Honourable Cletus Obun, a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has responded to the allegation that President Bola Tinubu is disrupting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to weaken the opposition ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The PDP is struggling to resolve a complex internal crisis that broke out after the 2022 presidential convention which produced Atiku Abubakar as the party's candidate for the 2023 election.

Atiku's emergence and the refusal of the then-National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to honour his promise to resign if a Northerner emerged as the winner of the convention pitted some key stakeholders against one another.

Some members allegedly worked against the party in the election, which was partly responsible for Atiku's defeat for President Bola Tinubu. Chief among the suspects is Nyesom Wike, who now serves in the current administration as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister.

Despite several attempts at reconciliation, the PDP continues to swim in the murky waters of crisis. Commenting on the feud in the party recently, a leading member from Ogun State and former spokesperson for Atiku, Segun Sowunmi accused Tinubu of being the mastermind of the crisis in the opposition party.   

Sowunmi claimed that the President appointed Wike without consulting the PDP, adding that the decision betrayed the party's leadership structure and played a significant role in the ongoing crisis.

“President Tinubu is the problem of the PDP; he has no business taking Wike from our party and appointing him as Minister without talking to us,” the PDP chieftain said on Wednesday edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.

APC chieftains mocks PDP

Reacting to Sowunmi's accusation, Obun said the claim showed that the opposition party was falling apart.

The APC chieftain, who refused to outrightly deny Tinubu's guilt of the accusation, stressed that it's the job of a political party to cause destabilisation and division in the opposition party.

"If PDP comes out to say so, it's the worst political confession to ever make because you're saying to your opponent, 'I'm a southpaw. I'm a boxer, I use my left hand to box.' And you're saying in the ring today, nobody should use his left hand because you know that's where my strength is.'

"So if you're saying that we are able to infiltrate PDP and destabilise them, it's part of our duty to so just like it's part of their duty to ensure that APC is destabilised. It's part of other political parties to do so. The destabilisation, as long as it's not destructive to become violent, it's a good weapon to use," he said.