A fresh wave of controversy has hit the Obidient Movement as one of its founding figures, Marcel Ngogbehei, has openly accused the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, of attempting to control a structure he “did not create and does not fund.”
Ngogbehei, the founding Chairman of the Coalition for Peter Obi (CPO), publicly criticised the movement’s current leadership direction in an opinion piece titled “You Don’t Control What You Can’t Fund,” where he addressed the recent resignation of prominent Obidient mobiliser, Morris Monye, who cited “harassment, lack of support and abandonment.”
According to Ngogbehei, Monye’s frustrations reflect deeper issues plaguing the movement, including a lack of financial support, the absence of clear leadership, and internal dissatisfaction with Obi’s unilateral appointments of movement coordinators.
Ngogbehei argued that the movement, which emerged ahead of the 2023 elections, was built by independent support groups before Obi’s formal defection to the Labour Party.
He said: “In May 2022, over a dozen independent support groups came together under the Coalition for Peter Obi,” he wrote, noting that major mobilisation efforts, including the One Million Man March and the first Obidient Leadership Summit, were funded entirely by volunteers.
“Peter Obi did not donate a kobo to that historic effort,” he said, insisting that early rallies, logistics and nationwide mobilisations were powered by ordinary Nigerians who believed in a new political alternative.
He added that even the Global Obidient March in February 2023, which drew huge crowds across Nigeria and the diaspora, was executed with no central funding. Many volunteers, he said, are still in debt from donations made in anticipation of future reimbursements that never came.
Ngogbehei criticised Obi’s decision in 2024 to appoint new leaders for the movement without consulting foundational groups. Among those appointments was Dr Yunusa Tanko, whose selection he described as unrepresentative.
“The Obidient Movement remains underfunded, leaderless in function, and driven by the same unpaid volunteers who carried it on their backs from the beginning,” he wrote.
He further alleged a lack of transparency around donations made in the movement’s name, which he said are being managed privately by Obi’s allies.
Though he clarified that he holds no personal grudge against Obi, Ngogbehei insisted that the movement must free itself from the control of individuals and return to a grassroots-led, transparent structure.
Among his recommendations are a return to democratic, bottom-up leadership selection, greater transparency in donation management, establishment of core values beyond electoral seasons and separation of the movement’s identity from any one political figure
“Movements that survive are people-owned, people-funded, and people-led,” he said, warning that the Obidient Movement is “wounded” but not beyond recovery. You don’t control what you can’t fund”
Ngogbehei’s article reflects growing tensions within the movement following Monye’s resignation and signals a widening rift over leadership legitimacy, funding, and the future of a political force that once electrified Nigeria’s youth.
He concluded that while the movement has been “abandoned by those who should have lifted it,” it is not too late to reclaim its founding ideals. You can’t kill what you didn’t create,” he wrote.
