‘Last man standing no more’ – David Mark’s final bow from the PDP after 26 years

It was April 8, 2015. Nigeria had just concluded a historic general election that saw the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lose power at the centre for the first time since 1999. Amid a wave of defections that shook the party to its roots, one voice stood defiantly against the tide — Senator David Alechenu Bonaventure Mark, then Senate President, IDOMA VOICE recalls.

“If I will be the last man standing, I will remain in the PDP,” Mark declared with military firmness during a birthday mass at St. Mulumba Catholic Chaplaincy in Abuja. The former Brigadier General had heard the swirling rumours that he was set to defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC) to preserve his position as Senate President. He dismissed them as fabrications.

“There is no reason whatsoever for me to leave the PDP,” he said. “Nobody has spoken to me from APC. I have risen to where I am on the platform of PDP.”

Ten years later, that same man — the once unshakable pillar of the PDP — has quietly exited the party he helped build. David Mark, a founding member, former Senate President, and longest-serving senator in Nigeria’s democratic history, has resigned from the PDP, paving the way for his new role in the African Democratic Congress (ADC), a rising coalition-backed force in Nigeria’s political landscape.’

Mark’s political journey began in earnest in 1998 when he returned from exile and joined the PDP. In 1999, he was elected to the Senate to represent Benue South — a position he held uninterrupted for two decades.

His tenure is one of the longest in the Nigerian legislature. In 2007, he became Senate President and served a historic two terms — the first Nigerian to do so under the current democratic dispensation.
Through military discipline and strategic tact, Mark was widely credited with stabilising the Senate during turbulent years. Under his leadership, the Red Chamber largely avoided the impeachment dramas and chaos that had plagued earlier assemblies.

From Rock to Driftwood?
The irony isn’t lost on those who remember the strength of Mark’s conviction in 2015. At the time, he scorned those defecting from the PDP as “fair weather friends,” saying they would return like prodigal sons once the party regained its footing. “When PDP bounces back… they will come back again,” he told his audience.

For Mark, staying wasn’t just loyalty; it was legacy. He considered it a debt to the party that had propelled him from military retirement to the highest legislative office in the land. But in the years that followed, PDP never truly bounced back. Internal crises, endless factional wars, electoral misfortunes, and the loss of its ideological compass wore down even the most loyal of its lieutenants.

Why Now?
David Mark’s resignation is more than a personal decision — it signals a deeper shift within Nigeria’s political architecture. The PDP, once Africa’s largest party, now grapples with shrinking relevance and increasing defections of its heavyweights. For a man of Mark’s calibre, long out of elective office, the time may have finally come to shift from party loyalty to national realignment.

The ADC, where he is now expected to play an interim leadership role, is one of several platforms forming a coalition of opposition forces — a “third force” aimed at shaking up the APC-PDP duopoly. For Mark, it appears the battle has shifted from saving the PDP to salvaging democracy itself.

A Veteran’s Final Salute?
Whether this move will redefine David Mark’s political legacy remains to be seen. What’s clear is that his long loyalty to the PDP was not without honour — or cost. His principled stand in 2015, when others jumped ship, was widely praised. He stood when it was hardest to do so.

Now, with his quiet departure from the PDP, history might judge him not for leaving — but for how long he stayed.