Jacob Mark says defections to the APC are driven by fears that the 2027 election results “will be written” by INEC.

A former National Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Jacob Mark, has attributed the wave of defections from the opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to growing fears that the 2027 general elections may be manipulated in favour of the ruling party.

Speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Thursday, Mark said, “Nigeria needs to sit down and think. This issue of people decamping to one party is a threat to democracy. Some of them have said it clearly and we are tempted to agree that why they are shifting to APC, it’s not because the APC has performed, it’s not because the records are positive. No. It is because they say that in 2027, election results will be written by INEC for the ruling party. So, nobody wants to lose out simply because he’s in a different political party. This is the main cause of the defection from the National Assembly to the governors everywhere. It’s not because people are happy.”

However, he insisted that such moves do not reflect public sentiment, noting that in many communities, campaigning under the APC banner remains difficult.

He said, “You can’t go to some villages and campaign in the name of APC. They will chase you out. And that’s why we have started to see in the north where members of the National Assembly who went home in December were beaten up. And this trend is going to continue because people are in pain. Yet, the elite, the VVIP, are defecting to the party that is bringing pain to them. And they are so arrogant about it. They are unapologetic about it. We may not have clear-cut ideologies in the political parties, but if you go to my village, for instance, we have our groups. We have our beliefs. We know who stands for us. We know the political party that has been there for us. So once you move out of that political party, you have lost the election. And they know it.

“But at the elite level, they say there is no ideology, so they can shift from one political party to the other. But if you go to your own environment, you know who has always been aligned to outside forces. You know who does not come for your cultural meetings. You know who does not identify with your people. But because you know who belongs to you, you will vote for that person. That is traceable to our Nigerian system.”

He cautioned governors and party leaders against assuming that defections at the top automatically translate into electoral victories, saying such assumptions could lead to major surprises in 2027.

“So when the elite behave as if once the governor moves, everything moves with him, they are making a mistake. And they are going to be shocked. Because unless, of course, what they are saying is true, that there will be no elections, that the elections will be written by INEC for them, if elections will indeed take place and every vote will count, there are going to be shocks in this 2027.” (ARISE NEWS)

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