Obi will win with or without Igbos
The debate over Peter Obi’s 2027 presidential ambition has taken another turn, with Isaac Fayose declaring that the former Anambra State governor can win the presidency regardless of whether he receives the support of the Igbo electorate.
Fayose, younger brother of former Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, made the claim in a video shared on Facebook on Wednesday.
His comments come against the backdrop of increasingly divergent positions among prominent Igbo political figures over Obi’s ambition.
Minister of Works David Umahi has repeatedly dismissed the argument that 2027 represents an “Igbo turn,” insisting that it is currently President Bola Tinubu’s turn. Umahi has also said Obi does not pose a serious threat to Tinubu and the APC.
In Anambra, Governor Chukwuma Soludo has also been involved in a sustained political and policy dispute with his predecessor, particularly over Obi’s record in office and claims concerning the state’s finances.
Those positions have, however, attracted pushback from other voices within the South-East. Former South-East Tinubu campaign spokesman Denge Josef Onoh recently warned that attacks on Obi could weaken the region’s influence at the national level.
Against that backdrop, Fayose’s intervention was unusually direct.
He argued that, apart from the late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, no Igbo political figure in the past four decades has achieved the level of political mobilisation he attributes to Obi.
Fayose further insisted that Obi’s prospects should not be measured solely by whether every Igbo voter backs him.
His position is significant because it shifts the argument from whether Obi has unanimous support in the South-East to the larger question of whether his political base has become sufficiently national to determine his chances in 2027.
The reality, however, is that the South-East itself remains politically divided, with figures such as Umahi and Soludo taking positions substantially different from those of Obi’s supporters.
Yet Obi’s political relevance is difficult to dismiss. He won all five South-East states in the 2023 presidential election and has continued to maintain a national political profile ahead of 2027.
Fayose’s conclusion was emphatic: Obi, he believes, can win “with or without” the support of the Igbos.
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Whether that confidence translates into victory in 2027 will ultimately be decided not by Fayose, Umahi, Soludo or Obi’s supporters, but by Nigerian voters across the country.
Isaac Fayose’s prediction about the outcome of the 2027 presidential election is a political opinion, not an established fact. The positions attributed to David Umahi, Chukwuma Soludo and other political actors are based on their publicly reported statements.
Source: Daily Post Nigeria, Channels Television and other referenced reports.
