There are strong indications that recent political moves by President Bola Tinubu are responsible for the defections of top opposition figures to the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Sunday PUNCH noted that the APC and the President, who had been on the defensive against criticisms from the opposition and anti-Tinubu coalition groups, might have turned the tables around.

Insiders insisted that the change resulted from Tinubu’s recent moves.

However, while some sources and opposition figures claimed that the President deployed inducements and blackmail, his supporters said he provided good leadership, which made the party attractive to outsiders.

Masterstroke or mischief?

Feelers from the APC identified Governors Umo Eno (Akwa Ibom), Peter Mbah (Enugu), Aba Yusuf (Kano) and suspended Governor, Siminalayi Fubara (Rivers), as four new converts expected to join the party in the coming weeks.

“It is not a rumour. It is happening; those four governors – Eno, Mbah, Yusuf and Fubara — are on their way to joining the APC,” a source said.

Multiple sources at the ruling party secretariat in Abuja equally confirmed the development to Sunday PUNCH.

This comes barely three days after the defections of Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori; his predecessor, Ifeanyi Okowa, and all members of the PDP in the state.

Their change of allegiance was announced last Wednesday by Senator James Manager, shortly after a meeting that lasted over six hours at the Government House in Asaba.

Another source, however, didn’t rule out mischief and blackmail in the arrangement.

He cited President Tinubu’s covert meeting with Fubara in London as one of such.

The meeting, confirmed by an online media platform, The Africa Report, was held at the insistence of the embattled governor, who was suspended from office after a declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers.

Sunday PUNCH could not confirm the details of the meeting, as presidential aides contacted said they were not part of the President’s latest trip.

A top source said, “It was at that meeting that we believed Fubara must have been coaxed into considering the idea of defection as part of the arrangement to return his mandate. We also have reasons to suspect that Governor Eno’s potential move to the APC is linked to his predecessor and godfather’s alleged corruption case with the EFCC.

“Kano’s case is already a done deal as Tinubu has started reconciling Ganduje and Kwankwaso. In the coming days, the news of Abba Yusuf’s defection will be made public because he will officially move to the APC with his mentor. We all know Kano is too big a state for Tinubu to ignore politically.”

Also, a chieftain of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Buba Galadima, claimed that a federal lawmaker under his party said President Tinubu gave him a N95bn ecological fund project.

He said, “At least if I don’t know anything, I know a serving lawmaker who declared that he was given N95bn, which is not in the budget, for an ecological project.”

Reacting, the National Secretary of the APC, Senator Ajibola Basiru, denied allegations of inducement and blackmail.

He said, “How can we induce a governor to come and join our political party? There is no factual basis for those allegations. It is in the figment of their imagination and possibly a product of hallucination. The truth is that even before decamping, if they check online, they will realise Governor Sherif has, on several occasions, shown his preference for Tinubu’s presidency.

“He has never hidden his admiration. So, when the stakeholders met, they felt that rather than just supporting Asiwaju in 2027, they should join his party so they could work together. Less than two weeks ago, we were in Agbor when the chairman of NDDC and the Delta Unity Group defected to the APC.

“The only senator of the PDP in Delta, Senator Ned Nwoko, also defected to the APC. So, anybody watching the development knows that it was only a matter of time before the leadership of that place moved. I hope you also know that former Governor James Ibori is a friend of Asiwaju, and they have been collaborating since Tinubu became president. So, would he not want his party to join up with Asiwaju Tinubu?”

Opposition in disarray

The PDP, Labour Party, and NNPP are currently grappling with internal crises compounded by defections to the APC, which has left their parties in disarray.

According to some politicians, the crises are being sponsored to weaken the opposition ahead of 2027.

The immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, had on March 11 alleged that the crises faced by opposition parties were being sponsored by “the government of the day.”

El-Rufai said the litigation, divisions, and factionalisation across opposition parties were all contrived by the ruling party to destabilise them.

PDP: A house divided

The PDP, the largest opposition party in the country, has been embroiled in controversies since the 2023 elections.

Sunday PUNCH noted that the crisis, largely between the camps of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has significantly weakened the party.

Wike, who worked against the PDP in the 2023 presidential election, has declared support for Tinubu’s 2027 bid.

Delta State Governor Oborevwori, his predecessor, Okowa, and many key members of the PDP also dumped the party for the APC last Wednesday.

https://punchng.com/2027-tinubus-counter-attack-scatters-opposition/