CAN THE ENLARGED APC WIN ELECTIONS AS A UNITED PARTY IN DELTA STATE?

Basil Okoh

MaTaZ ArIsInG
Dallas, Texas

The mass defection of PDP into APC with governor Sheriff Oborevwori leading the surrender has induced a form of stasis in the politics of Delta state. PDP was denied the fruits of its victory by that mass defection. As a result, politics has been stagnated and reduced to a state of torpor in the state while the state parliament functions in an assumed normality in a democratic government without partisan definition.

So an irreconcilable paradox rules the state now, as the PDP, with the governing mandate, is being swallowed up by the APC, the opposition party. The defection has remained incomplete four months after the announcement, as the bigwigs of PDP refuse to register with the APC.

The voters of the state who are studiously detached from the endless tumult in the political sector, express their amusement at the lack of organizational principles or rules guiding the actions of their politicians: “They’re all the same, PDP and APC”, one market leader said.

We saw on video how a gathering of village women refused to follow the former governor Ifeanyi Okowa, along with his side-kick, Frank Nwugo into the APC. This happened at a public arena at Idumuesah in Ika Northeast LGA. The defection of the governor of the state into the APC, long speculated, followed the depletion of PDP ranks into the APC since after PDP victory in the governorship election in 2023.

The unprecedented defection of the governor and the entire government to the APC ostensibly killed political competition in the state with a single stroke, inducing quiet disapproval from PDP politicians who were not consulted. The quietude indeed allowed the rebels in PDP to push back against the unilateral action of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori. That action sparked a principled resolve among some PDP politicians not to follow the governor into an opposition party in the state, particularly as there was no real consultation before the defection. Many believe that the defection was not warranted.

The machinations of the state government and PDP operatives resisting integration into the APC were starkly exposed in Ethiope East LGA recently, when prominent figures, including President Tinubu’s nominee to the Federal Character Commission, Chief Loveth Idisi, Ethiope East LGA Chairman, Chief Augustine Ogedegbe, Government House Director of Protocols, Okakuro Sunday Onoriode, and Deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Arthur Akpowowo, who had only recently sought to formally join the party, were denied APC membership cards and ejected from a welcome ceremony for bypassing the party’s leadership structure.

This disconcerting trend is evident across all 25 Local Government Areas in the state. The lingering lack of cohesion between old and new members has led to disorganization, undermining the party’s potential strength. This episode highlights the unforgiving and rigid nature of politics in Delta State.

In Delta State, the prevailing wisdom is that only fools stay in opposition parties. Yet, the muted response from PDP members to Governor Oborevwori’s defection to the APC has left many puzzled, as numerous PDP stalwarts who cannot reconcile themselves with the governor’s move have declined to follow him into the APC. Four months after the directive to join the APC, some government officials still haven’t registered with the party. Moreover, key PDP members holding party positions have resisted the move, unwilling to risk losing their positions. This widespread rejection underscores Governor Oborevwori’s limited influence within the PDP and highlights his extremely low popularity across the state, as well as a deep-seated lack of confidence in his leadership.

The governor and his entire governments defection into APC was not a surprise as he had been seeking escape from his low acceptance and popularity since after his questionable victory in the election that brought him to power. He has been seeking a more secured platform to negotiate a second tenure and believed that only the ruling party can give him the assurance for re-election. So he lobbied President Tinubu for ingress into APC.

Without popularity at home, most major politicians in Delta State, with the notable exception of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, are seeking external affiliations to boost their electability. Rather than seeking popularity and protection from Delta voters, they’re courting backing from Aso Rock, the ADC coalition, or Peter Obi. In the case of Governor Oborevwori, he specifically needs President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s backing, hence his desperate defection to APC. This reveals a lack of self-belief and confidence in their ability to win elections without external support. It also highlights a profound disconnect between Delta politicians and the people they purport to represent, suggesting they’re out of touch with their constituents.

APC may now be the ruling party in the state, but it cannot claim that title without having to win an election with a candidate on its platform. It cannot make policies or enforce rules in the state as a ruling party because it has no compelling influence on the governor who didn’t win election from the APC platform and cannot therefore subsume his powers to a party that didn’t help him win the governorship election in the state.

Again, the governor himself cannot compel changes in APC because he is still considered an outsider who met a party governing body which he has no power to change or influence at this time. This is a Catch 22 situation which will unravel politics in the state in 2027 more than anyone envisages.

PDP is the winning party in the state but no longer the ruling party. PDP won the election but since after the defection of the governor to APC, it is now the opposition as its mandate has been traded away and handed to APC the losing party, leaving it disoriented and without the governing mandate. PDP is now like a drunken gambler who hit big pay on the table in the course of the night but has now lost all his money and totally cleaned out, walking home broke and drunk, enervated and utterly disoriented. PDP has lost the confidence and vibrancy of a winning party.

So in Delta state, the winner has become the loser and the loser now the winner, but between them and within APC is an inchoate grey zone that will become contested ground for dominance in 2027.

The defection of PDP into the APC is not a finished business, as most top PDP men have yet to be registered in the APC. This is why politics in the state is now a deep, dark pool of vulnerabilities, as nobody knows for sure who is where. In a situation where winners and losers can be sunk tangling with one another in a deep, big, and dark whirlpool, politicians are being pulled and pushed in a vortex of mischief and treachery for survival. By the time they finish the tangling, the old establishment parties may just have been swept away, ceding space for new parties to emerge.

Leadership in Delta politics has lost the trust of the voters. This is why big politicians in the state, not knowing where to stand and fight, are betting their lives and political careers on President Tinubu to bring direction and a new lease of political life to help win the state so they can remain in power. Nobody bothers to remember that Tinubu himself is looking for local activators to help popularize his “mandate” and assure his own re-election.

In truth, hardly any newcomers in Delta APC are working for the re-election of President Tinubu in the midst of dire economic conditions that are impacting the ruling party’s electoral fortunes in the state. And none mentions Tinubu’s re-election in their encounters with voters. They understand it’s a hard sell, which impacts negatively on their own political fortunes.

Alliances are being built and dissolved daily, and the skills needed for survival now are wit and luck to ensure being found in Tinubu’s camp, as no one is sure which faction of the APC will win the favor of the president going into the 2027 election.

President Bola Tinubu himself, despite the façade of mastery of politics in Nigeria, is fighting a formidable opposition who are themselves rooted in the experience of winning elections by every means. This is the reason for the intrigue of coercing opposition governors to defect to the APC and to collapse their state party structures into the ruling party. It is so that the arc of operation of the opposition and their funding sources can be reduced before the 2027 election. It is obvious now that PDP lead men are loath to give up the PDP identity, and that they would want to enforce PDP rules and traditions in their new APC abode, but cannot be allowed, as the APC party structure is under firm control of the group that fought PDP to a standstill in 2023.

The governor appears not to be overly bothered by the lack of integration in the party, as he himself has not come to terms with the realities of his new party and has been uncommitted to doing anything to integrate APC members into his cabinet or appoint them into branches of his government. It’s tit for tat governing PDP/APC integration in Delta State. So, APC and PDP are keeping to themselves, as they are like two merging rivers flowing side by side, each not wanting to be taken over by the other.

The crucial question now is: can the enlarged APC platform hold together and fight elections as a united force in Delta State by 2027? Will the simmering hostility within the party undermine President Tinubu’s electoral prospects in the state? Given the fluid and dynamic nature of politics in Delta State, it’s uncertain what the next 18 months will bring, making it difficult to predict the outcome.

With the seeming resurgence of the hitherto disembowelled PDP in the state, following the appointment of Sylvester Monye as the new state Chairman, PDP has high hopes of being reconstructed to stake its claim once again to political leadership in Delta State. Sylvester Monye worked in the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan and also in Okowa’s government in the state, and must have knowledge of the inner workings of PDP in its heyday. So, unless he chooses to play footsie with his old friends in PDP who have crossed over to APC, PDP has a residual pool of loyalists in the state who can be mobilized to form critical masses for election victories.

Another looming threat comes from new parties and coalitions making inroads into the state, even as the man who blazed the trail for APC in the state, Ovie Omo-Agege, remains taciturn and inscrutable. And the politicians of the state must not forget to build fortifications for the soon-coming hurricane that is Peter Obi.

A crucial question arises: If PDP stalwarts refuse to join APC, how can they effectively support President Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid? Without formal membership, from which platform will they campaign for the president? Moreover, can their loyalty and commitment to Tinubu’s electoral success be taken for granted? The purpose of their mass defection from PDP to APC was to facilitate the president’s re-election; if they don’t integrate into APC, this objective is undermined.

@basilokoh.

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