Mba’s Defection and the Ultimate Collapse of the PDP: How Northern Oligarchy Consumed a Once-Great Party. By Capt. Bishop C. Johnson (U.S. Army, Retired)

Capt. Bish Johnson (Retd.)

"The PDP’s undoing, however, did not begin with these defections. It began years ago with the institutional capture of the party by an entitled northern oligarchy that mistook dominance for leadership." Johnson

The defection of the Governor of Enugu State, His Excellency Dr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, to the All Progressives Congress (APC) represents far more than another instance of Nigeria’s familiar political cross-carpeting. It symbolizes, in truth, the ultimate collapse of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as a coherent national movement. Enugu—long the spiritual and electoral fortress of the PDP in the South-East—stood as one of the party’s last bastions of credibility and institutional memory. Its fall, therefore, is not a routine political event but the death knell of a party that once prided itself as “the largest in Africa.”

For nearly three decades, Enugu served as the moral capital of the PDP—a sanctuary of loyalty even when other states faltered. From the days of Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani’s pioneering leadership to the seamless transitions under Sullivan Chime and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Enugu symbolized stability and ideological commitment to the PDP. That the state could now slip from the party’s grasp underscores the depth of decay within the PDP’s national structure and the bankruptcy of its leadership ethos.

Even more telling are mounting rumors that the Governor of Bayelsa State, His Excellency Senator Douye Diri—protégé of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and a product of the PDP’s storied South-South base—may also be contemplating an exit. Diri’s alleged defection, coupled with reports of a possible presidential bid by the former President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, under the PDP in the 2027 general election, underscores the unraveling of what little cohesion remains in the party. If Bayelsa—home to a former President under the PDP and the symbolic heartland of the party’s oil-rich legacy—falls next, the PDP will have lost not only territory but also identity.

The PDP’s undoing, however, did not begin with these defections. It began years ago with the institutional capture of the party by an entitled northern oligarchy that mistook dominance for leadership. Their unrelenting grip on the party’s soul—expressed through disregard for zoning, manipulation of internal processes to accommodate the insatiable and perennial presidential ambition of one man, and open contempt for southern voices—eroded the delicate balance that once held the PDP together. What followed was predictable: alienation, rebellion, and eventual disintegration.

The 2023 presidential election marked the turning point. Rather than adhere to the time-tested zoning principle that had sustained national inclusion since 1999, the party’s leadership—driven by arrogance and a sense of entitlement by its northern flank—imposed a northern presidential candidate in defiance of its own constitution and collective conscience. That decision fractured the PDP beyond repair, pitting the South against the North and setting the stage for the mass defections and internal sabotage being witnessed today, as well as the humiliating defeat at the polls in 2023.

Governor Nyesom Wike’s resistance to this injustice—often mischaracterized as arrogance or insubordination—was, in fact, a desperate protest against a leadership structure that had lost moral direction. His call for fairness and southern inclusion was never personal; it was philosophical. Yet, instead of dialogue, the party’s northern cabal chose vilification, deepening the fissures that now define its terminal decline.

The defection of Peter Mbah must therefore be understood as the cumulative outcome of years of betrayal, exclusion, and failure to reform. It is not a solitary act of political convenience but a logical consequence of institutional arrogance. When a party repeatedly sacrifices justice on the altar of entitlement, it should expect desertion from its most loyal adherents.

As things stand, the PDP is a ghost of its former self—bereft of ideology, cohesion, and moral authority. The defections of Mbah, and potentially Diri, are not merely shifts in political alignment; they are symbolic tombstones marking the burial of a once-great party. The PDP’s tragedy lies not in being defeated by the APC but in being defeated by its own contradictions, its own oligarchs, and its own inability to evolve.

In the final analysis, the fall of Enugu to the APC is not just the end of an era for the PDP—it is definitive proof that power without principle, and ambition without justice, cannot sustain a political movement. History will record that the PDP did not die at the hands of its rivals; it died by self-inflicted wounds—slowly, painfully, and predictably.

Capt. Bishop C. Johnson (U.S. Army, Retired) is a Political Analyst and National Defense & Military Strategist