Another South-East State Will Soon Fall to APC — Ex-PDP National Youth Leader

Former National Youth Leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sunday Udeh-Okoye, has predicted that another South-East state will soon come under the control of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Udeh-Okoye made the statement on Tuesday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, shortly after he and other prominent Enugu PDP members defected to the ruling APC alongside Governor Peter Mbah.

“Just wait and see; very soon, another state will fall in the South-East to the APC,” he said, suggesting that the party’s influence in the region was growing rapidly. When asked to identify the state he was referring to, he declined, saying the information was “classified.”

The former PDP youth leader emphasised that their decision to leave the opposition party was not motivated by inducement or pressure from the APC. “How can APC threaten us? APC is not offering us anything other than good management,” he said. “This decision is without any inducement, not even verbal. Forget about money — we are not poor or beggars.”

He attributed the wave of defections to leadership failures within the PDP, accusing its national executives of running the party into the ground. “Umar Damagum, Samuel Anyanwu, and Umar Bature are pure undertakers. They didn’t come to grow the party; they came to bury it,” Udeh-Okoye declared.

He also described the PDP in Enugu as a shadow of its former self. “PDP is not only dead; what you now have in Enugu, if it still exists at all, is a carcass. Nobody is there. The only party alive in Enugu today is APC,” he said, adding that most of the state’s political heavyweights had already left the PDP.

Governor Peter Mbah, who led the latest defection, formally announced his move to the APC earlier on Tuesday in a state broadcast, saying his decision followed broad consultations and was aimed at connecting Enugu more effectively to the federal government for development.

“To the PDP, which provided us the platform to campaign and win, I extend deep gratitude,” Mbah said. “This is not a betrayal. It’s about carrying the people’s mandate on a platform that best serves them.”

Mbah and his team were received into the APC by Vice President Kashim Shettima, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the APC National Chairman Nentawe Yilwatda, and other senior party officials in Abuja.

The South-East geopolitical zone comprises five states — Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo. The APC currently controls three: Imo, Ebonyi, and Enugu, while Anambra remains under the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Abia under the Labour Party.

Party insiders hint that more defections may soon follow, with reports suggesting that Bayelsa State Governor Duoye Diri is finalising his move to the APC. Earlier this year, Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and Akwa Ibom State Governor Umo Eno also defected to the ruling party along with their aides and cabinet members.