2027 Election: Why Peter Obi Isn’t the Best Choice in the South-East, Minister Explains

Nigeria's Minister of Works has made a bold public assessment of Peter Obi's standing within South-East politicsUmahi pointed to a step Obi allegedly skipped before his 2023 presidential bid that he says cannot be ignoredThe minister also challenged a widely held belief about which South-East state has the strongest claim to the presidencyPAY ATTENTION: Mark YEN.com.gh as a preferred source, and our content will appear higher in your Google feed!

Nigeria's Minister of Works, David Umahi, has publicly declared that Peter Obi does not represent the strongest presidential prospect the South-East has to offer, dismissing what he described as an inflated perception of the Labour Party's 2023 candidate within the region.

Speaking on ARISE News on Friday, 23 October 2026, Umahi was direct in his assessment. "Peter Obi is not the best of our finest in the South East. He's not the best; he can never be the best," he said.

Nigeria’s Minister for Works, David Umahi, has opened up on why he believes Peter Obi is not the best presidential candidate. Source: Getty Images

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At the heart of Umahi's criticism is what he sees as Obi's failure to consult governors and key political figures in the region before launching his 2023 presidential campaign.

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The former Ebonyi State governor argued that no aspirant can genuinely claim to represent the South-East without first securing the backing of its established political leadership.

He went further to argue that the South-East has other capable figures who could pursue the presidency, and that Obi's showing in 2023 does not automatically position him as the frontrunner for 2027.

Umahi also pushed back against the assumption that Anambra State holds a special claim to producing the region's first president.

While he acknowledged that Nigeria's founding President, Nnamdi Azikiwe, was from the area that now forms Anambra, he argued that Ebonyi, Enugu, Abia, and Imo must also be included in any honest conversation about zoning the presidency to the South-East.

On the question of South-East politicians aligning with President Bola Tinubu ahead of 2027, Umahi defended their position, arguing that securing the presidency for the region requires careful coalition-building across Nigeria's geopolitical zones, not blind loyalty to a single candidate.

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His remarks, however, did not go unchallenged. The Association of Ebonyi Indigenes Socio-Cultural in the Diaspora condemned his comments as divisive, accusing him of attacking Obi and others for simply exercising their constitutional right to seek office.

The group threatened legal action if Umahi failed to retract his statements within 72 hours, and called on President Tinubu to step in.

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Jessie Ola-Morris (Human Interest Editor) Jessie Ola-Morris is a Human Interest editor at YEN.com.gh. She has over three years of experience in journalism. She graduated from the Ghana Institute of Journalism in 2022 with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies. Her journalism career started with myjoyonline.com, a subsidiary of The Multimedia Group Limited, where she worked as a writer. Jessie also previously served as a multimedia journalist for The Independent Ghana. In 2024, Jessie completed Google News Initiative News Lab courses in Advanced Digital Reporting and Fighting Misinformation. Email: jessie.ola-morris@yen.com.gh