By Luminous Jannamike, Abuja
AT dawn in Abuja Municipal Space Council (AMAC), Hauwa Musa unlocked a slim social gathering workplace she as soon as helped maintain together with her personal financial savings. For practically a decade, the widow and petty dealer doubled as a PDP ward mobiliser in Kabusa; organising conferences, feeding volunteers, escorting aged voters on election day.
By late 2025, the room had gone quiet. Telephones now not rang. Conferences had been now not fastened. The chairman she campaigned for had walked away from the social gathering.
“When he left, all the pieces modified. No person known as us collectively to clarify. You simply get up and realise the work you had been doing now not exists,” Musa advised Vanguard in Hausa language, reducing her voice.
In Abuja Municipal Space Council, the political shift isn’t summary. Christopher Zakka Maikalangu, elected chairman on the PDP platform, defected to the APC and is now the ruling social gathering’s candidate for a second time period forward of the February 2026 FCT elections.
For ward organisers like Musa, the defection didn’t merely alter social gathering steadiness; it dismantled a fragile ecosystem of belonging and survival constructed round grassroots politics.
“We weren’t necessary individuals. However no less than you felt helpful. You felt counted,” she stated.
Her expertise mirrors a nationwide story usually lowered to numbers ., ,. The APC didn’t formally devour the PDP in 2025. There was no merger, no authorized absorption. But by 12 months’s finish, the opposition’s governing spine had nearly collapsed.
By late 2025, the PDP’s variety of governors had fallen from 13 after the 2023 elections to only 5 – 6, marking a near-total erosion of its regional dominance. The decline was pushed by a wave of defections to the ruling APC, largely by southern governors searching for proximity to the federal authorities’s ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda.
The exits got here steadily. Delta Governor Sheriff Oborevwori defected in April, adopted by former governor Ifeanyi Okowa and the social gathering’s construction within the state. In June, Akwa Ibom Governor Umo Eno crossed, triggering mass defections within the legislature. October delivered twin shocks: Peter Mbah ended the PDP’s 26-year maintain on Enugu, whereas Douye Diri moved in Bayelsa.
The exodus peaked in December. After months of emergency rule and political paralysis in Rivers State, Governor Siminalayi Fubara joined the APC. Days later, Taraba Governor Agbu Kefas formally registered as an APC member on December 14, 2025.
In a separate rupture, Osun Governor Ademola Adeleke give up the PDP to hunt re-election on the Accord Occasion platform, additional shrinking the PDP’s map. By 12 months’s finish, the social gathering’s remaining core was largely confined to Adamawa, Bauchi, Oyo, and Zamfara, with Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang broadly rumoured to be finalising his exit.
Beneath the governors’ degree, the aftershocks had been rapid. Commissioners recalculated futures. Councillors drifted quietly. Ward organisers like Musa had been left in political limbo.
“Nobody tells you…. You simply discover that nothing is occurring anymore,” she stated.
The Nationwide Meeting mirrored the identical pull. Within the Senate, defections by Francis Fadahunsi, Olubiyi Fadeyi, Aniekan Bassey, and Ekong Samson expanded APC numbers to round 70 seats, at occasions nearing 78 after extra Rivers defections. Within the Home of Representatives, six PDP members from Rivers State crossed over. In Akwa Ibom, 24 of 26 state lawmakers defected in a single sweep. By mid-2025, monitoring teams estimated that over 140 elected PDP officers nationwide had defected.
Contained in the shrinking opposition, the implosion turned sharply private. Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde accused former ally and APC-aligned FCT Minister Nyesom Wike of working to weaken the PDP forward of 2027.
“I used to be in a gathering with the President and Wike… and I’m saying this, , in an open chat. The President’s Chief of Employees was additionally in that assembly and few others… and Wike stated to the President, ‘Sir, I’ll maintain PDP for you, , in 2027.’ I used to be in shock. So we acquired up, we acquired to the verandah and I stated, ‘Wike, did we conform to this?’… That’s the reason I cannot be supporting the President for 2027.
Wike can assist him; it’s inside his proper. However it is usually inside my proper… to make sure that democracy survives in Nigeria and that we don’t drift right into a one-party state and we need to be certain that PDP survives,” he stated.
Wike has categorically denied the declare
“Initially, you ask your self, what was that assembly? What was the aim of that assembly that may have led me to say, ‘Mr President, I’ll maintain PDP down for you?’… There was no such assembly. Slightly, my humble self… and Seyi Makinde went to see the President… There was nothing like a gathering we booked to go and see Mr President… So it’s fully misplaced for anyone to say that in that assembly I advised Mr President that I might maintain PDP down for him… It’s not right,” the FCT MInister stated.
Past the PDP–APC feud, opposition figures now converse within the language of urgency. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, working by means of the ADC, has framed 2025 as a second that calls for collective motion.
“I emphasised that there was no time to waste in our rescue mission and inspired different members and leaders of the coalition to register with the ADC formally… There may be no sitting on the fence. I’m certainly happy to see that leaders of the social gathering on the state degree are pondering with the way forward for our nation in thoughts. Collectively, we’re dedicated to our resolve to work in the direction of a safe, united, and affluent Nigeria. The APC is bent on wrecking our nation, and we’re able to cease them from doing so,” the ex-VP stated.
Again in AMAC, Musa now not waits for conferences that will by no means maintain. Politics, she says, now feels distant.
That quiet defines 2025: not a takeover by legislation, however a sluggish evacuation of opposition life, till a celebration nonetheless exists on paper, whereas its individuals quietly fade from view.
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