Former Director General of Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu, has described Governor Peter Mbah’s planned defection from the People’s Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress as the final blow to PDP’s grip on the Southeast region.
Okechukwu, a founding member of the APC, noted that the party which once controlled all five Southeast states in 1999 now holds no governorship seat in the zone as of 2025.
Speaking to journalists in Enugu on Sunday, the former VON boss said the PDP’s downfall in the region vindicated the late Senator Chuba Okadigbo, who had warned that the party’s habit of “rewarding good deeds with bad coins” would come back to haunt it.
“The fall of the PDP in the Southeast proves Senator Okadigbo right,” Okechukwu stated. “From the 1999 Jos presidential primary where he was sabotaged as Vice President and co-founder of the party, to the 2003 election when Ndigbo naively ignored the Buhari/Okadigbo ticket, history has been clear.”
The APC chieftain criticised what he termed the PDP’s “utter disregard” for equity and justice, particularly during the 2023 elections when the party breached the Fourth Republic’s long-standing zoning convention.
He recalled that at the Port Harcourt presidential primary, no southern aspirant took part despite repeated appeals for fairness and rotation of power.
“The last straw that broke the PDP’s camel’s back was the deliberate marginalisation of the Southeast during the controversy over the National Secretary position,” Okechukwu said.
He referenced a communiqué issued by the PDP Southeast Zonal Executive Committee after its meeting at Government House, Enugu, on 14th May 2023, which warned: “In the event that the Southeast’s position that Sunday Udeh-Okoye should replace Senator Samuel Anyanwu, who left to contest the Imo governorship election, is not implemented promptly, the Southeast PDP, as a family, will be compelled to reconsider our relationship with the PDP going forward.”
Okechukwu also quoted former Senate President and PDP Board of Trustees Chairman, Senator Adolphus Wabara, who had “decried the continued trampling of the Southeast PDP despite the region’s unwavering loyalty to the party since 1998.”
The political analyst described Governor Mbah’s defection as “a defining political moment” and clear evidence that the Southeast geopolitical zone has finally parted ways with the PDP.
“Governor Mbah’s defection is a pragmatic, rational, and inevitable decision,” he added. “It symbolises the total collapse of PDP’s dominance in the Southeast, from controlling all five state governments in 1999 to having zero governors in 2025.”
He maintained that the PDP’s “serial betrayal, neglect, and abuse” of the Southeast provided sufficient grounds for Governor Mbah’s long-anticipated defection.
“Governor Mbah’s exit is not an isolated event, as he cannot join the ADC, hijacked by characters who dislocated the PDP. It is the final chapter in the Southeast’s disillusionment with a party that failed to reward faithfulness, fairness, and friendship,” Okechukwu declared.
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