APC vs PDP: The battle on ground

The defection of the five governors from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC has inevitably redrawn political calculations on ground in the affected states. Below is a state by state analysis of the effect the defection would cause on ground.

Rivers 

Rivers State is the only Southern state among the five states whose governors are decamping to the All Progressives Congress, APC. It is only second to Kano in terms of voters and has been a traditional feasting ground for the PDP. The state has over time harvested an average of two million votes from the state for the PDP in presidential elections, and proportionately contributed 10% of the total votes scored by President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 election.

Until the recent internal crisis in the state chapter of the party, Governor Rotimi Amaechi was believed to have devoted his time to governance and left party politics in the hands of his former chief of staff, Mr. Wyesom Wike, the Minister of State for Education who is now the face of the anti-Amaechi campaign in the state. Amaechi’s seeming apolitical stance in the first term saw him allow Wike to be the Director-General of his campaign, a position that supposedly gave the latter the opportunity to build a political network that he has now deployed to hound his former boss.

Amaechi’s difficulties in Rivers State were also compounded by allegations that in his determination to set legacies on ground, that he forsook the government of patronage that was supposedly practiced by his predecessors. It was not surprising then that over time, that Amaechi garnered against himself enemies who were beneficiaries of the former regime, of which he was actually a participant.

The removal of the PDP structure from him was perhaps an eye opener to Amaechi on how far he had disconnected from the politics of welfarism or patronage as his traducers used that taunt him. It was as such not surprising that the Amaechi administration has besides its physical and other well commended projects on ground, lately commenced empowerment schemes. But how far the governor can go in shaping the political battle ahead would be a matter of keen interest.

Governor Amaechi has explained that his travails in the hands of the PDP were borne out of his struggles for Rivers interests citing how oil wells earlier believed to be for the state have been divested to other states, particularly Bayelsa, the home state of the president.

He has also challenged his traducers to name what Rivers State has benefited from the Jonathan presidency, inferring that the state has rather lost than gained from the Jonathan project. It is an issue that is bound to resonate positively with some in the state who have not been directly empowered by the Federal Government.