Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State has resigned his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Mr Diri’s spokesperson, Daniel Alabra, confirmed this development to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday, 15 October.
“He has resigned from the PDP, yes. But he has not joined any other party yet,” Mr Alabra told our reporter.
Mr Diri was one of the last remaining PDP governors in Nigeria’s South-south region after his counterpart in Akwa Ibom State, Umo Eno, defected in June from the party to the APC.
Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State is now the only remaining PDP governor in the region.
Mr Diri’s resignation from the PDP has further depleted the number of PDP governors in Nigeria to eight.
Rivers, Adamawa, Bauchi, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Taraba, and Zamfara are states where the governors are PDP members.
The ruling APC currently controls 24 states in Nigeria, and may have more governors join it.
If Mr Diri eventually moves to the APC, the ruling party would control five out of the six states in the South-South.
The Bayelsa governor has been under pressure from within and outside the state to defect to the APC before the 2027 general elections. His resignation from the PDP is coming a few hours after Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State dumped the PDP for the APC.
Most of the governors who have defected from the PDP said they made the decision because of the party’s protracted leadership crisis.
