The question of whether Governor Seyi Makinde will defect from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) or remain and work to rebuild his party stands as one of Nigeria’s most important political dilemmas today, especially to his followers. The PDP into which Makinde entered in 2019 is no longer the monolithic powerhouse it once appeared. Following its loss of the presidency in 2015, the party struggled to re-establish a cohesive national centre.
Between 2023 and 2025, the party has been rocked by unnecessary leadership breakdowns, competing national organs, expulsions of key figures, public feuds particularly involving Nyesom Wike and a large wave of defections by governors and senators. By mid-2025, these exits reached a crescendo, reducing the PDP’s gubernatorial bench to single digits and shifting the national balance of power. The resulting crisis is both structural marked by weak internal discipline and rival power blocs and immediate, driven by factional wars, legal battles and the steady tidal wave of defections.
Now, central to this unfolding drama is the “Wike factor.” The “long digging” crisis within the PDP cannot be understood without examining the role of former Rivers State governor and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. Now part of President Bola Tinubu’s APC-led Federal Executive Council, Wike nonetheless continues to wield enormous influence within the PDP, an influence that has divided the party and created ripples across its national and state structures.
Since the 2023 general elections, Wike has effectively positioned himself as a kingmaker within a party he no longer fully belongs to. His control over several state chapters, particularly in the South-South region has left the PDP’s national leadership struggling to assert authority. In Rivers State, his loyalists maintain strong control over party organs, a reality brought into sharp focus by multiple legal tussles between his faction and the PDP National Working Committee (NWC).
Moreover, a recent Federal High Court case in Abuja highlighted this contradiction: in October 2025, a group of PDP members believed aligned with Wike filed a motion seeking to halt the party’s planned national convention, alleging the NWC had failed to follow due process in issuing notices to delegates. The court, however, declined to grant the ex-parte motion, allowing the PDP to proceed with preparations. However now, the lawsuit laid bare the tug-of-war between national leadership and the Wike-backed faction.
What makes the situation especially troubling for party loyalists is that Wike as a sitting APC minister is seen as using his access to power and resources at the centre to destabilize his “former” party from within, earning accusations of acting as a Trojan horse to ensure the PDP remains too fractured to challenge the ruling APC effectively ahead of the 2027 general elections.
In this fraught environment Makinde finds himself with a calculus far more complex than a simple decision to defect or stay. His publicly stated loyalty to the party, “I won’t abandon PDP” sits uneasily alongside other signs of calculation, the mobilisation of his supporters, the appearance of campaign posters in northern states ahead of 2027, and the underlying awareness that remaining in a fractured PDP may limit his ambition. The presence of the “Wike factor”, a former PDP governor turned federal minister in the APC-led government who continues to influence PDP affairs from the outside, adds a further layer of complexity to Makinde’s decision.
To understand how the PDP arrived at this precarious state, it is essential to look at both legacy issues and more recent ruptures. After losing the presidency in 2015, the party never fully rebuilt the singular, unified centre that had anchored its earlier dominance. Instead, regional powerbrokers, internal godfathers and diverging presidential ambitions created a party where loyalty often tracked patronage and zone-based calculation rather than ideology.
Public commentators had warned in 2023–2024 about unresolved nomination disputes, overlapping congresses and internal conflict which could and now haveundermined the party’s credibility. On top of this fragile legacy, Wike’s evolution from PDP governor to national powerbroker and minister of the FCT sharpened the internal contest for control. His factional posture open criticisms of other governors and of the party’s processes fed into the breakdown and amplified the visible effect: the cascade of defections, as governors and legislators departed the PDP for the APC. In 2025, this exodus accelerated, transforming the party’s weakness into a self-reinforcing cycle of decline.
Now in considering Makinde’s options, the structural incentives drawing politicians toward the APC must be understood. The ruling party controls the centre: federal appointments, contracts and funding flow through its channels. For many governors, aligning with the centre affords the easiest route to staying relevant and fulfilling obligations in their states. There is also the logic of electoral survival, in many states, local stakeholders pressure governors, pointing out that remaining in opposition limits access to patronage, which can threaten local coalitions and reelection. Add to that the signalling effect, when peers defect, the risk of being isolated increases, making defection as much a defensive as an offensive maneuver. Finally, internal party discipline matters, in the PDP the prevalence of unresolved disputes, weak mechanisms for resolution and the ubiquity of conflicting congresses mean many are tempted to exit rather than stay and fight.
Today, Makinde’s position in this scenario is distinctive. He has built a technocratic, development-focused brand in Oyo State, emphasising governance reforms and visible project delivery. He also appears to harbour national ambition, his name and image have surfaced beyond the South-West, even in some northern states, hinting at a possible presidential bid in 2027. At the same time, he faces the same pressures as other PDP governors: federal agents leaning on him, offers of patronage from the centre, and defections among his peers.
Despite Makinde’s “I won’t abandon the PDP,” stands even as defections continue. At the same time, his positioning suggests he is keeping options open. If Makinde chooses to stay and attempt to rebuild the PDP, the scale of the task is formidable. He would need to push for institutional reform within the party, establishing clear rules for primaries, impartial congresses and enforceable discipline. He would have to build strategic alliances, bringing together marginalised governors, party elders and relevant caucuses to counter the Wike-aligned bloc and restore grassroots confidence.
Again, Makinde would need to craft a persuasive national narrative: showing that the PDP can deliver not just opposition to incumbency but a credible alternative agenda. And he would need to guard against short-term temptations, proving that staying in the PDP can still yield cooperation with the federal centre rather than necessitating a move to the ruling party. These goals are possible in theory, however, they are difficult in practice, especially when rival camps profit from the very instability they profess to lament, and when the incentives to defect reward the immediate while the benefits of rebuilding are long-term.
Obviously, the costs of the path he chooses are substantial both for Makinde and for Nigeria. If Makinde defects, he may gain short-term administrative advantages, easier access to the federal centre, and other personal benefits. However at a significant reputational cost, he risks tearing down the “principled technocrat” brand he has built and feeds into the narrative that opposition in Nigeria is purely transactional. If he stays and the rebuild succeeds, he could emerge as the face of a revitalised PDP and a credible southern alternative ahead of 2027. But if it fails, he could be adrift in a hollowed-out party, vulnerable to the dominant machinery of the APC. For the country, mass defections weaken the opposition and reduce democratic accountability. Yet, a credible rebuild might restore balance in Nigeria’s political democracy but it demands internal discipline which the PDP has long struggled to sustain.
Now as things stand, Makinde appears more likely to stay and attempt to rebuild but only if the rebuild is credible. His repeated public commitments to the PDP, the visible networks mobilising around him, and his regional positioning all suggest loyalty. Yet, the influence of Wike’s external interventions, the pull of APC patronage and the fragility of the PDP’s internal structure mean the possibility of defection remains very real. His decision will be strategic, if the PDP can deliver meaningful reforms and offer him a credible path to national ambition, he will stay; if not, survival logic may push him toward the APC. In short, Seyi Makinde remains a big swing actor, the future of the PDP and the broader opposition in Nigeria may hinge on his next move.
Ogungbile Emmanuel Oludotun writes for Oyo Affairs