Former Delta State Governor and ex-vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ifeanyi Okowa, has stated that the PDP is unprepared for the 2027 general elections.
Okowa made this claim during an interview with Arise News on Tuesday, just days after officially defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC) alongside the sitting Governor of Delta State, Sheriff Oborevwori.
He criticized the PDP Governors’ Forum for rejecting a proposed coalition during a recent meeting in Ibadan, Oyo State, saying the move highlighted the party’s reluctance to build strategic alliances necessary for electoral competitiveness.
His words: “If a party appears on its own as led by the current leadership to make a decision that they were not ready, they are in opposition with much fewer governors than the All Progressives Congress, and the party comes into a decision-making meeting, and they take a decision that there was the need for them to continue alone, and they were not ready for alliances. They were not ready to have mergers with other political parties. The question is, how do they truly want to compete?
“And having looked at this very thoroughly, along with many other things that have been going on within the party, as to various court cases, as to who exactly is the National Secretary of the party, and many other issues, we do not appear to be really ready for competition in the 2027 elections.
“So having looked at this, alongside the fact that we believe that as a political family in Delta State, we needed to be able to move ahead, to truly connect to the resources. As I did say yesterday, it’s not about Oborevwori. Yes, he’s the leader of the party as a governor. It’s not about me. It’s about the larger Delta State and the larger political family that we have.
“And I thought, in my own opinion, and in the opinion of the vast majority of leaders, because we had different levels of consultation. It was not just a question of a decision of the governor, or a decision between the governor and Dr. OKowa. We had various levels of meetings with several stakeholders, and even had to make consultations with some of our other leaders, who are not even politicians, before we came to this decision.
“And I think that our decision is right politically. I believe that we mean well for our people, and it is important for us to chart a path for ourselves that we think we can truly trust and that could bring political gains to the people of Delta. And that was why the decision was taken.”