We live in truly stupefying times. We are in times that render any analyst impotent no matter how adept in the trade, by the sheer rapidity of events which are truly benumbing. Even now, it does not seem we are near the end of the madding times. We are most likely to witness many more episodes of this drama of the absurd before the 2019 general elections.
The whole thing started sometime in 2014 when a group of malcontents decamped from the then ruling party, the PDP and joined a coalition which was then just emerging to oust the ruling party. The party had held power for about 16 years without any tangible thing to show for it other than ineptitude, bastardization of democracy and massive corruption.
Muhammadu Buhari of the CPC who had attempted to be President thrice but unsuccessfully had just alligned with his South-west counterpart, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ACN for the impending electoral battle to unseat the PDP behemoth.
It was therefore considered fortuitous when that group of decampees then known as N-PDP joined forces with the emerging coalition which had the patriotic aim of arresting the national drift under the PDP. Most Nigerians at that point in time, including your’s sincerely, thought it was a welcome development considering the urgent need for national deliverance from the stranglehold of the PDP.
At that point, a sober reflection would have indicated that the coalition that eventually metamorphosed into the APC had no foundation. At best it was a union of strange bedfellows, a marriage of convenience whose future was fraught with pitfalls. At the particular time however, all that mattered was just to get the ruinous ruling party out of the way.
The 2015 elections came and was won, to the general relief, by the mega coalition. But the first sign of bad things to come happened when the APC government was about to take off. As was expected of a new government party that intended to make a difference, all the important positions in the National Assembly had been zoned and negotiated with a view to having a parliamentary leadership that could drive the policies and programs of the new government.
But alas, the N-PDP section of the APC led by Dr Bukola Saraki had other idea. With the connivance of the elected members of his former party, he planned and executed a Parliamentary coup d’etat the like of which had never been seen before on our shores.
In defiance of his Party’s decision, he sneaked into the National Assembly on the day of inauguration and while his party members were assembled, to have a meeting with the newly sworn-in President, a kangaroo election was held in which Saraki emerged as the Senate President and a PDP man emerged as the Deputy Senate President to the detriment of his APC party. And by this rebellious master-stroke, Saraki threw the entire APC into disarray from which the party never recovered ever since.
This was the genesis of how the Buhari ship of government put to sea in a stormy and tempestuous weather thus putting the national ship and all its occupants in jeopardy.
President Buhari cannot but share a large portion of the blame for this unhappy cul-de-sac into which his government has been pushed. As a novice in the art of real-politik, his political body language and the fact that he surrounded himself with self-serving and clannish political neophytes must have emboldened Saraki to embark on his nefarious project.
The other personality worthy of blame in this sad episode was the then party chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun who also failed woefully to give the party a strong leadership that was then required to nip the budding rebellion in the bud.
And so the seed of rebellion and perfidy that was sown at the beginning has grown into the sturdy tree which is now bearing the sour fruits we are seeing.
The N-PDP people who had now acquired a new name, R-APC are back to the PDP, their natural habitat, a party that did its utmost to tip our country down the precipice of economic calamity and national disintegration. This regrouping of the PDP stalwarts signposts nothing but political and socio-economic calamity for our dear country and must not be allowed to succeed.
The regrouping that we are now witnessing cannot be for the interest of our long suffering people of Nigeria. These habitual defectors are not new to us and we know them too well to fall into their traps once more.
They had 16 good years to prove their patriotism, public-spiritedness, nationalism and competence to govern well. But what did they give the nation? Nothing. For the 16 years opportunity given them by the good people of Nigeria, the PDP gave back poverty, economic under development, socio-political backwardness and Impunity.
Towards the end of the last PDP regime, they mercilessly looted our treasury in a manner never before seen in the annals of our country or other country in Africa. Even now the tremors of that economic banditry are still very much with us.
It is therefore from this background that we can truly understand the gale of defections going on now in the land. It is time for general elections and all those who find their present party unsuitable for their selfish and nefarious political shenanigans are once again on the move.Being professional defectors, they are never ashamed to announce their defections and they even expect to be eulogised for their political harlotry.
From all the signs in the political horizon, it’s most likely we are still going to see more defections before the next elections. For politically discerning electorate, defecting from one party to another on regular basis by a politician is an evidence of fundamental weakness. It shows a lack of ideological principle, a lack of political conviction and dialectical emptiness.
Such people must never be entrusted with positions of political or economic responsibilities. The only sensible reaction from the enlightened Nigerian electorate in the coming elections is to vote against these habitual defectors in order to serve as deterrent to those who are predisposed to this negative political acrobatics. It will also make clear and loud statement that political prostitution does not pay.
Nevertheless, all we have said here should not be interpreted to mean that one is satisfied with the Buhari government in all ramifications. Not at all.
A modern government cannot be judged solely on the integrity of the Head alone. Successful leadership demands some more intrinsic qualities which the current Buhari leadership gravely lacks. That’s probably a subject for another day.But all said and done and by way of comparison, Nigerians are saver in the hands of the present APC government than the PDP.
