Professor Chris Nwokobia, convener of the Country First Movement, has alleged that former Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa failed to convince his community to support the All Progressives Congress (APC) following his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Speaking during an interview with Arise TV from 16:44, Nwokobia described the APC’s recent actions as fundamentally anti-democratic and counterproductive. “The truth is that the APC has become its own greatest enemy. Let me say in so many ways, and everything it does presently is largely undemocratic,” Nwokobia stated.
He cited examples of what he characterized as coercive tactics by APC governors, including demands for resignations from those refusing to defect. “You see the words coming out of Akwa Ibom state, where the governor is saying that if you’re not moving with me to the APC, you have to resign,” he said.
The professor specifically highlighted events in Delta State, where he claims Okowa’s attempts to promote the APC met with local resistance. “Then you move to Delta State, where there was a celebration and some fiesta of sorts of the movement of the people from the PDP to the APC. And then you saw the former governor of Delta state, my senior brother Okowa was trying to sell the APC to the people in his community, and they said No, this is not what we know. This is not the party we believe in,” Nwokobia alleged.
He described the APC’s response to this rejection as a series of increasingly desperate public gatherings designed to create an impression of popular support. “And anxious to give a semblance of public acceptance, they moved from a convergence in Northwest addressed by the governor of Kaduna state to a convergence in Abuja addressed by several governors to another one in Lagos addressed by the governor of Imo state, and they call themselves a progressive party,” he said.
Despite the wave of defections, Nwokobia argued that opposition parties remain resilient and are reorganizing for greater effectiveness. “But the political parties are reorganizing to find, to form a stronger position. But importantly, if there is any movement or party that is jittery in today’s Nigeria, it is the APC,” he claimed.
The professor suggested that the ruling party’s focus on defections reveals underlying insecurity about its electoral prospects. “That is why they have left governance to continue to tell us about their ability to form a one-party state and to continue to tell us about no vacancy in 2027,” Nwokobia said.
Beyond the defection controversy, Nwokobia made more serious allegations about the APC’s role in destabilizing opposition parties. He claimed that recent statements from APC stakeholders demonstrate orchestrated efforts to undermine political rivals from within.
According to him, the ruling party has developed a strategy of using insiders within opposition parties to create internal chaos ahead of the 2027 elections. He argued that this represents a deliberate attempt to weaken democratic competition through manipulation rather than legitimate political competition.
