2019: PDP First Sorrowful Mystery; The Defection Of Sen.Nelson Effiong. By Daniel Etokidem

Akwa Ibom has a mercurial political landscape that is never short of surprises. At one moment it is warm, the next moment it is cold. No one however needs to be a prophet of any kind to be able to see that 2019 especially in Akwa Ibom is sure to be an election year of distinction, both for better and worse.

One of the simple truths concerning the 2019 elections is that there will be disappointments and surprises. The year 2019 though still a bit far away is certainly going to be a year when the soul of politicians will be stirred and tested. A year ambitions will be fulfilled or mortally crushed. This as expected has raised the level of anxiety of not a few.

After months of rumored defection, former Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly and presently, Senator representing Akwa Ibom South Senatorial District, Senator Nelson Effiong, announced his defection from the PDP to the APC at the senate plenary. In his words at the floor of the Senate on Thursday, Nelson said, "Over the past one year this party has disintegrated; because of the crisis in the party, I have decided to resign from the PDP and join the APC".

Indeed, the element of surprise is a potential weapon in combat. Since the news of the defection broke, the PDP has lost its sleep with everybody half- awake.

The reaction from the widow (PDP), who just lost a son (Sen Nelson Effiong), was swift and in a tone that sounded helpless, subdued yet unwilling to accept one's fate. Spiced with anger, frustration, bitterness and shock, the party says it will challenge the defection in court. Akpabio, the destroyer of the party was the first to declare the party's readiness to challenge the defection. If laughter is the music of the soul, the PDP surely knows how to modulate its tempo.

The party is doing the unusual - headed for the courts. I don't know if any applause greeted this submission as declared by the Akwa Ibom State Publicity Secretary, Iniobong Ememobong. "The State Chairman of the Party, Obong Paul Ekpo has directed the Legal department of our Party to commence the process of recovering the mandate freely given to Nelson Effiong and manifestly mismanaged and corrupted by him", the PDP lamented.

On this, they are partly right. 2015 in Akwa Ibom was all about "mandate freely given", too free but very unfair. Mismanaged and corrupted by the giver. Both the process and outcome was freely undermined and compromised by the initiator. Why then mourn over the demise of a baby that was like a false pregnancy- all the signs present but no baby? With over four members of the House of Representatives waiting to defect to the APC, and the Ikot Ekpene Federal Constituency seat on the verge of a judicial eviction, alongside the Akwa Ibom North East seat under judicial review, I wonder how the funeral will look like when the obituary is officially announced.

Politics, the PDP must be told, is no algebraic formula or calculus with definite and predictable answers. In politics, nothing is impossible. It is a game in which a pointer does not necessarily mean a movement to a direction.The truth remains that despite the party sounding like a wounded lion, other PDP lawmakers who have been stonewalling over the idea of defecting to the APC will follow suit. 2019 in Akwa Ibom is an unstoppable movement - you either join the ship or be swept away by the tide.

From the reaction of the party to the Senator Nelson Effiong "divorce", I can see sadness and pain etched on the faces of most party members, in sharp contrast to the sunny smile that was previously their trademark as they boasted, "Akwa Ibom is PDP 100%". It is therefore understandable that while some PDP faithfuls are furious, others have developed an attitude of righteous resignation, the sort in which you mix rage with acceptance.

Moreover, with its rotting innards and diseased vital organs exposed for all to see, the Akwa Ibom PDP is set to implode and explode with maximum combustion.The demise of the PDP should no doubt be a lesson for others. Conceived as a broad pan- Nigerian coalition of political elites to prise power from a politically exhausted and self - discredited military oligarchy, the PDP became nothing but a tribute to power racketeering at its most ruthless summit. Beyond retiring the military to the barracks, the PDP later proved incapable and completely useless when it comes to moving the nation forward to achieve greatness in line with the vision, dreams and aspiration of its founding fathers.

Give it to Obasanjo and Danjuma that the demilitarization process worked brilliantly. But after that, the PDP succumbed to the logic of its despotic lineage and swiftly mutated into a civilian army of occupation, with Akpabio effortlessly taking the shape and vice of the strongest man and the hijacker of its soul, transforming it to a conservative and reactionary political party.

As the battle for 2019 begins to unfold and unravel, watchers of the Akwa Ibom political drama are holding their breath, waiting for the next episode. With Senator Nelson Effiong bidding farewell to the PDP, who's next? Only time will tell. The intrigues continues.