Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State has finally defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Mr Mbah announced his defection in a broadcast from the Government House in Enugu on Tuesday after weeks of speculation.
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The governor defected to the APC along with all the commissioners and elected chairpersons of the state’s 17 local government areas.
He added that he also defected to the APC alongside all elected councillors and at least 80 per cent of the PDP executives in the state.
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“Today, after a long reflection, we have made the decision to leave the Peoples Democratic Party and join the All Progressives Congress,” he said amid cheers from supporters.
“This is no whimsical decision. It’s a collective move by the political family in Enugu State, comprising members of the National Assembly, members of the State House of Assembly, the State Executive Council, all the Local Government Chairmen and Councillors, all political appointees, and over 80 percent of (PDP) party executives.”
The state’s immediate past governor, Ifeanyi Ugwanyi, was present during the declaration.
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But it is unclear if he was also defecting from the PDP to the APC.
‘Connecting Enugu to the centre’
Mr Mbah thanked the PDP for giving him the platform to contest and win the governorship election in the state in 2023.
The governor explained that his defection to the APC was to connect Enugu State to the central government.
“This move is bigger than politics – it is about alignment at scale. It is about connecting Enugu’s destiny with the central hub of broader reforms shaping our nation,” he said.
He lauded President Bola Tinubu, emphasising that the defection to the APC was to enter into a “visionary partnership” with Mr Tinubu’s presidency.
Mr Mbah said his administration shares Mr Tinubu’s presidency’s conviction that South-east development must be “bold and disruptive.”
“The president has shown not only interest, but a deep and vested commitment to Enugu, one that recognises our region as a pillar of national progress.
“We both share a belief that renewal does not stop at the grand highways or the balance sheets. It must reach the ward, the village, our grassroots. It is in the daily life of the farmer, the trader, the young entrepreneur that reforms come alive,” he said.
With the latest development, Enugu, which had been under the control of the PDP since 1999, has become an APC-controlled state.
It was the only remaining PDP state in the South-east. The APC controls Imo and Ebonyi in the region.
The two remaining states—Anambra and Abia—are controlled by the All Progressives Grand Alliance and the Labour Party, respectively.
Background
Mr Mbah was elected governor of Enugu State in 2023 under the PDP platform. But months later, the South-east Zonal leadership of the PDP began a face-off with the national leadership of the party over a contest for its national secretary position.
Samuel Anyanwu, the substantive occupant of the position, had stepped aside to contest in the 11 November 2023 Imo State governorship election on the PDP platform but lost to the incumbent governor, Hope Uzodimma of the APC.
Mr Anyanwu attempted to take over the position after failing to win the Imo governorship poll, but was resisted by the South-east leadership of the party, who had nominated a former National Youth Leader of the party, Sunday Udeh-Okoye, to replace Mr Anyanwu. The face-off resulted in prolonged legal battles.
In December, the Court of Appeal, Enugu Division, upheld a judgement of the Enugu State High Court which recognised Mr Ude-Okoye as the national secretary of the PDP against Mr Anyanwu.
However, on 21 March 2025, the Supreme Court nullified the judgements of the lower courts that had sacked Mr Anyanwu as the PDP national secretary.
While Mr Anyanwu celebrated the court’s overturning of his sack, the PDP leadership in the South-east expressed happiness that the court held that both courts had no jurisdiction to hear the case in the first instance.
The South-east PDP leadership celebrated the ruling of the court that matters relating to the leadership or membership of a political party fall strictly within the party’s internal affairs and should not be the business of any court.
On 14 May, they re-nominated Mr Udeh-Okoye as the party’s national secretary before presenting the re-nomination to the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) days later.
By June, the PDP leaders in the zone also threatened to dump the party if its NWC refused to ratify Mr Udeh-Okoye as the national secretary.
A bloc of leaders from the party loyal to the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, went ahead to reaffirm Mr Anyanwu as the duly elected and substantive national secretary of the party.
ALSO READ: ANALYSIS: How Peter Mbah fared in Enugu after one year as governor
The then-acting National Chairperson of the PDP, Umar Damagun, affirmed the declaration by Mr Wike’s loyalists when he announced in June that Mr Anyanwu had been restored to his position as the party’s national secretary, which was later opposed by a faction of the party’s NWC.
In late September, PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported that Mr Mbah had perfected plans to defect from the PDP to the APC.
Meanwhile, Mr Mbah’s defection to the APC occurred 24 hours after Mr Udeh-Okoye announced his resignation from the PDP in what many believe was to pave the way to join the governor in moving to the ruling party.
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