The internet was awash with varying comments last week after the Zamfara state Governor, Bello Matawalle, announced his defection from the Peoples Democratic party to the ruling All Progressives Congress. Some federal lawmakers from Zamfara also followed suit.
This again resulted in brickbats and hot exchanges between the opposition and the ruling party.
Different reasons have been reportedly cited by the Governor; whose deputy has refused to defect with him. A section of the media reported the spate of killings and incessant abductions as Matawalle’s reason while another cited the internal crisis in the PDP. On the other hand, PDP has raised alarm that the federal government is hoodwinking its member-Governors.
In fact, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described his defection as an act of unpardonable betrayal.
In a statement made available to pressmen on Saturday, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP’s spokesman, called the governor’s defection an “unpardonable act of betrayal”, and said from Matawalle’s statement, it is clear that he joined the ruling party out of intimidation.
It should be noted that Matawalle is the third of the PDP Governors to join the APC within the space of six months. Recall that Cross River’s Ben Ayade and Ebonyi’s David Umahi had earlier dumped the party for the ruling party.
While their reasons of lack of internal democracy in the PDP are plausible, POLITICS NIGERIA gathered that the governors’ defection was due to the politics of 2023.
For instance, Matawalle, sources said, was afraid of his chances of securing a second term under the PDP since the party got the seat through the Supreme Court judgment.
A Supreme Court decision ceded the Zamfara governorship to the PDP immediately after the 2019 elections not because it won but of the delay by the APC in fielding candidates for offices. However, with a blurry hope of a second term as PDP flag bearer, the governor, it was learnt, has been promised a return ticket for 2023 by APC, an offer he could not resist.
This is not peculiar to Matawalle as Delta North Senator, Peter Nwaoboshi, who has been having a running battle with the Delta State chapter of the PDP, expressed the same fears.
Nwaoboshi also defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) last week. The lawmaker had feared that his suspension by the PDP on Wednesday, would thwart his attempts to seek reelection in 2023.
Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, who represents Delta Central presented Nwaoboshi to President Muhammadu Buhari and National Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) at the State House in Abuja on Friday.
Buhari welcomed Senator Nwaoboshi to the APC fold, saying “you are welcome to the progressives family.”
While the offer made to the lawmaker is yet unclear to POLITICS NIGERIA, top sources said it is not unconnected to 2023 moves. However, in the heat of the defections, the Governor of Rivers state, Nyosom Wike, predicted mass defection in both the PDP and APC before December.
In a statement on Thursday, Kelvin Ebiri, special assistant on media to the governor, stated that Wike said the defections are part of plans by politicians to realign ahead of the 2023 general election. The governor dismissed the report that some governors who defected from the PDP to the APC were being intimidated, saying defection is an inherent part of the democratic process.
“People are defecting; More will defect. Defection is part of our electoral process. As you are defecting, people are coming in. There are those who are angry there (in APC), they’ll come (to PDP). You that is angry here (in PDP), you will go. That is the game,” Wike said.
“If it is by provocation, if it is by intimidation, if it is by coercion, then Rivers state won’t have been in PDP. Because. If there is one state that has been intimidated, if there is one state that has been punished by the ruling party, it is Rivers State. Yet nobody can push us, nobody can intimidate us to leave the hope and the future of this country, and that is the PDP.
“PDP has done a lot of wrong things to the Rivers state, but I cannot say we will leave PDP. We will be there and fight the war. The interest of Rivers state will be fought inside PDP, we will not leave anywhere.
“Even if the whole states abandon PDP, Rivers State will not abandon PDP because we are people of integrity, we are people of character. Anybody who does not have integrity, who does not have character cannot say he is from Rivers State.”
Meanwhile, with all hands on deck, political watchers are curious on who is making the next defection move.
