Presidential candidate of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has thrown down a striking challenge to his former spokesperson-turned-political-rival, Kenneth Okonkwo, declaring that he would walk away from the 2027 presidential race entirely if Okonkwo can produce evidence proving him unfit for office.
The former Anambra State governor pledged in a candid interview with media entrepreneur Chude Jideonwo on the talk show #WithChude, weeks after filing an ₦8 billion defamation suit against Okonkwo, who now serves as spokesman for the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
Obi used the interview to push back forcefully against suggestions that the lawsuit was designed to muzzle a critic. Instead, he framed it as an invitation daring Okonkwo to lay every piece of alleged incriminating information on the table.
“I want Kenneth Okonkwo to bring out all the ‘hidden things’ that he has on me,” Obi said. “If I am not qualified after his revelation, then I’ll stop running for the election.”
According to Obi, “Everything. All that evidence he said you had. All the evidence, all those things that he was hiding from me, I want him to put it on the table so that I can now be able to say, based on this, I cannot continue.” Pressed on whether he would drop the suit once such evidence emerged, Obi replied simply, “That’s it.”
Obi and Okonkwo were once close political allies. Okonkwo served as Obi’s spokesperson during their time together in the Labour Party, the platform on which Obi ran as the party’s 2023 presidential candidate.
Both men later moved from the Labour Party to the ADC ahead of the 2027 general elections, before Obi subsequently left the ADC for the NDC, where he emerged as that party’s 2027 presidential flag bearer.
That departure appears to have been the breaking point. Obi’s exit from the ADC reportedly unsettled Okonkwo, who had by then become a member of the party’s National Working Committee, and the former spokesperson has since positioned himself as one of Obi’s most vocal critics.
The dispute escalated in early June, when Okonkwo, appearing on a Channels Television program, alleged that Obi and the Southeast caucus of the NDC had demanded a ₦10 million bribe from House of Representatives aspirants within the party in exchange for securing their tickets.
Okonkwo specifically claimed that an NDC House of Representatives aspirant from Anambra State, Obunike Ohaegbu, had sent him a message alleging that Obi had defrauded him.
Okonkwo further claimed Obi had stayed at a hotel in Abuja and personally compiled a list of the NDC’s candidates for various constituencies, arguing that a vote for the NDC amounted to a vote for criminality.
Ohaegbu himself has publicly denied ever making those allegations. Appearing on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily, he insisted, “I am telling you that Peter Obi never told me to pay N10 million. I never told Kenneth Okonkwo that Peter Obi, in any way, told me to pay N10 million,” adding that he never accused the NDC’s Southeast caucus of bribery.
Obi issued a pre-action notice on 9 June, giving Okonkwo seven days to withdraw the allegations, pay ₦5 billion in compensation, and issue a public apology. Okonkwo, through his lawyer, responded in a letter dated 16 June stating he stood by his comments and would not retract them.
With no retraction forthcoming, Obi’s legal team filed the defamation suit at the Onitsha Judicial Division of the Anambra State High Court, naming Okonkwo as sole defendant in a case marked 0/229/26. The statement of claim describes Okonkwo’s televised allegations, along with his response to the pre-action letter, as “false, malicious, baseless, and defamatory.”
The claim seeks ₦5 billion in general damages for harm to Obi’s “reputation, character, integrity, public image, political standing, and goodwill”; a further ₦2 billion in aggravated damages over what Obi’s team describes as the “manner, breadth, persistence, and repetition” of the publications; and ₦1 billion in exemplary damages for Okonkwo’s alleged continued amplification of the claims even after receiving the pre-action notice.
Altogether, the suit seeks roughly ₦8 billion in damages, alongside a public retraction and a perpetual injunction barring Okonkwo from repeating the allegations.
Getting the suit served, however, has proven difficult. After initial attempts at personal service failed, the court granted Obi’s legal team leave to serve Okonkwo by substituted means, permitting the writ and related documents to be pasted at his last known residential address in Nsukka, Enugu State, or delivered to any adult found there.
Okonkwo, for his part, has publicly questioned the legitimacy of that process. Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, he denied ever receiving court papers, saying, “I always hear whatever they are doing from social media because they are just presidential candidate social media uncouth followers.
So, I heard it on social media, and I am sure whenever I receive it, I’ll let you know.” He also dismissed the substituted-service application, arguing that such a route legally requires an affidavit affirming personal service had genuinely been attempted and failed.
Okonkwo has separately characterized the entire suit as an attempt to silence him and has insisted he will not retract his earlier statements.
In his conversation with Jideonwo, Obi rejected the framing that the lawsuit was an attack on free expression, insisting its purpose was narrow: to force Okonkwo to back up claims he has made repeatedly.
“Kenneth Okonkwo said, as my spokesperson, he had so many hidden things that if he were provoked or sued, he would bring them out. And that’s the only thing I’m suing him for to bring those things out,” Obi said, adding that Okonkwo now “holds the key” to whatever information might disqualify him in the eyes of the public.
Obi argued that the stakes go beyond his own candidacy, suggesting Nigerians are entitled to scrutinize the character and record of anyone seeking the presidency before casting their votes.
The exchange comes as political positioning ahead of the 2027 general elections intensifies, with Obi’s NDC, Atiku’s ADC, and the ruling party all jostling for advantage more than a year before Nigerians head to the polls.
Whether Okonkwo will take up Obi’s public dare or whether the matter will instead play out solely in the Anambra State High Court remains to be seen.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
At the heart of this dispute is a simple but consequential dare: Peter Obi says if Kenneth Okonkwo can prove with real evidence that he’s unfit for the presidency, he’ll withdraw from the 2027 race entirely.
Everything else—the ₦8 billion lawsuit, the failed court service, and the public sparring is really just pressure to get Okonkwo to put up the “hidden things” he’s long claimed to have.
Until that evidence actually surfaces, the allegations remain unproven claims from a bitter former ally, and Ohaegbu, the man at the center of the bribery claim, has already denied Okonkwo’s version of events.
