Post Election Defection: Quest For Stomach Infrastructure Taken Too Far

THE average Nigerian politicians have not given the country’s citizens particularly the masses any reason to change their perception that they are self seeking and less concerned about the well being of the nation.
This position has again been strengthened by the exodus of politicians from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that has just lost the presidential election to the All Progressive Congress (APC). The simple explanation to this by those who have been bitten by this bug of political malady is that they want to join the moving train of change from the old ways of running the affairs of state to the promised transparency and accountability in the conduct of government business.
Particularly worrying is the fact that those who are singing the new slogan of change now were the same people who maintained strong voices against the APC and its presidential candidate General Muhammadu Buhari before his declaration as the President elect on Tuesday March 31, 2015 by the Chairman Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Attahiru Jega.
Professor Jega had declared Buhari elected after he polled 15.4 million votes winning in 21 states against President Jonathan’s 12.8 million votes which he garnered from 16 states including the FCT.
Some of these politicians who many have described as fair weather birds have been in the ruling PDP since 1999 when it was first voted to power and had enjoyed the goodies their hold onto power could offer.
From Jigawa through Plateau, Kwara to Edo, Ondo and Kano stories of prominent politicians some of them former governors and gubernatorial candidates on the platform of the PDP in previous elections have announced their decision to ditch their former umbrella party for the broom. By their action they have proven to all Nigerians that as fish can not survive out of water, they can not survive out of government. They are telling the world that politics is how much one can amass for himself and members of his family taking undue advantage of whatever political position he occupied.
Some of them even condescended to the level of describing their former party as a conglomeration of people who do not mean well for the electorate. Others simply said they wouldn’t like to be left out in the emerging new political movement of change hence their decision to shift camp.
This is where many concerned Nigerians including former Governor of old Kaduna State and social commentator Alhaji Balarebe Musa are worried about the possibility of Nigeria becoming a one party state.
Although many might argue that those now moving out of the PDP have the right to do so under our laws which guarantees freedom of association, it must be emphasized that in exercising that freedom, it must be done in such a way that it doesn’t jeopardize the objectives and gains of multi-party democratic practices, one of which has enabled them to move from party A to party B today.
The place of party politics in democracy can not be over emphasised as it provides the enablers to galvanise the electorate for the sole purpose of gaining power for the development of a state, or country.
As in advanced democracies membership of political parties despite guaranteeing free entrance and free exit places, some obligations on the individual member who are expected to be loyal and committed to the objectives of the party as well as believe in its ideology. Many have argued that the absence of clear cut ideological divides among the various political parties in Nigeria laid the ground for politicians in the country to flirt among the political parties in the country.
One might not quarrel too much about a politician using a political platform other than the one he originally belonged to contest an office. Many instances abound in the land where some popular candidates who were denied tickets to their offices of interest during party primaries decamping to another political party to contest and win.
The example of Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State is a case in point. Recall that Yuguda a PDP governorship aspirant had in 2007 defected and picked the governorship ticket of the ANPP to contest the election which he won. Although Yuguda later returned to his party the PDP, after he won on the ANPP ticket, his motive for shifting camp could not be mistaken.
The present case scenario of a post election exodus of political actors from the party they supported all through the electioneering period leaves much to be desired.
The basic thing it tells of those involved is that they were never committed to the ideals of the party if any neither have they the requisite integrity to think of generating one for the party.
To them, politics is about bread and butter. They can not bring themselves to eating bread without butter since any attempt to stay back in their former party would amount to living in an arid desert without an oasis.
Since the average Nigerian politician is not challenged to be innovative, they can not realize that steadfastness to a cause one believes in can be highly rewarding. The question the defectors should ask themselves is that if Buhari and Tinubu who have proven themselves as the icons of opposition politics in Nigeria had behaved like them where would they have been running to seek political refuge today?
The present defectors should be advised to stay back at their original parties and build it for the future. They should be made to appreciate the role of opposition political party in any democracy. The alternative government role of opposition party in a democracy helps to keep the government in power in check. When this very vital role is lost to this gale of defections, we are sure to have dictatorial administrations which will not do anybody any good.
It has been agued that the mode of forming and funding political parties in Nigeria is at the root of the absence of committed membership. The big man syndrome in political parties funding had over the years eroded the right of the ordinary member of any party to participate in the policy direction of the party. What we have seen over time has been a situation where an individual with a strong financial war chest provide the funds and also dictate who gets what in government.
The Buhari government must take concrete steps by constitution amendment cause the people to truly own the political parties in Nigeria through the institutionalization of member subscribing to keep the party going.
Are there any lessons to be learnt from the current behaviour of the new opposition politicians? Yes of course, their supporters would now realize that they do not have any scruples to warrant their continued support for them, therefore the defecting politicians’ ability to regain their confidence in the near future would be most unlikely. They will continue to reap the disloyalty which their actions tend to ingrain in the Nigeria body polity. They should also realize that they have sown wind and they will surely reap the whirlwind.
It is most worrisome to hear the defectors speak of their dissatisfaction with the ways the affairs of their former party was run as to warrant their defecting to the APC which in their new opinion represent the ideal in terms of party management.
The question they have to answer is why they did not speak against the anti-people programme of their former party all through the period of their sojourn therein. The APC must be wary of the actual motives of these emergency friends and supporters who like the ants are on the prowl looking for sugar to feast on.
The APC must not allow these distractions to derail it from its commitment and assurances to the deprived Nigerians who look up to it for their redemption from the shackles of poverty, under development and mass unemployment. They must not allow the current victory to go into their heads; to do so will provoke the anger of the people against them.
It must be noted that the act of defection itself constitutes a gross disloyalty and betrayal of the sincere members of the former ruling party.
But the resolve by the Senate President David Mark and other good spirited members of the PDP to remain in the party even if it meant being the last man standing must be commended. We need good spirited and committed members of the party, men and women in the character of Senator Mark who will have to rebuild the part and cause it to function as a credible alternative to the awaited new ruling party.
The defectors can not deceive the public as to their actual motive for defecting. They want to reap from where they did not sow knowing that juicy political appointments would soon be up for grabs by the time the APC government takes off on May 29, 2015
They look forward to continue to feast on the lush funds at the Federal level which were hitherto siphoned by occupant of such offices.
It was not unexpected that those who knew of the existence of such opportunities which would now be dispensed by the APC government would do right to move fast in order to qualify for the post ‘war’ booty. What these people are trying to make us understand is that nothing would change significantly in the way the affairs of the Nigerian State had been managed all these years.
The APC government which has opened its doors to these elements will have to urgently give Nigerians something to cheer about by working the talk.
They must not allow the new comers to hijack the party and subsequently derail it from its present course of fighting to improve the living standard of Nigerians across board.
Our hope lies in the assurance by the APC that governance in Nigeria will no longer be business as usual where the microscopic few who hitherto cornered the nation’s common patrimony particularly for their personal aggrandizement.
This class of politicians was the sole beneficiaries of the nation’s flawed electoral system that perpetuated the PDP in power till 2010 when Jega came into the picture.
They surely had wished that that ignoble electoral culture continued. But the Jonathan administration if for nothing else has succeeded in kicking out electoral corruption from our body polity. This indeed is a legacy of the present government which the APC government must sustain and possibly improve upon.