Will President Tinubu’s Ally, James

Ibori, Join the List of Defectors in Delta?

In Nigerian politics, Delta State has become the latest stage where defections pirouette with poetic irony. Once a fortress of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the state is now witnessing a slow, rhythmic unravelling, almost musical in its inevitability.

Last week, the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Dennis Guwor, announced, with what some call calculated grace, his departure, along with 21 lawmakers, to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Days earlier, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and his predecessor Ifeanyi Okowa had made their own choreographed exit, leaving the PDP’s state chapter resembling a house emptied of its furniture but not its ghosts.

Amid this political waltz, the question everyone is whispering – some hopefully, others nervously – is whether Chief James Ibori, Delta’s political godfather and ally to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will follow suit.

Ibori, the man who helped build PDP’s foundations in Delta brick by brick, now stands at a peculiar crossroads. A unifier, a grassroots juggernaut, and arguably still the most influential figure in the state’s political tapestry. Supporters insist Ibori remains the cornerstone of PDP’s legacy. But legacies, like party loyalties, have been known to evolve under the right conditions.

And what are those conditions? Consider a deflated PDP plagued by internal fractures. Consider a Tinubu presidency seeking southern consolidation. Consider Ibori’s longstanding ties to the president and his strategic instincts. Would it be that surprising if he crosses the aisle, not out of disloyalty, but as part of a grander alignment?

Yet, Ibori has said nothing. His silence is not absence; it is theatre. In Delta politics, every pause is deliberate, every silence strategic.

So, will he? That is the wrong question. The better one might be: what does Ibori stand to lose – or gain – by staying? Either way, one thing is certain: the next step he takes will not be accidental. It will be choreography.