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The South-East, from 1999, is a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stronghold. Through thick and thin, the South-East remained with the party, irrespective of whether the party brought out a Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani, or Ijaw for the post of President. The Zone supported President Olusegun Obasanjo (Yoruba) in 1999, President Umaru Yar’Adua (Hausa/Fulani) in 2007, and President Goodluck Jonathan (Ijaw) in 2011. The South-East remained faithful with the PDP in 2015 and 2019 when other zones abandoned the PDP.
Unfortunately, with all the loyalty the South-East displayed following the PDP, it was treated with disrespect and ignominy. In 2023, when it was the turn of the South-East to produce the President under the PDP, the party decided to throw it open for every politician to contest. Gov Samuel Ortom, the Chairman of PDP Elective Offices Zoning Committee, a member of G-5, came out and declared that the zoning arrangement for the post of the president was thrown open to all, just to make way for the emergence of one of them, Gov Nyesom Wike, who is not from the South-East, as the presidential candidate.
They lost in their quest for the presidential position when Wike was defeated by Atiku Abubakar. They lost again when Wike lost his vice-presidential bid, when Atiku Abubakar announced Gov Okowa as his Vice-Presidential candidate for the 2023 presidential election. The G-5 effectively pulled out of PDP and joined the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the day they lost the VP ticket. But being very mean politicians, they decided to remain in PDP to ensure that PDP was killed to make way for the emergence of their new party, APC, as the only party in Nigeria for the 2027 presidential election. In pursuit of the interest of their new party, they endorsed the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, as their candidate for the 2023 and 2027 presidential elections. It’s still a wonder today how PDP as a party allowed the members of the G-5 to remain in their midst and be playing anti-party without any repercussions. That was when the party committed a class suicide.
In relation to the South-East, the party even became more insulting to the zone. It came to a head when the post of the National Secretary of the PDP was in dispute. The South-East led by Gov Peter Mbah made a choice of Ude Okoye as their preferred candidate and even threatened to reconsider their alliance with the PDP if their preference was not guaranteed. Nyesom Wike preferred Sam Anyanwu as the National Secretary. The PDP ignorantly or foolishly preferred Sam Anyanwu to Ude Okoye and this led to Gov Mbah of Enugu State reconsidering South-East membership of the PDP. So Mbah was correct when he said “for decades, the South East, especially Enugu, has stood firmly behind the PDP, showing loyalty that shaped the party’s success. Yet, despite this history, our voices were too often disregarded when it mattered most,” The pulling out of Enugu State from the PDP effectively marks the end of the PDP in the South-East. Unfortunately, the PDP came from a heroic height of having all the five states of the South-East in 1999 to no state of the South-East by 14th October, 2025.
However, the statement above by Gov Peter Mbah is the only honest thing that he said during his ill-advised defection to the APC. The Vice-President of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima, who represented Tinubu at the occasion of his ill-fated defection, alluded to this hypocrisy. Shettima said “You are already one of us. You’re a progressive through and through. I believe you had a broom hidden in your umbrella for all these years, waiting for the right moment to bring it out.” This simply means that Peter Mbah’s excuse for going into APC was simply a made-up story to launder his real intentions for moving into APC. Yes, PDP is bad, but you cannot justify your exit by moving to another platform that is worse for your people than the PDP. Shettima’s disclosure simply exposed Peter Mbah’s move as a predetermined intention that existed even before the excuse Peter Mbah gave happened.
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Immediately he was pronounced the winner of Enugu State governorship election, he started scheming to join APC. The event of October 14 was just a culmination of an already settled agenda. Hear Shettima again: “You had a broom hidden in your umbrella.” This simply meant that Mbah was a mole in PDP all this time while actually working for APC. This gave Wike a genuine bragging right over Peter Mbah’s defection to APC. Wike mocked Mbah publicly when he said that those who attacked him for working against PDP and working for APC are now moving into APC themselves. He boasted, and rightly too, that those people should thank him for proactively fighting for the platform where they intend to go in. Wike, with all his baggage, has become more honourable than Mbah because his own broom under the umbrella was not hidden, it was open, but Mbah’s broom was hidden under his umbrella. Come to think of it, one reason Mbah gave for leaving PDP was the overbearing influence of Wike over PDP. The only reason Wike was doing that was to promote APC and Tinubu who made him a minister. Mbah left PDP and went into the same party Wike was building at the expense of PDP. Mbah would still meet a Wike in APC. We will see how their marriage in APC will work out.
Mbah made some incorrect statements. He said: “It has, therefore, become necessary to seek affiliation where our interests as a region are represented in the form of fair partnership.” He praised President Tinubu for what he described as visionary leadership and a willingness to make bold decisions for the nation’s progress. This statement of his re-echoed another incorrect statement made by Kashim Shettima, the Vice-President, which I am not sure that Shettima himself even believed when he made the statement. Shettima described President Tinubu “as a leader with a sense of inclusion, who rewards merit over sentiment.” This is laughable because Tinubu himself excluded his Vice-President even in the North-East endorsement of Tinubu for the second term bid that caused public protests in the North-East. Apart from going around delivering lectures and making solidarity statements for Tinubu, Shettima has no duty as Vice-President. As a matter of fact, a presidential political adviser to Shettima, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, resigned from Tinubu’s government because he was engaged and paid for doing nothing in the administration. This was the express testimony that Shettima and all his staff are excluded from the governance of Tinubu. How can an excluded Vice-President be praising the regime of the President who excluded him for being an inclusive government? No bi raw sycophancy bi that?
For the avoidance of doubt, APC is not in the DNA of the South-East. There’s no one State in the South-East controlled by APC that had its original root in the mandate of the people. There are three states in the South-East that are now controlled by APC – Imo, Ebonyi and Enugu States. Rochas Okorocha was elected the Governor of Imo State under APGA. He defected to APC and that was how APC captured Imo State. Gov Umahi was elected as Governor of Ebonyi under the PDP. He defected to APC, and that was how APC captured Ebonyi. Gov Peter Mbah was elected Governor of Enugu State under the PDP. He defected to APC, and this is how APC captured Enugu State. APC’s misadventure in the South-East has been based on unholy capture of the states rather than any love from the people. In a free, fair election, these states would return to the opposition in 2027. The only reason the cowardly governors keep giving for defection is to align with the centre. How can you align with a government that wants to destroy your people?
As at today, the South-East has only one substantive minister, after the disgraceful exit of the Minister of Science and Technology for alleged certificate forgery. No citizen of South-East is occupying any position of note in Tinubu’s same faith ticket. Having chosen a fellow Muslim to be his Vice President, where does this leave the South-East, who are 99.9 per cent Christians in the scheme of Tinubu’s government? Assuming Tinubu is allowed to continue in 2027, God forbid, what it means for the South-East is that they can only think about the presidency in 2039, meanwhile a support for the opposition can produce a President or Vice-President for South-East in 2027 or latest by 2031. Yet Mbah said “I have found in President Bola Tinubu, not just a leader of our nation, but a partner in purpose.”
Tinubu is certainly not a partner in purpose for the welfare and destiny of the people of South-East, having increased fuel price from N195 per litre to N1,000 per litre and depreciated naira from about N420 to a dollar to about N1,500 per dollar. South-East has never been poorer in any regime like they are now in Tinubu’s regime. The property of South-East citizens are randomly destroyed or taken from them without due process. Peter Mbah’s romance with Tinubu is a gamble that may most likely make him a one term governor of Enugu State. The APC has become anti South-East, and the governors freely giving their support to Tinubu without negotiating for the interest of the South-East, simply expose them for being selfish and not working for the interest of the South-East.
