It is over who has authority over the structures through which that support will be organised.

Obi’s intervention has now introduced another critical element into the equation.

As the presidential candidate whose name is embedded in the identity of the OK Movement and whose candidacy is at the centre of its mobilisation, his rejection of the council could make it more difficult for the movement to present the structure as an authorised campaign vehicle for the joint ticket.

Yet the movement’s insistence on organisational independence suggests that the disagreement may not disappear immediately.

For the NDC, the challenge is to maintain party discipline and a coherent campaign structure without alienating grassroots organisations whose members and networks could be important to the electoral effort.

For the OK Movement, the challenge is to preserve its independence without creating the impression of competing with the political party on whose platform its preferred candidates are contesting.

As the 2027 election approaches, the dispute has therefore become a test of the NDC’s ability to manage the relationship between a formal political party and the increasingly influential movements built around its presidential candidates.

The immediate controversy may have been triggered by a 59-member campaign council. But beneath it lies a much larger question: can a political party and a powerful independent movement pursue the same presidential project while maintaining separate centres of organisational authority?

Obi’s answer appears to be that the NDC must remain the political party, while the OK Movement and other organisations should remain support groups.

The OK Movement’s answer, however, remains different: it will support the NDC ticket, but will not surrender its identity or structures.

How that contradiction is ultimately resolved could have significant implications for the organisation of the NDC’s 2027 presidential campaign.