Politics all over the world is based on interest and quest for political power. In Nigeria where Political Parties run without an ideology and basically as a platform to promote a politician's interest , defections are bound to occur when one politician feels his interest isn't being covered by a political party.

With the recent wave of defections in the political space, it has become necessary to examine which defection would affects the influence the chances of one party the more.

Ortom. APC to PDP. Ortom who was formally a minister under PDP joined the APC close to the 2015 election, but recently defected back to the PDP. In 2015 Buhari won in Benue, with the issue of herdsmen and bandits , with or without Ortom, Buhari is bound to lose a in Benue come 2019. Ortom's defection to PDP favours Ortom more than it favours PDP.
verdict: Paper weight defection. It may not have any significant effect.

Tambuwal. The former speaker of the House of Representatives returned to the PDP fo pursue his presidential dream. Buhari won Sokoto in 2015 getting over 600,000 votes against PDP's 152,000. With Tambuwal on the other side and likely to be the Presidential candidate of the PDP, the people of the caliphate wouldn't vote Buhari ahead of their son. However if the candidate is someone else and not Tambuwal, Buhari may emerge victorious here but with a small margin . verdict : It's a battle. one can't really say how Sokoto would go.

Saraki. The Senate president is perhaps is the biggest catch of the PDP. In 2015 Buhari got Kwara with over 300,000 votes against PDP's over 100,000. In 2019 it's going to be Saraki against APC. Going with history and events in the country , Kwara appears like a lost ground for Buhari.
verdict : A big catch. Saraki has proven to be politically smarter than all his political adversaries. With him as political advicer to the PDP campaign team, Saraki is bound to pull a lot from his sleeves to shock those in camp Buhari.

Akpabio. Perhaps the most shocking of them all considering his position in PDP and how he was made minority leader in the Senate despite being a first time senator. Akpabio is a politician you want to have by your side because of his big pocket. In 2015 PDP got over 900,000 votes in Akwa Ibom against Buhari's 50,000. But the situation is different and even Akpabio's defection cannot reverse that figure. In 2015 it was Jonathan from the south south against Buhari from the north. In 2019 it would be two Muslim northerners go head to head. Unlike 2015 were all political forces in the state were in PDP. Now the forces are divided with the Governor in PDP and Akpabio in APC. Expect Akpabio to pull some members of the House of representatives and House of assembly to APC.

verdict. Heavy weight. He wouldn't give Buhari 900,000 votes like Jonathan got in 2015, but he'd at least deliver his senatorial district to Buhari. If the Senate gets their way and reorders the sequence of elections, expect Buhari to lose heavily in the state again. However it goes, PDP would still have majority of votes in the state. Don't also expect voter turn out in the state to be as high as 2015 considering no son of the south south would be on the ballot.



Note. these are all permutations. One should also remember that Sule Lamido couldn't deliver Jigawa to Jonathan the same Babangida Aliyu couldn't deliver Niger State and Rochas couldn't deliver Imo state to Buhari . Not all defectors would deliver thier states. Infact some would go down because they defected. Our people vote with a lot of emotion these days, and while some regions in the country do not like APC, some regions just don't like PDP. some poligicians would go down because of their party.