Analysis: The Real Battle Inside NDC May Be Bigger Than Politics

By Olumide Bajulaiye

The biggest headache facing the leadership of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) at the moment may not be the opposition outside the party, but the growing friction with the Obi-Kwankwaso (OK) Movement within its own political family.

What began as a disagreement over organisational authority has increasingly exposed a deeper question: who controls the political machinery — and potentially the resources — of the 2027 project?

The immediate trigger was the OK Movement’s unveiling of a 59-member Presidential Campaign Council. The NDC promptly dissociated itself from the structure, insisting that only the party leadership and its National Working Committee could constitute and announce a presidential campaign council.

The OK Movement, however, refused to back down. Its National Secretary, Saadatu Sani, maintained that the movement recognised the constitutional role of political parties but remained an independent organisation with its own leadership and internal processes. The group also said it would continue campaigning for Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso without requiring the “personal validation” of any individual in the NDC.

That is where the matter becomes more interesting. The money question

The organisational argument may only be the visible layer of the dispute. There is a growing public debate over whether the real underlying issue is control of campaign donations and political fundraising.

A recent analysis by TheCable’s Bayo Olupohunda explicitly suggested that the controversy could involve competition over funds expected to flow from donations to the OK Movement, while noting that this remains an interpretation rather than an established fact.

This is important because modern political campaigns are not sustained by slogans alone. They require money for mobilisation, communications, logistics, media, events, grassroots structures and election-day operations.

So, if one organisation builds an independent nationwide mobilisation structure and simultaneously wants to maintain control over its own organisational processes, the question of who raises, receives, administers and accounts for campaign money inevitably becomes significant.

The NDC’s position is straightforward: candidates are contesting under the party’s platform and cannot operate as independent political entities. The OK Movement’s position is equally clear: supporting the NDC candidates does not make it a subordinate structure of the party.

That clash of principles is what makes the funding question politically sensitive.
The Labour Party experience is an obvious reference point.

There is also a useful reference to the Labour Party experience surrounding Peter Obi and the Obidient movement before and during the 2023 election.

The political lesson from that period was that a powerful candidate-support movement can develop a political identity, organisational capacity and fundraising culture that do not always fit neatly into the formal structures of the party on whose platform the candidate is contesting.

The current NDC situation therefore raises a familiar structural question: is the party merely the legal electoral vehicle, or does it retain control over the wider campaign architecture surrounding its presidential ticket?

That question was already visible in the NDC’s repeated insistence that the party existed before Obi and that candidates and their supporters must respect the party hierarchy. The current PCC dispute has simply brought the issue into sharper focus.

Why the OK Movement matters

The OK Movement is not presenting itself as a temporary campaign committee. It says it has built a nationwide grassroots structure and describes itself as a long-term political organisation. It has also claimed an internal database of about 2.5 million registered members and coordinators.

Whether that membership figure can be independently verified is another matter, but the claim itself demonstrates the scale of political influence the movement believes it has built.
That creates an unusual situation.

The NDC possesses the formal party structure and electoral platform. The OK Movement claims an independent grassroots network around the presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

Both sides therefore possess something the other needs.

The candidates need the party platform to contest the election. The party, in turn, needs the support base surrounding its presidential ticket to maximise mobilisation.

The emerging fault line

This is why describing the dispute simply as a quarrel over a campaign council may underestimate what is happening.
It is increasingly a contest over authority, ownership, organisational independence and financial control.

The NDC appears determined to prevent support groups from becoming parallel structures capable of operating outside party supervision. The OK Movement, on the other hand, appears determined to preserve its independence and demonstrate that supporting a candidate does not automatically place its organisation under the command of the party hierarchy.

And once money enters that equation, the stakes become even higher.
The most important question going forward may therefore not be who is louder in the argument, but whether the NDC and the OK Movement can establish clear rules on campaign structures, fundraising, expenditure, accountability and the relationship between the party and independent support organisations.
Until those questions are settled, the PCC controversy is unlikely to be the last confrontation.

Indeed, the battle may have only just begun — and the argument over who controls the campaign could ultimately prove just as consequential as the campaign itself.

Olumide Bajulaiye is the Publisher, Daily Dispatch Newspaper.