The Labour Party has publicly cut ties with Abayomi Arabambi over three lawsuits seeking official records tied to the academic credentials of Peter Obi, insisting that the man behind the action is neither a member nor a chieftain of the party and cannot act in its name.
The party’s clarification, issued in Abuja on Monday, 14 September 2026 by its National Publicity Secretary, Ken Asogwa, followed a wave of reports describing Arabambi as a Labour Party chieftain when the suits surfaced. Asogwa said Arabambi was not a member of the party, could not institute the action as its representative, and that any attempt to present himself as an official could amount to impersonation. He added that the party’s lawyers were reviewing the matter and might petition law enforcement authorities.
Court filings place the suits at the Federal High Court in Abuja, brought under the Freedom of Information Act, 2011. The action against the West African Examinations Council, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2064/2026, and the one against the National Youth Service Corps, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2063/2026, were filed on 1 September. The suit against the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2144/2026, was filed on 9 September. All three were filed by a legal team led by Anderson Asemota.
A point the party spokesman stressed, and one the filings themselves make, is that Arabambi is not asking any court to declare Obi’s certificates genuine or forged. He is instead seeking orders compelling the three institutions to release existing records so that the status and particulars of the certificates can be independently established. In the WAEC suit, he wants a certified true copy of a certificate numbered SC042560, which he says was issued in June 1978. Court documents show WAEC rejected his request in a letter dated 11 August 2026, citing exemptions under Sections 14(1)(a) and 14(2)(a) and (b) of the Freedom of Information Act. Arabambi alleges that UNN and NYSC neither granted nor formally refused his requests. The claims have not been tested, and none of the three institutions had responded publicly at the time of writing.
The distancing is best understood against the Labour Party’s long leadership war, which is why the label attached to Arabambi carries weight. He served as the party’s acting National Publicity Secretary until around December 2022 and later emerged as a South West vice chairman in one of the factions that formed during the crisis. That crisis was settled in law over an eighteen month stretch. The Supreme Court ruled against Julius Abure’s claim to the national chairmanship on 4 April 2025. On 21 January 2026, the Federal High Court in Abuja, through Justice Peter Lifu, relied on that judgment to sack Abure and order the Independent National Electoral Commission to recognise the caretaker committee led by Senator Nenadi Usman. INEC listed the Usman leadership on its website days later, and the Court of Appeal affirmed the arrangement in April 2026.
It was under that recognised structure that Arabambi’s standing was formally severed. Asogwa said Arabambi was among 25 members suspended by the party’s National Executive Council on 18 March 2026 over what the party described as anti party activities, a decision he said the National Convention ratified on 28 April 2026. No organ of the party, the spokesman said, has since revisited or reversed it.
The subject of the suits has himself moved on from the platform. Obi, who polled 6,101,533 votes to finish third in the 2023 presidential election as the Labour Party candidate, left the party and, after a spell in the African Democratic Congress, emerged as the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress. The NDC ratified him as its flag bearer at a special convention in Abuja on 30 May 2026, where he appeared alongside the party’s national chairman, Seriake Dickson, and former Kano State governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso. That change of platform is the basis for one of Asogwa’s firmer points: the party would not comment on the substance of the case, he said, because Obi is no longer a Labour Party member.
The episode fits a wider pattern taking shape well ahead of the 2027 elections, in which the eligibility and paperwork of leading opposition figures are being contested in court rather than only on the campaign trail. Obi is not the only one. A separate suit filed by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the ADC, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1888/2026, asks the same Federal High Court to determine President Bola Tinubu’s qualification to contest in 2027 over the name on a National Youth Service Corps certificate submitted to INEC. That matter was adjourned to 28 September 2026 after a dispute over service of the court papers. Like the Arabambi suits, it turns on documents and remains untested in evidence.
For now, the confirmed facts are narrow. Three Freedom of Information suits have been filed against WAEC, NYSC and UNN over records connected to Obi. The Labour Party says the man who filed them does not act for it and was suspended earlier this year. WAEC has declined one request on statutory grounds, and the other institutions have not publicly responded. What the court will make of the requests, and whether the records sought exist in the form described, are questions the filings themselves leave open. The Federal High Court has yet to fix a hearing date for the three matters.