After the mass defection of over 40 federal lawmakers from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), more indications have emerged on the possible hurdles to President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term bid.

The defection of the Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, last Wednesday, barely one week after assuring Buhari and the leadership of the party that he was going nowhere, no doubt left many chieftains of the party bewildered, a thing that many believed may have further compounded APC’s dwindling fortune in the North-Central.

Already, Buhari’s closest political ally in Katsina, Senator Abu Ibrahim, who is also the Senate committee chairman on Police Affairs, admitted last Thursday, that Senate President, Bukola Saraki’s exit would see the party losing Kwara and Kogi in the North-Central and no more.

But sources close to the APC leadership have equally warned that except there was a divine intervention, the crisis rocking the party may eventually lead to a “disastrous” outing for the party, not only in the North-Central where it made appreciable impact in 2015, but in other parts of the north in 2019.

Most of those who spoke in confidence are from the seven states that make up the North-West geopolitical zone.

Even Buhari’s ally and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal believes so too.

Explaining how PDP lost power in 2015, Lawal said “the APC itself gained heavily from this kind of undemocratic practices by PDP, where some key stakeholders were aggrieved and made their way to APC. In Adamawa State, for example, Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd) and his group moved to APC and quite a lot of them that called themselves nPDP. So, as a senior stakeholder, I am worried about the trend playing out in APC, and if serious actions are not taken to address these grievances, many people will certainly abandon the party to realise their ambitions on other political platforms.”

Ironically, with the exit of Ortom, three more governors and several lawmakers are expected to soon dump the APC for the PDP. And there are others who will be dumping the party after its primary, which will hold between August and September this year.

•Excerpted from a Saturday Sun report.

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