Peter Obi has joined his third party in less than three years. The move to the NDC is now official. But the piece of this story that matters most runs out on Sunday.

Obi and Kwankwaso received their NDC membership cards on Sunday at the party's national secretariat in Abuja. The formal defection from the ADC came after months of what both men described as orchestrated litigation inside successive parties. Obi's own words: he left the ADC for the same reason he left Labour. Legal challenges were being used to ensure he could not effectively participate.

The APC called him a political nomad. The Obidient Movement called it courageous.

Here is the number that actually matters right now: May 10. That is the INEC deadline for political parties to submit their membership registers ahead of the 2027 primaries window. The deadline was extended from April 21 after parties raised concerns about the earlier timeline. It will not be extended again. If the NDC cannot submit a credible, functional membership register by Sunday, the cascade of primaries, candidate selections, and nomination filings that follow cannot proceed properly.

This is why the defection happened when it did. Not because the NDC is necessarily the strongest platform. Because the calendar forced a decision. Five days to the deadline. The NDC existed at the margins of Nigerian politics before last weekend. It now needs to absorb two major political figures and their combined support bases. It needs to present INEC with a register that reflects all of that by Sunday night.

The Obidient Movement has already issued instructions to members to register with the NDC immediately. A digital platform has been opened. Ward-level registration is being pushed. This is the work that has to happen in the next five days.

Whether it can is a different question. Party membership registers in Nigeria are built in wards, not online portals. The ward structure of the NDC before last weekend was thin. What Obi and Kwankwaso brought with them is national profile and grassroots loyalty. Converting that loyalty into a register that INEC accepts is operational, not rhetorical.

His supporters know what they believe. Whether they're registered in the right ward by Sunday is what the NDC will find out.