In the perception of many political watchers, the rate at which the presidency and national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are grandstanding over the seamless poaching of the chieftains, members, and political office holders from the opposition political parties in various states, tends to confirm their mission to possibly contest the 2027 presidential election almost unopposed.

For the APC, the plans to weaken the opposition parties through the defections of important chieftains have, so far so good, been smooth sailing, judging by the endless harvest of the state governors defecting, in droves, to the APC’s moving train.

And as at the last count, five governors, comprising Delta, Sheriff Oborevwori, Akwa-Ibom, Umo Eno, Enugu, Peter Mbah, Bayelsa, Douye Diri, Taraba, Agbu Kefas, and Adamawa, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, have either defected fully to the APC, or issued notice of intent to dump their party that gave them the platforms, preparatory to replacing the umbrella with the broom.

In the words of many analysts, apart from the serving governors defecting with the full complement of the state’s political structure, comprising almost all the elective, appointive officials and the party’s state executives, the defection of the 2023 vice presidential candidate, Ifeanyi Okowa, among other prominent politicians, confirmed the level the APC-led government has gone to harvest from the opposition parties.

The wave of defections presently is even more noticeable at both chambers of the National Assembly, where its Principal Officers have been constantly engrossed in celebrating, constituting an overwhelming majority of members that have jumped out of the opposition seats to the ruling party, apparently due to the insoluble leadership crises rocking those other parties.

In fact, it has become so good that the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, sarcastically attributed the wave of defections recently as a display of sense of patriotism, claiming that the wave of defections is an attestation to the level of confidence the defectors have in President Bola Tinubu’s leadership.

He said: “The defectors are Mr President’s children and supporters. The president is the father of the nation and the father of all political parties. Interestingly, they joined the Senate on different political platforms, but as a result of Mr President’s policies that have turned things around economically and particularly in terms of revenue generation for the nation, they found it expedient to come and join to build Nigeria.”

“Their own is nothing but patriotism. They are not interested in which political party is in power, but they are interested in who can run Nigeria, who can improve Nigeria, and who can put food on the tables of Nigerians,” Akpabio quipped, confirming the thinking of almost all the leaders of the APC.

Most Nigerians, according to many pundits, are in sync that defections have become a strong tool and fishing net that the incumbent President, Tinubu, and his predecessors, advantageously deploy to guarantee and secure second-term tickets, using the defected governors to manipulate the electoral process at their state, local government, down to the ward levels.

However, the trend, widely acceptable and celebrated at the national level, as a blessing and political gain, is gradually turning into an albatross at the state levels with worsening crisis between the new joiners and the original or founding members of the party trailing every one of the defections.

Curiously, the fact that the presidency and other facilitators ensuring the defection usually care less about the hostilities and intriguing marksmanship the gladiators deploy to outsmart each other in their desperate attempts to seize the structure of the party at state levels, has heightened the crises at the state chapters of the ruling party.

The defections, especially at the state levels, have usually come with temporary joy and discomfort to both the joiners and old party members in the short term, but usually result in agonising pains and perennial insoluble crises in the long run due to the clash of interests from both factions.

The highly criticised modus operandi of conferring the position of automatic state leader of the party on the defected governors because of the deceptive constitutional provision of equality of all members, regardless of what the old members may have contributed to the nurturing and progress of the party previously, has also not helped matters.

From Enugu to Delta, Akwa Ibom, and other states, the defection of the governors into the ruling party has not only left the party more fragmented but also worsened the already graveyard peace existing among the party stakeholders.

In Delta State, for instance, the defection of Governor Oborevwori, actually heightened the already existing rift among the party’s stakeholders, polarising them into several factions.

The leadership crisis within the Delta State chapter of the APC has escalated to a disturbing magnitude without any sign of abating, with deepening internal divisions amid accusations and counter-accusations from its key leaders.

Before the governor’s defection, the state chapter had been embroiled in turmoil since the conclusion of the 2023 general elections, resulting in multiple factions led by its 2023 governorship candidate, Ovie Omo-Agege, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, and by extension, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, before Senator Ned Nwoko joined to fortify Keyamo’s camp.

Interestingly, the intriguing battle was so visible that both Senator Nwoko and Omo-Agege had announced boastfully that they would do everything within their powers to resist any attempt by the governor to join the APC from the PDP.

“Oborevwori wants to come to the APC, but tell him to stay where he is. He will be defeated. We don’t want him in the APC,” Senator Nwoko emphatically told a cheerful crowd amid persistent rumours about Oborevwori’s alleged defection plan.

On his part, Omo-agege once said: “The only two people that are not welcome are Governor Sheriff and Ifeanyi Okowa. They should remain in PDP and build their party.”

However, putting the debate over the leader of the state chapter to rest, Governor Oborevwori, in reply to them, said: “People are saying that there is confusion, there is a faction In Delta APC. As I have come, there will be no faction again. Let me tell you, the Governor takes charge, and we are taking charge.

“I don’t believe in any faction, whether Omo-Agege or Keyamo faction; everybody must queue, and we will unite the party to move this state forward for the benefit of our people and to bring development, peace, and unity to our state and Nigeria,” he warned.

The governor’s defection seems to have favoured the Keyamo faction and shut the door securely behind the Omo-Agege faction, reducing them to an Inconsequential level and deepening the hostility among the factions to the point of the Omo-Agege faction bluntly refusing to participate in the recently held Delta APC stakeholders’ forum.

The situation Is even more precariously intriguing in Enugu where the defection of Governor Mbah culminated in the sacking of the Ugochukwu Agballah-led state executive, desolation of local government to the ward leadership of the party, composition of the Ben Nwoye-led Caretaker Committee and ultimately the resignation of the Minister of Science and Technology, Geoffrey Nnaji, perhaps used as a sacrificial lamb in the ensuing fascinating drama.

Incidentally, instead of savouring the blessings of attracting big fishes like the governor and his retinue of political structure and supporters, the defection has rather left the state chapter of the party in tatters, with threats of legal action to confirm the real and authentic leadership of the party in the state.

As at today, while the governor has taken full charge, exemplified by his recent courtesy visit on President Tinubu as a confirmation of the leader of the state chapter, others like Agballa and Nnaji seem to have been temporarily relegated to an inconsequential level to re-strategize on the next line of action.

The Akwa-Ibom state chapter seems to be calmer because, besides the insignificant numbers of appointive and elective officials that initially objected to defecting with the governor to the APC, little or nothing has been heard of any brewing crisis in the state APC.

According to pundits, however, the wisdom and diplomacy of the governor to surrender the leadership of the party in the state to the Senate President, Senator Akpabio, deservedly, as the most ranking member of the party in the state, could be the secret behind the relative peace in the state chapter of the party.

If there is peace of the graveyard in the Akwa-Ibom state APC chapter, the situation in Bayelsa seems to be tilting towards a time bomb and crisis trying to erupt over the proposed defection of the governor to the APC.

The expected defection may perhaps be facing challenges due to multiple factors bordering on the disposition of former president Goodluck Jonathan, the blunt refusal of the Deputy Governor, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, to follow his boss, Diri, to defect to the APC and the posture of indifference by the founding members of the party led by the immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva and his faction.

And weighing in on the volcano trying to erupt in Bayelsa, former APC deputy national publicity secretary, Yekini Nabena, argued that it is going to be a win-win situation for his party, claiming that the APC, as an opposition party, has always been very strong in the state.

”In Bayelsa, APC has been in opposition since. We are a very strong opposition. Bayelsa is not like Enugu, where there was no viable opposition. It is not the same thing in Bayelsa. In 2015, APC won the governorship election, but Goodluck Jonathan went to plead with President Buhari to give him the state, and he accepted. Timipre Sylva suffered it.

“In 2019, David Lyon won; they used the court to deny him the victory. We suffered all those things because we have a former president from our state. They blamed Lyon’s loss on name discrepancies, even when the PDP Deputy Governor also has so many names. Yet we lost because of name discrepancies.

“In 2023, the same people in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa said Timipre will be this or that, and we all saw the level of anti-party. Now, in Bayelsa, if the governor finally defects to the APC, we won’t have much problems because the APC is already stronger than the PDP in the state, if not for what they are doing at the centre.

“If the governor joins, it will be a plus in the sense that they will bring their small number and join our large number. But, if they are not careful, there is going to be a divided house, especially if he wants to oppress the original members. Having been used to opposition in that state, we are not afraid again,” Nabena said in a chat with Sunday Sun ahead of the finalisation of the governor’s defection.

From all indications, there may be more crises in Taraba and Adamawa States, where godfathers like General Theophilus Danjuma and Atiku Abubakar are apparently the major determining authority of which party takes charge of the states.

In Adamawa, for example, it will not only be an affront on Atiku that a different political party takes charge of his home state, but also look like a calculated plan to weaken his home base and threaten his presidential aspiration ahead of the 2027 poll.

Ultimately, the back and front possibilities on the speculated readiness of the governor of Plateau State, Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang, to defect to the APC is already causing ripple effects in the state and hanging precariously in the balance, perhaps over who becomes the state leader of the party between the governor and the national chairman of the party, Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda.

It is understandable because Yilwatda contested against him as the APC candidate in the 2023 Plateau State governorship election, and the possibility of the reawakening of the battle royal between Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and the immediate past governor of Edo state, Godwin Obaseki, when the former allegedly used his position as the party’s national chairman to deny the latter a ticket to re-contest under the APC.

By extension, with the recent strategic defections involving Bayelsa, Enugu, which increased the South East states under the APC platform to three, and possibly the planned defection of Adamawa governor, there are possibilities of an impending escalation of crises as gladiators would view it as ploys to weaken the political base of presidential aspirants like Jonathan, Peter Obi, and Atiku, the frontline aspirants planning to square up with the incumbent President, Tinubu.

In the words of Nabena, the former APC spokesperson, the defection of the governors will certainly end in an implosion, especially before and during the 2027 general elections, due to the inability of the party’s national leadership and presidency to manage the political interests of the contending forces of the new and old members.

Deputy National Organising Secretary, Nze Chidi Duru, who reacted to the situation, dismissed the possibility of the party imploding, stressing: “I don’t think that the situation is as exaggerated as you painted it. There is no crack anywhere. In Enugu, for instance, I know for a fact that consensus has been reached, an approach has been made, and the hands of fellowship had been extended between the erstwhile state chairman of the party and the incumbent governor who has taken over the leadership of the party in the state.”

“If anything else, we must be reassured that the Caretaker chairman, and largely others, are members of the APC that have been with the party since its formative stage and never moved from one political party to another. What it means is that they are one people of the same family, and there is no debate.

“There is nothing we are aware of about anybody going to court to challenge the decision of the NWC with respect to the decision that was taken in the case of Enugu state, which, by the way, is in the interest of the state. You are now seeing the major gladiators, coming under one umbrella holding the broom. It means that we are home in Enugu state,” he said.

On the crisis in the Delta state chapter, Duru told Sunday Sun: “In Delta, the leaders of the party have also aligned their interests with the governor and his team that joined the party with him. The chairman and the membership are working together to ensure that there is collaboration.

“Where there are differences, which must happen in party politics, we must never shunt out people from disagreeing. But the most important thing is that there will ultimately be a resolution, that in the interest of the party, in the interest of party politics, we must come together and work together to promote what helps the party at any point in time.

“The danger and the risk that we will always run is that when there is a disagreement, it is extrapolated to mean that the party is in crisis. In recognising that I will say that in no distant time, the position of NWC, with the mandate of NEC, at last meeting, to constitute a peace and reconciliation committee will come to the fore, where opportunities will be given to party members if there are points of disagreement, such that we don’t see or can’t sit together, or not aligned to come together to talk about it in an open manner, in a manner that will encourage members to see that ultimately we need to work together to see that what happened to PDP in 2015, will not happen to APC. (Sunday Sun)