Buhari's campaign crowd in Bayelsa and Cross River throws PDP into fear

Things are not the same anymore, nothing is guaranteed in the political space today as it used to be. Before Wednesday, January 7, 2015, the regular refrain among the PDP leadership in Cross River State was that, "there is no opposition in Cross River state".

But the rally held by the APC on Wednesday, heading by General Muhammadu Buhari, has seemingly changed the political language and equation in the state.

The rally, which was organised as one of the campaign stops of Buhari, the APC presidential candidate, was a huge success. It attracted an unprecedented crowd of supporters which no opposition party has been able to muster in the past 16 years and marks a significant tipping point in the political affairs of the state.
From all parts of the expansive state, crowds of the party's faithful converged on the Mayne Avenue Primary School, venue of the rally as early as 9 am singing and dancing while awaiting the arrival of Buhari and his entourage whose delayed flight arrived the Margaret Ekpo International Airport, where another large crowd of supporters was waiting for him, at about 4pm before proceeding to the rally centre.

According to Vanguard, many political watchers in the state were taken aback by the large turnout of supporters judging from the near comatose position of APC and other parties in the state before now.

Following their persistent battering by the forces of the ruling PDP right from the days of Mr Donald Duke who during his eight years tenure consistently wooed over many members of the opposition parties while those who remained adamant were decimated politically.

From being the majority with 13 out of the 25 members in the State House of Assembly in 1999, the APC then called APP went down to zero in the 2003 elections as all those who contested elections for the positions of chairmen of councils, Senate, House of Representatives, State House of Assembly and even councilors on the party's platform lost woefully until 2011 when Ernest Irek, a member of the PDP who lost nomination to Mr Fabian Okpa crossed over to the then ACN and won Okpa in the general election to become the House of Assembly member representing Obubra 11 State Constituency.

The cantankerous outcome of the party's state executive council election of the party in 2014 did not help matters as some staunch members were expelled leaving many people disgruntled. However, like the proverbial kiwi which rises from its ashes, the party found its foot back in the months of November and December 2014 with the influx of some PDP members following the acrimonious outcome of the PDP primaries and this significantly boosted the ranks of the party.

Effectively, with the entry of defectors from PDP, the party which in 2011 could hardly present candidates for elections in half of the constituencies was able to fill every vacant position as many people, particularly the PDP renegades fell over themselves to pick the party's tickets to contest elections for the various positions. So most of these candidates unlike the dead woods of the past were able to muster resources to ferry their supporters from across the state to the rally venue.

The party may, however, need a miracle to win the governorship slot against the PDP, owing to the strong political calculations and indices that prevail in the state
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