As it is in the biological process of osmosis, where the stronger solution draws the weaker solution through a semi-permeable membrane, so also is it today in Nigeria’s political terrain. What with a gale of defections that has continued to sweep across the nation in recent times, especially among state governors and in the National Assembly.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors have been majorly involved and their destination is the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). While PDP bled, the ruling APC smiled and taunted the opposition as they gained territories. Suddenly, the APC now controls a comfortable majority in the Senate.
Various possibilities open up as we ponder on the development. Ab initio, party switching exposes the irrelevance of political parties in the system that we run. Some have called them vehicles that take them to their destinations. In other words, one alights from the vehicle on reaching the terminus. That notion is as warped as it is immoral, indeed insensitive. Many things other than selfish considerations go into party formation. Like minds come together to pursue a common political purpose which must be people-oriented. Manifestoes are sold to the voting public upon which they make up their minds on which party to vote for. It is of note that names of the parties, not the candidates, appear on the ballot papers. In which case, victory at the polls belongs to the party, not to the individual.
Therefore, that vehicle which took the politician to the government house or the assembly, in a sense, is not a commercial molue making unending rounds to bus stops. It is a private vehicle carrying other passengers that have one thing or the other to do where the victorious candidate now domiciles. It should park in the premises and even when faulty, should be repaired and not be discarded ignominiously.
Indeed, the situation calls for an explicit law binding any candidate to remain in the party that took him to victory until he serves his term. Switching within term ought to imply loss of the position as it has been indicated that victory belongs to the party and not to the individual. Do the courts know this?
In all of this, the masses who cast the votes appear to be relegated. By defecting to an opposing party, a party which they might have had aversion for due to some reasons, the candidate of their favourite party, which they voted for, is telling them that they are inconsequential in a decision to shift from the position they chose earlier. What other political behaviour constitutes a travesty of democracy more than that?
Have we thought about the criminal aspect of it? A candidate stands an election for a party that works hard enough to win the votes of the electorate. Then, one morning, the candidate vanishes with the political party’s mandate only to join another party that lost woefully. It is an act of robbery, wicked, criminal, immoral, unethical, indeed felonious, and anyone not seeing it from this perspective needs a thorough check. These felonious governors can only be free when they return the stolen mandate to the party that owns it.
They may have been under the assumption that a majority of the ordinary voters in the state is tagging along. How would we know unless a referendum is conducted?
There is the growing concern of one-party state emerging from this political trend of events. It’s not to discredit one-party system which may have worked in predominantly monolithic states such as North Korea, Russia and others. It’s hardly ideal for a pluralistic and heterogenous society like Nigeria which is said to have up to 200 ethnic groups. However, the fear is implausible since all other political parties had not been proscribed. They are still in existence and have chances to bounce back once they get their acts together.
Much more worrisome is the gradual transformation of the APC into a powerful cult of sorts. Key characteristics of a cult include excessive devotion to a person or idea, use of manipulative psychological techniques as well as a lack of accountability for the leader. In addition to the song of on-your-mandate-we-stand, released earlier by Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike and members of the National Assembly, every defecting PDP governor has excessively praised President Tinubu and his economic agenda, perhaps based on the statistics bandied by the team.
Major features of the administration’s economic agenda are taxation and removal of subsidies. The policies appear to have made a humongous amount of revenue available to the Federation account, which has trickled down to the states. Letting out such excessive fund to governors who are constitutionally unaccountable as long as they remain on seat could lead to financial impropriety. It serves as a bribe.
We must remember that the laws of the land, specifically the immunity clause that shields governors from being sued, has given the governors an open cheque to the public accounts, including the funds meant for the local governments. It follows that development of the states depends on the degree of morality, discipline, civility and conscience in the person of the governor.
The claim of a brighter economic future is far from reality, given that there have been no visible efforts in transforming the nation from a consuming nation to a producing one. Multinationals have either folded or relocated while the unemployment rate soars by the day. The current downward trend of food prices is only a reflection of the harvest period. If nothing fundamental is done, the prices are likely to rise off harvest season.
Our governors are flocking to the APC that seeks to tax ordinary Nigerians out of existence in their bid to provide for the insatiable appetite of all the three arms of government – Executive that builds multi-billion dollar houses for the president and his vice in a town that they will never live in, the Legislature that changes exotic cars and furniture for members in a matter of months and misappropriate constituency funds, and the Judiciary that have been fingered as smiling to the banks with pounds and dollars after every case, all at the expense of the taxpayers’ money.
Some of the defectors claim they are aligning to the centre, using such expressions as “hooking up to the national grid,” thus unwittingly confirming allegations of marginalization against the Federal Government. By saying so, they have indicted the central government for deliberately denying states their rights because they voted for a different political party. Even so, it debars not the progress of the state. In the Second Republic, all the western states belonged to Obafemi Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). They did not go into extinction because they were not “aligned” to the centre.
Yet others cite the current crisis in PDP as their motivation for leaving. Is it not a shame that governors, senators and reps are incapable of resolving internal party wranglings? Indeed, they fuel it rather.
May be, the president is truly a Jagaban to attract so much following. Records show that the Emir of Borgu, in Niger State, Dr. Haliru Dantoro, gave President Ahmed Bola Tinubu the title, Jagaban, which he explained to mean “leader of Warriors”. They were together in the Third Republic Senate, although in different political camps. While Tinubu was in the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Senator who is now Emir came in through the National Republican Convention (NRC).
The title seems appropriate on Tinubu since politics is a game for gladiators and he appears to win all the time, albeit, in controversial circumstance. Among the players, or fighters as the case may be, there are those who essentially make politics a theatre of war instead of a tool for the smooth administration of the land and equitable distribution of resources of the nation. Either way, there is always a war.
From this scenario, 2027 is going to be a battle between the rogue politicians and the masses wishing fervently to take back their country. Only the politicians adjudged people of the masses in this equation would carry the day. This is barring glitches and broken skulls at polling booths, which makes it imperative that the electoral law reforms they have been clamouring for must be in place. Indeed, the technology should upgrade to people with facilities voting from their safe homes, including the registered voters in the Diaspora. If it works for Big Brother Naija and other platforms, it can work for INEC.
Party switching to the ruling party weakens opposition and robs us of hope to have a truly federal system where allocations of resource flow from federating units to the centre rather than all states running to Abuja to ask for a monthly bread.
There is every element of self-centeredness in the politicians concerned. Some are positioning themselves for the next election, believing that aligning with a party that has excellent credentials in grabbing, snatching, and running with mandates will earn them victory. Others are simply running away from prosecution after office. We pray that they get disappointed.
Dr. Odu can be reached through [email protected] or SMS 07016722929
