PDP’s Split: A New Political Era Has Emerged in Nigeria

By Omoniyi Joseph

In my country Nigeria, a new era has emerged in the political arena. We now have ‘Balance of Power’ due to the event that happened in less than 20 hours ago at the PDP national convention held in Abuja yesterday where the likes of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, Olagunsoye Oyinlola (the former governor of Osun), 7 PDP State governors and some political heavy weights in the party walked out of the convention angrily to conduct their own parallel election where they choosed/elect national leaders for their own PDP faction. Some political analysts will even say it’s due to the alignment of the progressives to form APC and the decision of Atiku Abubakar and his political associates to register PDM as a political party some weeks ago, that brought about what we called ‘Balance of Power’ in Nigeria’s political system.

My View:
With what happened yesterday, I am not sure if PDP as a party can still lay claim to its boosting that it is the largest political party in Africa due to the population of the country and the number of states the party controls before (23 out of 36 states).
My reason for this is because of the following reality below if we won’t deceive ourselves:

PDP now have 16 states
APC — 11 states
New PDP(PDM) — 7states
APGA — 1 state; and
LP — 1 state.
We should bear it in mind that there is high possibility that Ngige will win the Governorship election in Anambra state which will be held in November this year due to the serious crises in PDP. Till this moment who don’t know if it would be Uba or Nwoye that INEC will allow to represent PDP in the election?

My question now is, what do you think will happen if PDM decide to align or work with APC to dislodge PDP from controlling the affairs of the country come 2015 Presidential election?