Nigeria, Dec. 31 -- From the unprecedented declaration of emergency rule in Rivers State to the sweeping defections that dismantled the Peoples Democratic Party's (PDP) long dominance in the oil-rich region, the South-South became the epicentre of Nigeria's most consequential political developments.

For nearly 25 years after the return to civil rule in 1999, the South-south stood as the PDP's most reliable electoral fortress. In 2025, that certainty collapsed.

From Port Harcourt to Uyo, Yenagoa to Asaba, the year unfolded as one long political earthquake - marked by emergency rule, defections, deaths, protests, and uneasy recalibrations, leaving the states all slipped from the PDP's grip through defections by sitting governors, effectiv...