Credible sources from the Abia State Chapter of the Labour Party (LP) reveal that the governor, Alex Otti and the LP structures in the state will soon defect to the coalition African Democratic Congress (ADC) in solidarity with Peter Obi
By Jude Nzennaya, Port Harcourt
Governor Alex Otti of Abia State is said to have concluded arrangements to join Peter Obi in the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Tentacle gathered. The medium gathered reliably that in the nearest future, governor Otti will be defecting to the ADC alongside all Labour Party (LP) structures in the state in preparation for the 2027 general election. The LP presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Obi, had ended the year 2025 by formalizing his membership of the ADC, fueling speculation that the only LP governor, Otti, might tow the same line. Obi joined the opposition leaders in July 2025 to present the ADC to the Nigerian electorate as a platform to challenge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election.
While announcing his final departure from the ailing and troubled LP to the ADC, Obi had said, “We are ending this year with the hope that in 2026, we will begin a journey of rescue of the country. We are saying that those who are planning to rig elections in Nigeria come 2027, we will resist it by every means lawful and legitimate”.
Just last week, the Esther Nenadi Usman-led LP faction in Rivers State officially collapsed its structures into the ADC with a vow to queue behind Obi in the presidential contest of 2027. The Chairman of the LP in Rivers State, Gogo Wellington, while addressing the media during the occasion, urged the LP and Obi-dient members in the 23 Local Government Areas of the state to channel all their support to Obi.
Some Ward Chairmen of the LP in Obingwa, Osisioma, Isialangwa and Aba local councils who volunteered comments on the imminence of Otti and Abia LP joining the ADC, stressed that already, all arrangements have been concluded for the LP in the state to collapse into the ADC.
“I’m a Ward Chairman of the Labour Party, and I can tell you that all Ward Chairmen in the state have been directed to prepare for the movement into the ADC. Our leader is governor Otti, and whichever party he is joining, he will carry the LP structures along.
“I can also assure you that very, very soon, governor Otti will move to the ADC to join Peter Obi, and he will carry all of us along. This is not a guess work, I’m telling you what will happen within the first quarter of 2026”, one of the leaders of the LP told Tentacle in Aba.
Otti’s impending defection to the ADC is coming on the heels of the controversies surrounding his performance and his second term ambition. Recently, a former governor of Abia State, Senator Orji Uzo Kalu, had come hard on governor Otti to the effect that the incumbent governor was performing below average, and therefore, deserved not to be elected into office a second time come 2027. Senator Kalu had alleged that Otti was busy painting the roads he (Kalu) constructed instead of building new ones.
Senator Kalu further said Otti would become a one-term governor because he would work against his reelection in 2027.
But since the controversy began to rage over Otti’s performance, many indigenes of Abia State have lent their voices in defence of the governor. These insisted that governor Otti had outperformed all his predecessors since 1999, including Senator Kalu and Okezie Ikpeazu who have remained frontline critics of the sitting governor.
When contacted to react to the issue of Otti joining the ADC, Dr Ebere Uzoukwa, the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to Otti on Public Affairs, denied knowledge of his principal’s plans to defect to the coalition opposition party. Uzoukwa said Otti was still a member of the LP as at the time of filing this report. “Nothing like that. Governor Otti is still a member of the Labour Party”, Dr Uzoukwa told Tentacle.
