APC continues to capture more PDP governors

In the last six to seven months, we've seen two PDP governors defect to the ruling APC. The first was Dave Umahi of Ebonyi, who defected on November 2020. And, Ben Ayade of Cross River, who defected on May 2021. Both Cross River and Ebonyi states have never voted for a governor from any other party other than the PDP since 1999. 

Some pundits have said that these defections are an attempt by the APC to win over the South East and South South, both of which are PDP strongholds, in the 2023 elections, that the two region's vote will easily go to the APC if it nominates an Igbo as its presidential candidate. It is also inferred that these defectors are motivated by their personal ambition. Ayade, for instance, is most probably eying a run for the senate since his term as governor expires in 2023. This, he can easily do if he runs on the ruling party's platform. 

It has started to get more interesting.

Today, APC has scored another big win as Bello Mutawalle, the PDP governor of Zamfara, announced that he is dumping his party for the APC. As The Guardian reports:

Gov. Bello Matawalle of Zamfara has officially defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Matawalle announced his defection to APC in Gusau on Tuesday at a special grand rally to receive him to the party, organised by the National Caretaker Committee of the APC led by Gov. Maimala Buni of Yobe.

All three senators and six representatives representing the state at the National Assembly, as well as 24 members of the state house of assembly, have also officially defected to the APC. 

Still, not everyone around Mutawalle seem to be on board. His deputy, Mahdi Aliyu, a staunch PDP member, is yet to announce his defection, and most probably would not. Earlier this month, Mutawalle sacked all of his commissioners. This shows that they were aware of the governor's motives but were not in line with him.

The bottom line is APC is getting larger everyday with all these defections. For now, they seem confident that their poaching strategy will lead to yield electoral success at the polls in 2023. Let's wait and see.