APC says Peter Obi left on his own, nobody forced him — and they have a point

APC national chairman Nentawe Yilwatda was on Channels TV this Tuesday and he said something that made me pause. He flatly denied that APC forced Peter Obi out of Labour Party or ADC or any other party. His question was sharp — who chased him from PDP, who chased him from Labour, who chased him from ADC, who chased him to NDC? The man listed all the parties Obi has passed through like he was reading a curriculum vitae.

Look, I am not a fan of APC and I will drag them on policy failures any day. But on this specific point, Yilwatda is not wrong. Peter Obi has been moving parties since 2007 — PDP to APGA to PDP to LP to ADC to NDC. At what point does a pattern stop being a conspiracy and start being a habit? The APC chairman also said many of the people defecting from APC are just chasing tickets, not ideology. That one is true too.

But here is the thing — even if APC did not push Obi out, does that change the fact that opposition parties in Nigeria are in shambles? Does it matter who caused the crisis when the result is the same — no strong alternative for 2027? The question we should be asking is not whether APC chased Obi, but why our opposition parties keep collapsing from within. Who benefits when there is no credible challenger?