Commentators are running out of adjectives to describe the emptying of Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, his predecessor, Ifeanyi Okowa, and the entire Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) family – root and branch – into the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Their erstwhile party hastily summoned a meeting of its National Working Committee (NWC) to make sense of the punch it had just taken in its gut. Across the country the political firmament is reeling.
Even the local APC appeared just as stunned by its sudden good fortune – the unexpected influx of yesterday’s foes, now turned overnight comrade-in-arms. In one move, aspirations and ambitions were shredded.
Take the case of former Deputy Senate President and the party governorship candidate at the 2023 election, Ovie Omo-Agege. He was believed to be shaping for another run in two years and loved to sign off his press statements as ‘APC Leader, Delta State.’
Vice President Kashim Shettima who led the ruling party’s team to receive the new entrants, pronounced Oborevwori the state party leader at the defection ceremony in Asaba. “Now that you have come, we are all co-owners because according to the constitution of the party, the governor of the party is the leader of the party in the state. This is now as much as your party as it is ours,” he said.
In one unscripted moment, uncontrollable political forces knocked Omo-Agege off his perch and handed his ‘title’ to another. I doubt he was particularly amused. But the options open to him are limited: lick his wounds, accept the new reality or consider his future within the ruling party. Unfortunately for him all the structures that matter have united under the APC umbrella in Delta. Pulling in a different direction hardly makes sense at the moment.
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On the national scale, the impact of the defections on the opposition is both numerical and psychological. Leading lights like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, have repeatedly argued that their best chance against President Bola Tinubu was to combine resources in one mega platform. Their appeals to the PDP have been rebuffed by the party’s governors. What they’ve tried to sell as an unstoppable coalition now looks like a giant balloon pierced by a sharp object.
The alliance was supposed to be a magnet for all those unhappy with the president and his APC government. You would, therefore, expect a haemorrhage of support from the ruling party based on all the surrounding negativity. Strangely, the defection traffic has been going the wrong way. Those heading to APC are breaking out of the closet by the day; the ones purportedly rallying behind Atiku’s special purpose vehicle remain a mystery.
As of April 23, and without a ballot being cast in anger, APC now controls 22 governorships – up from 21. PDP is down to 11, while the likes of the Labour Party (LP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) all have one apiece.
Delta is no ordinary PDP state – it’s a dyed-in-the-wool one which the party has held effortlessly since 1999. To lose it is akin to the heart being ripped out of the organisation or, more appropriately in this case, the organ being handed out by a willing donor.
This was the state that produced Atiku’s running mate at the 2023 elections. Less than two years after he has now spoken of his regret accepting the nomination. He told Arise TV: “Even when we were campaigning, I realised our people were not interested in having another northerner come into power. But the decision had already been taken at the federal level by the party (PDP) and I had been nominated. Still, in retrospect, I now believe I should have gone with the will of my people.”
His selection destroyed Atiku’s relationship with former Rivers State Governor turned Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, as well as upended PDP presidential challenge. The same man has now turned around to repudiate the very basis on which the ex-VP ran.
Okowa has confirmed what many have argued that PDP shot itself in the foot by collaborating with its flagbearer to stomp on its long-held zoning principle.
The unique nature of the Delta defections cannot be overemphasised. We’ve seen governors decamp without their deputies following; we have witnessed ex-governors like El-Rufai quit in a huff, only to be accompanied by a handful of near-anonymous lightweights. Never has an entire political structure – from local government to governor, state legislators to federal representatives – uproot from one place to another in one fell swoop.
It’s a psychological blow that will shape the direction of politics over the next two years – especially with dark whisperings suggesting the opposition could still lose a couple of governors to the ruling party.
While APC apparatchik are crowing and bragging about the 2027 polls being in the bag, the opposition have been struggling to spin the defections as inconsequential. We’ve been reminded of how former LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, won millions of votes without a governor in his camp two years ago.
Others have sneered that governors have only one vote like other citizens. That may be factually correct, but they have the ability to influence hundreds of thousands of voters given the resources they control. Atiku picked Okowa as much as for his personal qualities as for the resources he would bring to the table. This last factor effectively neutralised whatever advantage Wike enjoyed in this area.
We are now being told governors don’t matter, but anyone who understands Nigerian politics knows it was the defection of five PDP governors that transformed a feeble APC in 2014 into the credible challenger that broke PDP’s hegemony.
Those seeking to use Obi’s performance to downplay the defections need to be reminded of the factors at play back then. So strong was the ethnic card two years ago that governors from other parties who should have opposed him, encouraged their supporters to engage in tactical voting across the Southeast: vote LP for president, our candidate for governor.
It was the reason the presidential election results were so different from the gubernatorial ones in the zone. Obi scored well over 70% of votes cast in several states but two weeks later his LP platform only won the governorship in Abia.
Today, APC has 22 governors to PDP’s 11. These numbers have been held up as signalling the demise of democracy and the onset of the one-party state. But those singing this dirge forget that historically there have been worse statistics.
In 2003, PDP controlled 27 states, the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) eight and Alliance for Democracy (AD) one. At the height of its powers in 2007, it had 31 governors, ANPP 3, Action Congress (AC) and APGA one each. The party also had 85 out of 109 senators, 260 out of 360 members of the House of Representatives. Yet, none of today’s mourners suggested back then that democracy was endangered.
The 2023 election broke certain myths with the triumph of the same faith ticket. But it also reinforced the reality that no party can win the presidency without a broad base across the zones. The ongoing realignments are strengthening APC in the South-South and Southeast which PDP once took for granted as its impregnable fortresses. The ruling party is already formidable across the North-Central zone and can build on its advantages.
The emerging political map looks dire for the opposition coalition as the only thing it’s feeding on presently is frustration among a section of the political elite in the Northwest and Northeast. Its messaging on the state of the economy doesn’t seem to be resonating as to pry people away from the ruling party.
Even if they were to sweep every available vote in the two far North zones, the past experiences of former President Muhammadu Buhari show that isn’t enough to win. But even these two zones, Tinubu and APC have shown that they can be competitive by holding on to ground they won two years ago.
To change the narrative, Atiku and company have to come up with their own dramatic political moments that show a broadening of appeal. As things stand momentum isn’t on the side of their stuttering alliance.
Potentially, more debilitating for them are emerging signals the ex-VP and his co-travellers are determined to rehash their historic error of downplaying zoning. That would most likely lead to a repeat of 2023 outcomes with minimal efforts by the victors.
