The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) in Anambra State is divided. Its chairman, David Chukwudifu, says the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his associates have shut out the state’s elected executives.
Chukwudifu made the claims, he did not describe the matter as a disagreement. In his words, it is ill-treatment, because he and Obi have never sat down to talk.
Calls and Messages Unanswered
Obi joined the NDC on May 3, 2026. Chukwudifu held the party’s Anambra state congress the next day. They then attended the national convention in Abuja on May 9.
The chairman says he stayed in Abuja afterwards and tried to reach Obi. He claims he and his team sent WhatsApp messages and made calls. He says none was answered, and he still keeps some of the messages as proof.
He later went back to Anambra and waited for an appointment. None came, he says. Chukwudifu also claims Obi has not met any South-East chairman since joining.
A Parallel Group at Work
According to Chukwudifu, another group moved ahead without the state executive. He says its members sold nomination forms, screened aspirants and held a primary. One of those involved, he said, was Chris McCool Nwosu from Anambra South.
He was told that the group had followed Obi from the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to the NDC. Before the primary, he added, Ikem Uzoezie called a meeting of aspirants in Awka. Uzoezie is a former member of the Anambra State House of Assembly who served under APGA.
The chairman says the group has since run the party without the state, local government or ward structures. He claims its members worked from hotels, so his team opened an official party office. He also says people from the Labour Party and APGA now control the party’s affairs.
“I Don’t Know Him Personally”
Chukwudifu says he has never met Obi in person. He knows him only as a former Anambra governor.
He recalled an interview after he became chairman. In it, he quoted Obi’s well-known line about a Nigeria where the son of nobody can become somebody without knowing anybody. He says he was speaking about the philosophy, not claiming a personal bond.
He blames the sidelining on the way Obi and his associates operate. In his view, they used the same approach in the PDP, the Labour Party and the ADC.
Conflicting Accounts
The chairman says he has not spoken with Obi directly. He claims an ally of Obi called him on speaker phone. According to Chukwudifu, Obi said he would not work with the state executives and that the chairman could go to court if he wished.
Obi has given another account. On June 27, 2026, he met one of the party’s local government chairmen along the Benin-Asaba Road. Chukwudifu says Obi denied sidelining the executives at that meeting. He says Obi claimed to be unaware of the situation and told the chairman to speak with Senator Tony Nwoye.
Nwoye later said the man could not be the chairman in his local government, Chukwudifu said. Since then, he claims, Obi has not contacted that chairman or anyone from his camp.
