Peter Obi 2027 Campaign Launch: Challenges Tinubu, Others To Defend Records
Presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, formally launched his 2027 presidential campaign on Friday, August 21, 2026, challenging President Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and other rivals seeking the country’s leadership to publicly defend their records rather than hide behind proxies and surrogates.
Obi made the call during a press conference at his residence in Onitsha, Anambra State, marking the commencement of the 2027 presidential and National Assembly campaigns. Speaking alongside his running mate, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, he insisted that every candidate seeking the presidency must be willing to face Nigerians directly and subject their credentials, records and policy proposals to open public scrutiny. “No candidate should hide behind the high walls of power, send proxies or surrogates to the hustings, and expect Nigerians to entrust them with the leadership of the country,” Obi said. “Every candidate must be willing to present their credentials, defend their records, and subject their vision to open scrutiny.”
The NDC candidate described the 2027 election as a critical moment for voters to weigh the records, ideas and proposals of all candidates against what he called “grave economic and security challenges” confronting the country. His central message, he said, was that “Nigeria can work, and Nigeria must work.” He listed poverty, food insecurity, internal displacement, unemployment, poor infrastructure, unreliable electricity, insecurity and the high cost of doing business as the most pressing problems facing the nation, while maintaining that Nigeria still possessed the people, resources, talent and market capacity needed to build a strong economy.
On the economy, Obi said his administration would work to move Nigeria away from being heavily consumption-driven towards a model built on production, investment, enterprise and human-capital development. He also laid out a regional development approach, arguing that the North-West could grow through expanded agriculture, livestock, irrigation and agro-processing, while the North-East should focus on reconstruction, education and enterprise growth, with every region encouraged to exploit its own comparative advantages.
Obi further argued that effective leadership requires physical presence and empathy, stressing that no one could lead the country from a distance without standing with communities devastated by banditry, criminality, terrorism and flooding. “True leadership requires presence and empathy,” he said, committing that he and Kwankwaso would personally take their campaign message directly to Nigerians across the country rather than delegating the process to representatives. “We will answer the questions, defend our record and character, and present our plan to rebuild Nigeria,” he added.
He urged Nigerians to scrutinise all candidates, press them with hard questions, and demand evidence for every campaign promise made, while calling for an issue-based campaign devoid of ethnic or religious divisions. “Our campaign will focus on the urgent concerns of Nigerians and not on ethnicity or religion,” Obi said, adding that all parties should conduct their campaigns free of hatred and violence, with a shared commitment to respecting the final outcome of the election.
Obi’s campaign launch comes against the backdrop of a broader push for transparency ahead of 2027, with the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) recently challenging all 19 INEC-cleared presidential candidates, including Tinubu, Atiku and Obi himself, to publicly disclose their assets, liabilities and the legitimate sources of their wealth. As of the time of filing, neither the Presidency nor the campaign organisations of Tinubu or Atiku had issued a direct response to Obi’s challenge, though the remarks add to the intensifying rhetoric as all major camps formally begin their campaigns for the 2027 general election.
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