We are currently witnessing a gale of defections from the main opposition party PDP to the APC; the party of the President; the party in power and no doubt this unwholesome development is good music to APC and the President and his reelection prospects. For the records, there have been defections from other parties over the period, but nothing like current spate of defections from PDP. Let’s look at some of the recent defections; the scale of which we have not witnessed in recent memory.
The floodgates were opened by the PDP party of Delta State, where the entire structure of the party at the state was collapsed into the APC! What made this development so worrisome and not considered good for democracy which essentially must include competing choices, is that Delta State is essentially a PDP stronghold. The party has been the ruling party in the State since 1999! The most recent defection is that of Akwa Ibom State Governor, Pastor Umo Eno who gave the reasons for his defection as due to his admiration for the President and his policies, the crises with the PDP which could torpedo the prospects of his second term re-election.
There are many causes of this bizarre development. The PDP has been on self-destruction for a long time now with nobody having the courage to call out the main antagonists and offenders because at the end of the day, the contest is about the soul of the party. Two main interest groups held the party on its jugular and would seem to have succeeded now to cause its asphyxiation. The first is a former vice president of Nigeria whose ambition and quest to become the president of Nigeria would brook no opposition. Even immediately after a government with a President of northern extraction; that spent eight worthless years in power that brought Nigeria literally to its knees and against the received wisdom and now established protocol that it was the turn of a southern; pursued his ambition regardless with no one able to look him in the face to stop him on his tracks.
That is no doubt the immediate genesis of the party’s recent problems, which might have nailed its coffin except if the Party is able to act timeously before it is finally buried. The other is this gadfly of an uncouth rabble rouser who has been a Governor of a State for eight years and who wishes to transform to the nation’s presidency despite visible personal shortcomings that should hinder him in that regard. He is now a Federal Minister as compensation for the fact that despite not being in the same party, he gave loud and effective support to the President during the campaign in a manner that must be quite offensive to party discipline. He has succeeded in causing a division in the party as he has been able to attract five of the party’s governors to his camp.
The party was not able to find the machinery to nip this assault to its going concern in the bud. And now it is reaping the full consequences of its inability to discipline erring members. What is vexatious is that this personality brags openly that nobody would be able to sack him from PDP! The gale of defections at the personal level is caused by some prominent politicians who have been caught with their hands blatantly in the till and are now being hounded by the anti-graft agencies. They defect so as to find succour by becoming members of the ruling party. We have been told publicly in the past that as we join the ruling party that our respective sins would be forgiven.
There are some who have tormentor leveraging on their strong connections with the party in government. Of course, their weapon of attack would surely be blunted as they and their tormentor come under the same umbrella. But it would appear that there is mass flight to the party in government, which is bad news for election 2027 and for the growth of democracy in Nigeria. My friend Governor Charles Soludo; ‘Soludo Solutions’ being the strategist that he is wants to ingratiate himself to the party in power, that has the arsenal to deny him reelection come November 08, 2025 invited the President to commission some projects. There is no doubt that by all accounts, he has gotten all the anticipated mileage from that venture. Himself and his party; APGA have now adopted the president for the coming elections.
You can now talk of; quidpro-quo; scratch my back, and I will scratch yours! The President received a chieftaincy title, and he even requested for a plot of land from the Governor, to build his retirement home in the State! Did I hear you say that clever political strategists are on overdrive? The entire PDP structure at Rivers State has now been collapsed under the reelection bid of Mr. President and the nation is clearly the worst for it. Mandate renewal must be based on performance. Therefore, any other strategy to the attainment of this goal short changes the electorate. As we discuss, all the senators from Kebbi State have initiated moves to join the band wagon by also joining the APC. Whither Nigeria? These defections and the snowballing of one party state make a mockery of the country’s democracy.
What is democracy without the existence of viable alternatives to facilitate informed choice? And surprisingly and unusually, the atmosphere is dominated with the quest for victory at the 2027 elections with not much attention paid to an economy whose citizens are groaning from the pangs of wrong policy choices particularly their faulty sequencing. Campaign posters now flood the streets in both Abuja and Lagos, contrary to INEC guidelines regarding the timing for the commencement of campaigns. It has been reported that PDP will be dragging defectors to court. One does not believe that they have a good chance as clearly PDP today is a divided party coupled with the facts of the existence today of a compromised judiciary.
There is now clearly the urgency to embark on electoral reforms to guarantee that votes really count. The urgency about this can not be over emphasised as these defections might not paint the complete picture. It is possible that the electorate might have a mind of its own and possibly refuse to follow sheepishly the lead by party hierarchy. A key aspect of this reform will be to roll out a robust approach to selecting a successor to Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the current Chairman of INEC. All the moles that have been smuggled in as state electoral officers must be shown the exit door.
The imperatives that results of elections must unfailingly be transmitted electronically must remain the hallmark of the proposed reforms. It has been widely speculated that it would be a tall order stopping the President from the renewal of his mandate as efforts have been made to control all the relevant agents in this respect. But please, we must not relegate governance on the altar of rabid desire for re-election as we must not ignore the dire conditions of the suffering masses today.
• Dr. Boniface Chizea is a reputed Public Analyst and Financial / Management Consultant, Lekki, Lagos.
