Upon the return to democracy in 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) swept through the South-East, winning all five States in the region during the general election that ushered in Nigeria’s fourth republic. The region, alongside the Niger Delta, became its stronghold. The people of the region voted overwhelmingly for the party in subsequent elections.
However, things changed slightly in 2003. It lost Anambra to All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in a keenly contested and chaotic governorship election that was marred by widespread violence, manipulation and rigging. Though PDP was declared the winner of the election, the dogged APGA candidate at the time, Peter Obi, challenged the outcome of the election in court and, after three gruelling and arduous years of legal battle, the Supreme Court affirmed him as the duly elected winner of the gubernatorial election and he was sworn into office as governor.
APGA will also go on to produce another governor in the region in 2011 when Rochas Okorocha defeated PDP’s Ikedi Ohakim. However, despite the success recorded by APGA in the region in gubernatorial and, to some extent, state assembly polls, largely due to it being seen by many people from the East as an Igbo party, the PDP retained its influence and stronghold in the region in national elections, especially presidential elections. The region has voted as a block for the PDP in presidential elections, no matter who the candidate is, since 1999. Come rain, come sunshine, the party knew it could always rely on the region to deliver.
But there has been a gradual but conspicuous weakening of its influence and hold on the region since 2019. The All Progressives Congress (APC) took Imo State in January 2020 through the most shocking, appalling and abhorrent judicial pronouncement in the history of electoral litigation in the country when Hope Uzodinma, the APC candidate at the time who came fourth in the governorship election held a year earlier, was declared winner of the gubernatorial election by the Supreme Court.
The apex court set aside the judgment of the tribunal and Court of Appeal levels, which had dismissed the legal contestation of the victory of the PDP candidates, Emeka Ihedioha. The apex Court gave judgment in favour of the APC candidate, Hope Uzodinma. The Supreme Court held that results from 388 polling units, which the APC candidate claimed were excluded from his vote count, were now allowed. This increased Hope Uzodinma’s votes from the initially announced number of 96,458 votes to 309,753, surpassing Ihedioha’s tallied votes of 273,404. The Supreme Court, however, could not provide sufficient details of its analysis of the results and computation of numbers, and what votes other candidates, including Ihedioha, who were on the ballot in the 388 polling units, got.
The caricature of justice that characterised the outcome of the 2019 Imo State gubernatorial election litigation marked the beginning of the APC’s slow but brutal and ruthless inroads and consolidation of power in the region. In late 2020, David Umahi, who was Ebonyi state governor at the time, dumped the PDP for the APC. During the 2023 general elections, APC retained Enugu and Uzodinma would go on to win a second term. After the 2023 general elections, only Enugu state remained under the control of the PDP in the South East as the party had lost Abia to the Labour Party. But political events in the months that followed the election would see the tiny, weak and shaky grip it had on the region totally slip away. It is worth mentioning that APC growth in the region is not restricted to the executive arm of government; a significant number of lawmakers, both in the state and national assembly, have also emerged from the region on the platform of the party.
In what is the final straw that broke the PDP’s back in the region, the party lost its only and last state in the region to the APC on Monday. Enugu State governor, Peter Mbah, defected to the APC, effectively wiping whatever vestige of PDP dominance that remains in the region. From the indomitable and invincible entity of the early 2000s that had the south-east on lockdown to a struggling and crisis-ridden political party that frittered away its goodwill, the PDP has lost its most loyal region.
Since the defection of Mbah to the APC on Monday, analysts, observers and commentators have cited many reasons for the unsettling decline in political fortunes of the PDP in the South East. One reason that tops the pile is the presidential candidate fielded by the PDP for the 2023 general election; Atiku Abubakar. Recall that the former president won the presidential primary of the election of the PDP in 2022. The belief held by some Nigerians and the consensus in some quarters is that the PDP would zone its ticket to the south. However, one thing led to another, and the party decided to throw the ticket open after the committee set up to determine if the ticket should be zoned to the south or not recommended an open primary where everyone could contest, whether you were from the North or the South.
Even though the outcome of the 2022 presidential primary has been cited as the main reason for and genesis of the crisis that would later engulf the party, damage it irrevocably and erode its popularity among the electorate, one aspect that many people overlook or airbrush when analysing the fall from grace of the PDP is the role played by the former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike. Wike supported and insisted on an open primary when he could have used his clout and influence in the party to push for zoning of the party’s presidential ticket to the South. This he did because he knew zoning to the southern part of the ticket would definitely mean micro-zoning to the southeast since the South West and the South South, where Wike is from, had produced a president under PDP.
He also knew that micro-zoning the ticket to the southeast would pave the way for Peter Obi, who is the most prominent and influential politician from the region and whose popularity was on the rise across the country in the build-up to the 2023 elections, to clinch the ticket. Realising that the odds are heavily stacked against him if he supported zoning to the south, he threw his weight behind an open primary because he felt he could use money to bamboozle his way through but he was edged out by Atiku who, in cahoots with Aminu Tambuwal, Bala Mohammed and other top northern politicians, outsmarted him and cornered the ticket. We cannot then begrudge or vilify Atiku for throwing his hat in the ring and contesting the primary when the man who had the power to demand the ticket be zoned to the south, which should ordinarily be the rightful region to produce the PDP presidential candidate in 2023, schemed and plotted against such an arrangement.
Even worth stating is that it was after losing out in the primary and being overlooked for the vice presidential candidate position that Wike began his strident agitation for Southern presidency, something he clandestinely worked against in his party. He became spiteful, vindictive and cantankerous and started working against the party. He formed the G-5 group with four other governors to undermine the party and worked against it at the polls. After the election, Wike, who is now the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has continued to use his position and influence in the government to sabotage efforts to find a lasting solution to the crisis rocking the party. Of course, Atiku had a hand in the catastrophe that has befallen the PDP, It will, however, be at best simplistic and at worst disingenuous to talk about how the PDP became a shadow of itself — losing total control of a region that once followed it fervently and religiously and did its bidding without question — without highlighting the role Wike played.
Furthermore, the APC’s aggressive incursion in the southeast is also fuelled by the utter lack of conviction and ideology among our politicians. The inordinate quest for power and the belief that only the ruling party and the federal government can help them achieve their political goals made it easy for the APC to take over the States in the region. Since the APC came to power in 2015, there has been a troubling increase in voter apathy as people no longer feel their votes count and are increasingly becoming disillusioned with democracy. The situation worsened after the 2023 election. This has prompted many politicians to seek refuge with the APC where their electoral victory is guaranteed. As the 2027 general elections approach, more and more politicians will move to the ruling party. Their decision has nothing to do with the people but everything to do with personal interest and self-preservation.
Finally, it must also be said here and now that, though APC may now have a foothold in the region politically and control the machinery of government there owing to the greed and callousness of power-hungry and money-seeking politicians; however, it is still deeply unpopular among the majority of Igbos with many harbouring pent-up resentment towards the party, and if democracy is still determined by the concept of one man one vote and if these votes will indeed count, then it will be difficult for APC to become the dominant party in the region except it is prepared and willing to use undemocratic means to achieve its political goals.