Incessant Defection and Electoral Sanity

Incessant Defection and Electoral Sanity 

By 

Ahmad Murtala

Ever since Nigeria turned over to the third republic, on the eve of the 21st century, there have been political parties—which the arena experienced the storm-and-shift of politicians from one party to the other like birds on forest trees. With the absence of national ambition in the defection, conniving with one another which the politicians depict over time, Nigerians in general and the electorates in particular are steeped to pay the price and still paying unconditionally. 

From the time we evacuated from Military Government to Civilian Rule, 1999 to date, there were enormous political parties created and died—some transformed to other acronyms which makes the ballot paper lengthy like a roll of tissue paper. Muhammadu Buhari, who was in APP before transforming to ANPP then CPC and now APC the merger of all the three—PDP for instance, remains till date which gave birth to all the presidents except one. One would ask, with all these chunks of parties some have no offices or heads at the national level, let alone state, what are their intrinsic 'core values' ?

For a professor in academics, dumping the field for politics has several reasons. Some would say he delves into the system with his sanitary towel to clean some dirt. Perhaps the ASUU versus FG in the frontline would be clean—but  what we see across board is contrary. Adamu Adamu who talks about ASUU over time is now the man in charge, he proves us wrong: or they delve into politics to taste the grandeur of national gravy which their taught-students are merrying and determining the affairs of the nation which is close to our motion for what we see.

The incessant defection occurs when two interests clash in the political party—sometimes dumping the party that brought a seating office holder into power, like we see in Zamfara state. This tells a lot about the filthy politics we run in the country. Deep down the well, there is a motive behind these defections, which of recent serving as a safe-haven for the crooks under the promise of a former APC leader who says "if you join APC all your sins are forgiven" that was not a joke, it's being practicalised.

If a policy should be put forth to regulate social media contents which according to the government is seditious in nature and insubordination then—the right to associate should be reviewed in this aspect, since it determines the future and well being of the country. It isn't sardonic to say, regulating party defection limiting it to minimal window is a violation of right of association. The window of right to associate should be left open so long as it rhymes with the national regulation. Every politician should have two access to defects in a lifetime. Say, he joins a party for the first time and he defects twice making it three political parties, by and large, anything outside this is a monkey play. 

The electoral act 2021 that seeks to panel beat the electoral process appears to ignore this tentative aspect. The credit and quality of a candidate should be determined if he has a clear path he traces, if he loses he loses not to deviate and he should restrategize for the next election. But what we see is once the power is gone, and he is outside the center table where the national cake is baked, the calculation to join the terrain of rolling trains on the rail is what dangles in their minds. Orubebe who disrupted the collation process in 2015 and FFK who spitted venomous and belligerence utterances against the ruling party and some of its members, he even went further to say, he rather die than to join APC have now defected for the ruling party—he is perhaps waiting for the nemesis of his words paving to his grave.

The clash of democratic values; the freedom of association and electoral sanity, which one is limited to individuals and the other concerns the general mass, one has to be subdued for the other. To do so, it begs for collective sweat to ensure the intended by-product becomes unattainable by extracting out the milk and honey in the political offices. No country would develop when its governing establishments become an industry that produces rich people overnight. It's the tallest branch of the tree. If everyone forsakes his profession for politics to lick the gravy it cannot accommodate us.

Every political party should be mandated by INEC—a provision of party constitution to include (each new member must spend at least 4 years before contesting for an office). This has two ends: it would instill the core values of the parties to its members and thereby a clear ideology would be intrinsically installed, and it would wedge this horrendous tendencies of defection from one party to another, since 4 years each tenure elapses.

The leverage in the hand-made poverty that is forcefully domesticated through sky-and-ground salary of politicians, makes it opportunistic tendencies that warrant the candidates to swift through political parties and conniving among each other spreading across parties is what I can call 'political apostasy'. Some even change the party from APC to PDP or vice versa four times in a tenure, can't we mature as humans ?

Nigerians have suffered the consequences of party defection over two decades. 'The way forward is the way inward' this country is owned by Nigerians and Nigerians must device means necessary to surmount this chronic mentality—this endemic that is brazenly dragging us back compelling us to walk one-step-forward-two-steps-backward can only deteriorate further the economic and developmental race in our polity and portrays Nigerians as incredible leaders before the international community.