Opposition parties have said that they were unfazed by the surge of defections that have hit governors and lawmakers into the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), as the country inches towards the 2027 general elections.

As of May 2025, the weakened People’s Democratic Party (PDP) controlled 13 states, but has lost eight to the APC, seven of which came by defection of the governors, while the APC reclaimed one, Edo State, through election. As of the last count, APC has 30 of the 36 state governors.

When the Sunday Telegraph spoke with the opposition parties, one after the other, they said that the defecting governors would not guarantee victory for the APC in 2027. Oyo State governor, Seyi Maknde, said Nigerians will decide, who will be their president in 2027.

“The ultimate deciders (of the 2027 election) are the Nigerian people. The only time we will be concerned is if hunger is defecting to the ruling party,” Makinde added. His Zamafara State counterpart, Dauda Lawal, went down memory lane and recalled that there was a time PDP had 29 governors. “But what happened after? We still lost the 2015 election,” the governor said.

ADC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said the 2027 presidential election would be determined by worsening insecurity, hunger, and economic hardship, rather than party switches by political elites.

Abdullahi stated that the influence of governors in Nigerian elections is “overrated,” arguing that recent electoral history showed that incumbency and elite backing do not automatically translate into victory at the polls. “Sometimes, the political influence of governors is exaggerated.

We have seen governors, who spent eight years in power return to contest elections in their states and still lose,” he said. The ADC spokesperson cited the 2023 general election as evidence, noting that several states delivered results that contradicted expectations despite strong rulingparty structures and sitting governors.

“In 2023, Delta State had a sitting governor who was also a vice-presidential candidate, yet they lost the state. Borno was an APC state and was lost. Even Lagos State, the home state of the current president, was lost,” he said.

He said the mass defection of governors to the APC was a deliberate strategy designed to project dominance and discourage opposition supporters. “The aim is to create fear and resignation, to make Nigerians believe it’s all over and that everyone is now APC.

“But governors may be decamping; the people are not decamping with them.” ADC National Secretary, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, said the fact that some governors are defecting to the APC does not show that opposition is being weakened.

Aregbesola argued that the statistics of the result of the 2023 presidential election do not support the belief that governors determine the outcome of an election. He used the results from two geopolitical zones – the South West and the South East- to support his argument.

“In the South West, the APC controlled all the states except two. Despite this, the maximum performance of the party in that election was 55 per cent, with the other parties sharing the rest. “The same applied in Lagos. The APC candidate lost his ward, local government, and state.

So, please, for goodness’ sake, where is the claim that governors win elections against the people’s will? “In the South East, the result is even more striking. The APC had only 5.8 per cent of the total vote from that zone. “The results of these two zones clearly show that governors do not win elections the people do.

“What we require from the government in charge of the election is a commitment to a free and fair process. Commit yourself to a free and fair election, and let us see what the result will be. That’s what we are asking,” the former Osun State governor demanded. Aregbesola has a soulmate in the Chairman, Enugu State Labour Party, Casmir Agbo, who said that in a free, fair contest, the APC cannot win.

Agbo stated that should the elections be conducted with the proposed Amendments to the Electoral Act and in conformity with international best practices, the APC would lose the election flatly. He insisted that the governors, especially where most of them have allegedly performed woefully, do not influence the choice of the masses.

The LP chairman noted that the masses were rather influenced by how they are affected by the socio-political and economic policies of the government, both nationally and locally. He said: “I will answer this question in two ways: first, we adhere to the Electoral Act with the proposed Amendments in conformity with international best practices; they (APC) cannot win the election because the masses are the people that win elections.

“The governors’ influence is not so much, especially when the governor is not performing at all. “Secondly, if they go by the old Electoral Act and they go by rigging and stuffing of the ballot boxes, they will win because they have the money, they have the influence.

“Other than that, there is no way APC will win the election in Nigeria if there is no manipulation; the masses are aware of that.” For his counterparts in Kano PDP, Alhaji Yusuf Ado Kibiya, the defection of the governors and the lawmakers was borne out of personal gain, which does not influence the majority of the voters. He said: “We saw what happened to Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso in 2003.

Despite being backed by the federal might, he lost the governorship as well as the presidential elections, as he could not get the second term and the required 24 per cent of the votes in Kano for former President Olusegun Obasanjo.” For the Imo State Coordinator, Obidient Movement, Vigilius Anukanti, electoral transparency, not political defections, is the real battleground for Nigeria’s democratic future.

Anukanti dismissed the notion that governors possess the power to sway presidential elections through bloc voting, pointing to the 2023 presidential election results as evidence. He noted that despite Peter Obi having no governor in his corner during the polls, he still secured victories in 12 states the same number won by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar.

In his intervention, the Edo State PDP Publicity Secretary, Dan Osa-Ogbeide, said that the contest will be between Nigerians and the ruling party. Governors defecting to the APC are not a guarantee. As they are defecting, others too are defecting to other parties.

“The way people are moving to APC, they are also moving to other opposition parties, but what you have to understand about the next election is that it is about the Nigerian people. Politicians, who are members of political parties are not more than one percent of the entire population.

Those who are registered members of political parties are not more than two million. “You can’t deceive Nigerians. They know what the cost of a bag of rice was when PDP was in power, and how much a bag of rice costs now that APC is in power.

They know how much the cost of basic food items and services is now that we have a clueless party in power.” However, the Kano State APC Secretary, Zakari Sarina, and fellow party man in Ondo State, Dayo Awude, who coordinates Grassroots Network (SGN) for Tinubu, said that the defection of more governors into the APC would make the reelection of President Tinubu easier.