There are many reasons for this unfortunate development.
MY TAKE.
After the presidential elections in 2019 and the victory of the APC both at the elections and at the Supreme Court, the Presidential candidate of the PDP who had gained the leadership of the party by his emergence at the primaries in Port Harcourt withdrew from the party, travelled out of the country for quite a while but long enough for the party to become leader less at the very time that a strong leadership was a political imperative.
Leadership vacancy allowed all sorts of pseudo leaders and opportunists to emerge and started acting and pretending as leaders.
The party thereafter became rudderless with no clear central rallying point that can galvanise its unity and strong internal strength and cohesion required in trying times.
Opposition to the ruling party was disjointed, uncoordinated, lackluster and most unimpressive.
All was left to the hoarse lone voice of one man Kola Ologbodiyan with occasional outbursts from the national chairman.
Governors, Senators and party leaders were completely muted with a deafening silence of the grave.
The BOT and its leadership became moribund and went completely off the political Radar.
They became a default app representing nothing but a paralysed body of elders with no capacity to energise the party functionaries, they themselves lacking in vision, vitality, commitment or courage of true loyal elders.
The stage became open to ambitious presidential aspirants who distanced themselves from the party and concerned themselves only with schemes and selfish devices to fulfil their ambitions.
In doing this they forgot that without a functional and strong united and vibrant party, which is the ultimate platform they needed to contest, all their efforts will be in vain and absolute jeopardy.
Thank God for the Bukola Saraki reconciliation committee, a commendable product of the national executive committee which at least tried to douse various fires silently burning in the states branches of the party.
This purposeless drifting, lack of focus and absence of clearly defined leadership has made the party not too attractive or inspiring to young and upcoming politicians.
It has also disillusioned the Nigerian electorate, who in the face of incontrovertible and inexplicable grand incompetence and lackluster perfomance of the APC government, had looked up to the PDP as THE alternative and hope for 2023, became forced to take the regrettable decision that APC and PDP are like six and half a dozen.
At this stage the stage has therefore been set for politicians who want a piece of the action to gleefully cross to the other side of the “red sea.”
Also and obviously there must exist within the leadership of the APC very smart politicians who realising that it will be difficult to convince the electorate to vote APC in 2023, figured that if they can succeed in paralyzing and crippling the political machinery by seriously depleting the numbers of its seating governors and the political lesdership of the opposition, then the populace will be faced with a “fait accompli” in 2023 and have no choice but to flow towards where the perceived political strength resides.
Also having more governors obviously increases the chances of victory in more states and the country in general.
Very wise consideration but only time will tell.
My conviction is that no matter what we politicians are scheming or not scheming ONLY the will of Almighty God will prevail in 2023.
God bless Nigeria.
Okupe is a politician.
