Former Delta State Governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, has criticized Senator Bukola Saraki for condemning his recent defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC), stating that the former Senate President lacks the moral authority to comment on the matter.

On Monday, a wave of defections reshaped Delta State’s political landscape, as Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, former Governor Okowa, and several top political appointees officially left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the APC.

Reacting to this development, Saraki issued a stern statement describing Okowa's defection as a new low for Nigerian politics. He expressed dismay, pointing out that Okowa, having served as the PDP’s Vice Presidential candidate in the 2023 presidential election, should not have made such a move. “It is shocking and unbecoming. It’s simply a sign of how low we have sunk as a polity,” Saraki remarked.

In response, Okowa, speaking on Arise Television’s “The Morning Show” on Tuesday, expressed surprise that Saraki would criticize him, recalling that Saraki himself once defected from the PDP to the APC before returning. “I did not expect that someone like Senator Bukola Saraki should be able to speak concerning me, because he knows that he had also moved to APC before and eventually returned. So, he has had movement to and fro. I don’t think that he has the moral right to even speak about my defection at all,” Okowa stated.

Okowa clarified that the defection was not a personal decision but a unanimous resolution by political stakeholders in Delta State. He explained that persistent internal crises within the PDP prompted the shift, as party communications in recent months signaled that the PDP was no longer a suitable platform for their political aspirations.

“Several things have been going on in the party. While I do not want to join issues with people, as stakeholders, our leaders in this state have sat down to look at the events in the last several months, and because of the events that we see and the communications coming out from the leadership of the PDP at the moment, it did not appear to us that that was a proper political vehicle for us to continue in,” he explained.

The former governor added that the refusal of PDP governors to form a coalition, alongside ongoing leadership challenges, demonstrated the party’s lack of preparedness for the 2027 general elections.