By Jude Opara, Abuja
A foundation member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Osita Okechukwu has declared that the defection of Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu state has signalled the end of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South East.
Okechukwu who was speaking to journalists on Sunday, said the latest exit is a defining political moment and a clear indication that the South East geopolitical zone has finally dumped the PDP.
He said, Governor Mbah’s defection from the PDP to the APC is, “a pragmatic, rational, and inevitable decision”, which symbolizes the total collapse of PDP’s dominance in the region where they used to control all five state governments in 1999 to having zero governors in 2025.
According to him, this justifies the timeless lamentation of the late Rt. Hon. Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, who once warned that the PDP “pays good deeds with bad coins.”
Okechukwu argued that Governor Mbah’s exit vindicates that lamentation, adding that Okadigbo’s experience — from the 1999 Jos presidential primary where the former Vice President and PDP co-founder was sabotaged, to the 2003 election where Ndigbo naively ignored the Buhari/Okadigbo ticket — remains a historic lesson.
He criticized the PDP’s “utter disregard” for equity and justice, especially in 2023, when the party breached the Fourth Republic’s long-standing zoning convention, recalling that at the Port Harcourt presidential primary, no southern aspirant participated, despite repeated appeals for fairness and rotation.
“The last straw that broke the PDP’s camel’s back,” Okechukwu noted, “was the deliberate marginalization of the Southeast during the controversy over the National Secretary position.”
He cited the communiqué issued by the PDP South East Zonal Executive Committee (ZEC) after its meeting at Government House, Enugu, on May 14, 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 referenced remarks by former Senate President and PDP Board of Trustees Chairman, Senator Adolphus Wabara, who “decried the continued trampling of the Southeast PDP despite the region’s unwavering loyalty to the party since 1998″, he concluded.
