With Bwacha's entry, APC is doomed in Taraba

After the initial euphoria of his grand defection from the People's Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressive Congress Party (APC), stakeholders in the APC and political observers are taking stock of the development and they do not like what they see.

On the surface of it, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha's entry into the APC is considered a net gain for the party as he is expected to add his well-known formidable political structure and resources to the fortunes of the party.

But on close examination however, this may not necessarily be so because his entry is continuing to ruffle feathers in the party.

Even before the entry of Bwacha, the APC had already carved an unflattering reputation as a party always likely to default. Its array of political grandees has always crossed one another; lack of unity of purpose and cohesion being the most prominent of its many weaknesses.

Indeed many within the party believe that this factor will once again resurface in the run up to the 2023 elections and APC will most likely slip into its usual default mode.

Senator Bwacha entertains the hope that his entry will be the game changer for the fortunes of the party thereby possibly winning it the 2023 governorship elections. Indeed this is the overriding reason why he joined the party. But he can expect that not so many will be warm to his aspiration in the APC and they are likely to work against it for a number of reasons.

Firstly, many suspect he came into the party not to improve its fortunes but to actually do the opposite. People who belong to this school of thought actually believe that Bwacha is part of a grand plan not just to scuttle APC's probable victory in 2023, but also to prevent power shifting from the southern senatorial zone to either the northern or central zones.

With the political structure and wealth of resources at his disposal, Bwacha will expect to clinch the APC's governorship ticket and this will likely be fiercely resisted by those party stalwarts who have been nursing the same ambition before he joined the party.

If in the likely event Senator Bwacha does not get the APC nomination, one of two things are bound to happen; he will either stay and work against the party from within or defect yet again to another party and work against the APC openly.

In this regard, the Senator has as his strong plan B, a move to either the Social Democratic Party (SDP) or the All Progressive Grand Party (APGA). Sources say Senator Bwacha has already alerted both parties to be on standby for this eventuality. The sources further say that Bwacha is already funding these two parties to keep them warm for his projected defection.

From all indications away from the razzmatazz of his entry into the APC, party insiders do not consider Senator Bwacha as the big fish he thinks he is. They see him rather as an unwelcome intrusion whose presence in the party will doom its chances of snatching expected victory yet again from an underperforming PDP administration that Tarabans would want to be rid of.