There is something revealing about the latest Peter Obi–Soludo dispute: a question that should ordinarily be settled within a family or parish has become another front in a wider political argument.

The Catholic rules on baptismal sponsorship are reasonably precise. The more difficult question is not what canon law says, but what actually happened in the particular baptisms involving the two families. On that point, the public record currently consists of competing accounts rather than a disclosed church record.

Former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, now the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, said on September 25, 2026, while speaking at the Nigerian Guild of Editors' conference in Enugu, that he and his wife are godparents to Governor Chukwuma Soludo's children.

The remark came during a period of renewed disagreement between Obi and Soludo over claims concerning Anambra State's debts and Obi's record as governor.

The Soludo family subsequently rejected Obi's description of the relationship.

Nonye Soludo, through her media aide Daniel Ezeigwe, said Peter Obi is not a godfather to any of the couple's children. The family's account is that Nonye Soludo is the confirmation godmother to one of Obi's daughters, while Margaret Obi, Peter Obi's wife, is the baptismal godmother to one of the Soludos' daughters.

The latest statement from Ezeigwe goes further, arguing that some supporters of Obi are incorrectly interpreting Catholic canon law to support his description of the relationship.

The canon-law question is clearer than the political dispute

On the narrow question of Catholic baptismal sponsorship, the Vatican's Code of Canon Law provides a fairly clear framework.

Canon 873 says a baptism may have one male sponsor, one female sponsor, or one of each. Canon 874 states that a sponsor must be formally designated by the person being baptised, the parents or the person acting in their place, or, in specified circumstances, the pastor or minister. Canon 877 further provides that the sponsors' names are to be recorded in the baptismal register.

That matters because marriage to a sponsor does not, by itself, make the spouse another canonical sponsor.

In other words, if Margaret Obi was formally recorded as the baptismal sponsor of a Soludo child, Peter Obi would not automatically acquire the same canonical role simply because he is her husband.

That part of the Soludo aide's argument is supported by the Church's written rules.

But there is an important limit to what the canon law can establish from outside the parish.
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The rules tell us how sponsorship is designated and recorded. They do not tell the public who was actually entered into the baptismal register for the children at the centre of this dispute.

The dispute is therefore less about whether Catholic canon law recognises sponsors and more about the meaning of the relationship the two families have described.

Obi's original statement portrayed the families as sufficiently close that he and his wife could be described as godparents to Soludo's children.

The Soludo family's response draws a sharper distinction between the two spouses.

According to that account, the relationship exists, but the canonical roles belong to particular individuals: Nonye Soludo is a confirmation godmother to an Obi daughter, while Margaret Obi is a baptismal godmother to a Soludo daughter. The family specifically rejects Peter Obi as a godfather to their children.

These accounts are not necessarily describing the same thing in exactly the same terminology.

That is why the distinction between a social description of a family relationship and a formal baptismal role under Catholic law matters.

Someone may use “godparent” in a broader social sense. The Church, however, has a formal meaning for the sponsor recorded at baptism.

The timing makes the dispute difficult to separate from politics.

Obi and Soludo are not simply two people discussing an old family connection. Obi is a presidential candidate ahead of the 2027 election, while Soludo is the sitting governor of Anambra. Their relationship has also become increasingly contentious over the state's finances.

Premium Times reported that the godparent claim came amid an ongoing dispute over debts attributed to previous administrations in Anambra. The Soludo administration has cited loan records in arguing that obligations remained from previous governments, while Obi has maintained that he left the state without debt and with substantial savings.

Against that background, even an apparently personal statement can acquire political significance.

The risk is that a question about family relationships becomes another proxy argument over which politician's account should be believed.

The Obi-side interpretation places emphasis on the closeness of the two families. Obi said he and his wife were godparents and used the relationship to illustrate that political disagreements had not necessarily destroyed their personal connection.

The Soludo family's interpretation accepts a relationship between the families but disputes the specific description of Peter Obi as a godfather. It says the relevant baptismal relationship belongs to Margaret Obi, not her husband.

There is an important point of agreement beneath the disagreement: neither side appears to be claiming that the two families have no historical connection.

The disagreement is over what that connection should be called and which individuals formally held particular religious roles.

That is a much narrower dispute than the political rhetoric surrounding it might suggest.

The danger of turning canon law into political ammunition

The current argument also illustrates why religious rules can become difficult subjects when introduced into political disputes.

Canon law is not simply a collection of everyday meanings for words such as “godfather” or “godmother.” In the context of baptism, the Church establishes a formal role, eligibility requirements and record-keeping obligations.

That means political supporters on either side should be careful about presenting personal interpretations as definitive statements of Church teaching.

At the same time, the existence of a precise canon does not independently prove which person was registered as sponsor in a particular baptism.

Both points can be true simultaneously.

The Church's rule can be clear while the underlying factual dispute remains unresolved publicly.

For politics, the episode shows how easily personal history can become part of a politician's public narrative.
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For the wider public, however, there is a more basic lesson: a claim about a private relationship should not automatically be treated as established fact simply because it comes from a prominent political figure — nor should a political rebuttal be treated as independently proven without documentary evidence.

The most authoritative evidence on the narrow baptismal question would ordinarily be the relevant ecclesiastical record, subject to the Church's privacy and access rules.

Without that evidence being made public, outsiders are largely left comparing statements from the people involved.

Several questions remain open.

Was Peter Obi formally recorded as a baptismal sponsor for any of Soludo's children?

Was Margaret Obi formally recorded as sponsor for the child identified by the Soludo family?

Was Obi using “godparent” in the strict canonical sense or as a broader description of the relationship between the families?

And, most importantly, is there a publicly accessible documentary record that can settle the disagreement without relying on competing political narratives?

The available reporting does not answer all of those questions.

For now, the dispute is likely to remain primarily a matter of competing public statements unless the relevant factual record is clarified.

What can already be established is narrower: Catholic canon law distinguishes formal baptismal sponsorship from a person's marriage or broader social relationship with a family.

What cannot yet be established from the public evidence is whether Peter Obi was actually recorded as a baptismal sponsor for any Soludo child.

Ultimately, that distinction is the most important one in this episode. The politics may continue, but canon law does not become more flexible because two prominent politicians disagree about what their family relationship should be called.