Okowa fires back at Saraki, says PDP not ready for 2027 polls

Former Delta State governor and vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 general election, Ifeanyi Okowa, has said former Senate President Bukola Saraki lacked the moral standing to criticise his recent defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Speaking during an interview on the Arise TV Morning Show, Okowa said his decision to join the APC was based on the collective agreement of his political family in Delta State, adding that the PDP no longer presents a viable platform for electoral competitiveness ahead of the 2027 general elections.

“Ordinarily, I believe that we are a political family in Delta state, and once we make a decision together, I have to go with my political family because without that family, I have no politics to play.

“I do not expect that somebody like Bukola Saraki should be able to speak concerning me because he knows that he had also moved to the APC before and eventually returned. So he has had movement to and fro, so I don’t think he has a moral right about my defection at all. I don’t want to join issues with him,” he said.

Okowa’s response came days after Saraki described the wave of defections from the PDP in Delta State as an exposure of long-standing insincerity among party members, urging those who no longer believe in the party to leave.

Saraki, in a statement on Thursday, April 24, said the party was not in crisis but in a moment of transformation.

He added that those leaving were making space for genuine party members to step forward and refocus the PDP into a viable, people-centred opposition.

“My view is that those who want to leave the PDP should leave now and let the rest of us who want to stay concentrate on rebuilding the party and refocusing it to play the role of a viable opposition that will provide a better alternative for the good people of Nigeria,” he said.

Okowa, however, questioned Saraki’s credibility on the matter, recalling the former Senate President’s history of defections between the PDP and APC.

According to him, months of internal disarray and refusal to form alliances have made the party unfit to provide a credible alternative to the ruling APC.

“The truth is that we have a political family in Delta state, previously we were in the PDP, but several things have been going on in the PDP. While I do not want join issues with people but as stakeholder, our leaders in this state have sat down to look at events in the last several months and the cause of the event that we see and the communication coming out from the leaders of the PDP at the moment, it did not appear to us that was a proper political vehicle to continue because it did not also appear to us that PDP was ready to be competitive in the 2027 elections,” he said.

The Delta State governor, his predecessor and all PDP members in the state defected from the PDP to the APC on Wednesday, April 23.

Oborevwori announced the defection through his Commissioner for Information, Charles Aniagwu.

James Manager, a former senator, also announced the PDP members’ defection after a meeting that lasted several hours at Government House, Asaba, the state capital.