The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has strongly criticized the All Progressives Congress (APC) following Tuesday’s defection of Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, accusing the ruling party of instigating the political turmoil that pushed Fubara out of the PDP.
Reactions poured in from both state and national levels of the opposition party, with PDP leaders asserting that Fubara’s departure neither weakens the party’s structure nor diminishes its influence in Rivers State.
Governor Fubara formally announced his switch to the APC during an emergency stakeholders meeting at the Government House in Port Harcourt on Tuesday. He cited two key reasons for his defection: the PDP’s inability to protect him and the continued stability of his office, which he attributed to President Bola Tinubu’s intervention.
“I am still being addressed as ‘His Excellency, the Governor,’ not ‘former governor,’ because of President Bola Tinubu,” Fubara stated.
With Fubara’s move, all six states in Nigeria’s South-South region – Edo, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta, and Cross River – are now under APC control. Other governors who recently defected from the PDP include Delta’s Sheriff Oborevwori, Akwa Ibom’s Umo Eno, Enugu’s Peter Mbah, and Bayelsa’s Duoye Diri.
The PDP maintains that the defection is a result of APC’s “political engineering” rather than organic political realignment and insists that its support base in Rivers remains intact.
