The political tsunami that has hit the main opposition party— the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP)— in the oil-rich Delta State, should bother all lovers of democracy. It is almost unprecedented. It is a howling political game fraught with negatives that are, on the long run, hurtful to democracy.
According to reports, the Governor of Delta State, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, and his predecessor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, have defected to the ruling party— the All Progressives Congress (APC).Okowa is not just a big fish hooked by APC’s bait, he was the vice-presidential candidate of the opposition party in the 2023 election.
Oborevwori and Okowa are not just defecting, they have moved to literally bury the opposition party in the state by ensuring that the entire PDP structure, from the ward, local government and state levels, all dissolve in one fell swoop, into the ruling party, thus ending the almost 26-year domination. The party, PDP, has dominated the oil-rich state since the inception of the current democratic dispensation in 1999.
Vice-President Kashim Shettima is to receive the governor, Okowa, and other officials as they formally declare their support for the APC at the Cenotaph in the state capital, Asaba, today.
Yet, this is only portentous of the tailwind that will sweep across the political horizon ahead. More defections are lurking in the shadows, to unfurl at the appropriate time, because it is all about political deftness; it is all about political survival; it is all about 2027. What is more, it is a delicate power game.
And power is an opium. It has the tendency to prop up a holder to the point of hubris. And the protagonist of this power at the center, President Bola Tinubu, is ardent at this game.
So, the hurricane, which appears to be the power’s answer to the grand coalition that has been gathering momentum, taunting power with utterances tinged with expletives and with the intent to unseat the incumbent, is already gathering dust, rustling the grove. And it will, in the days ahead, sweep in more opposition’s ‘big fish’ to pull the rug off the feet of the coalition’s masterminds.
So, the hint last Thursday by the Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, that more governors across the country are set to defect to the ruling party is certainly an insider’s exposition. “I don’t know the number, but we are expecting more governors to join the APC,” Sule was quoted to have said during a live broadcast on “Politics Today,” which aired on Channels TV.
Insiders hinted that more governors in the opposition parties are either preparing or being pressured to switch and join the APC. Most of the affected governors are those serving their first term, who will be seeking to return to office in 2027 and may need the backing of the center to do so.
Opposition governors seeking second term include those of Kano, Osun, Plateau, Enugu, Rivers, Taraba, Akwa Ibom and Zamfara. Adamawa State governor, Ahmadu Umar Fintiri, is, however, one of the few governors in their second term reported to have been approached to defect to the APC.
A political analyst said the bait being used by leaders of the ruling party to lure the governors, is the guarantee of party tickets and support in the general elections. The governors are said to be burdened by the weakened state of their respective parties and near-absence of strong figures to defend their interests in the coming 2027 general elections.
According to the analyst, unlike in the past where opposition parties had strong structures or strong personalities, in the current dispensation, the opposition parties have been weakened while their leaders are not in control of party structures.
“So if the opposition governors run into trouble, where will they run to? They know that with the ruling party, their interests would be protected. That is why they’re entering into negotiations with the APC,” he stated.
According to insiders, more governors in the opposition are being wooed, as noted earlier, to whittle down the impact of the planned coalition of opposition parties before it becomes too solid to derail, like it happened in the build up to the 2015 elections, which was used to unseat an incumbent, former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The opposition governors, it is hinted, also found the prospect of waiting to join the proposed coalition unattractive, in fact, too risky because the plan seems far-fetched and the mobilisation is yet to galvanize the kind of verve that could back up their candidacy in the coming elections.
Besides, APC appears to be succeeding with the opposition governors because they are said be peeved by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s inordinate ambition to be president at all cost, despite the fact that it is not the turn of the North to rule yet. “Most of the PDP governors find Atiku’s desperation and insistence to fly the party’s ticket again in 2027 highly distasteful,” the source hinted.
The source, in fact, blames the former vice-president partly for the internecine crisis that is currently shredding the PDP. The same tendency, he said, also caused him (Atiku) the presidency in 2023 when he took for granted the opposition of the G5 governors, namely: Seyi Makinde (Oyo State); Samuel Ortom (Benue); Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia); Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and Nyesom Wike (Rivers and leader), who all worked against his candidacy.
However, while it will be unfair to blame President Tinubu and his political camp for cashing in on the PDP’s near-implosion to weaken the opposition by “poaching” its high-profile members, we are calling the ruling party’s attention to the inherent dangers in decimating the opposition outright.
Without knowing, we may be tending toward a one-party system, which will be inimical to vibrant democracy, which remains the best form of government. Democracy towers above all other forms of government because it inherently guarantees freedoms; freedoms of speech and association.
The beauty of democracy is also the guarantee of plurality of ideas and choices, which is engendered by multiparty structures. But when we, advertently or inadvertently, decimate the opposition and nurture a hulk of a party, we limit the power of choices and enthrone dictatorship and authoritarianism.
Besides, a vibrant opposition is essential in a democracy because it acts as a check on power and keeps it on its toes. The absence of choices and a vibrant opposition is the enthronement of dictatorship and despotism. We must guard against those extremes in the interest of our renascent democracy.
Besides, it is saddening that opportunism and enlightened self-interests, rather than altruism, are at the root of the gale of defections by our politicians. Unlike in other climes, there are no ideologies or solid principles guiding such serious decisions of switching political parties or cross-carpeting. It is a game fostered, first and foremost, by ‘stomach infrastructure.’
The first consideration in negotiations for alignments and realignments among our political actors across the divides these days is: ‘What is in it for me?’ not ‘How does it profit my people or my country?’
Even the groundswell of the so-called coalition of opposition being arrayed against Tinubu is erected on a quick sand of crash opportunism and vengeful motives. One of its protagonists, who had profited from being one of the major movers and shakers of the ruling party, having been governor on that platform for eight years, suddenly made a volt-face like a chameleon, and started denigrating the same leadership he had in the past vigorously sold to the people, just because he failed to eventually clinch a ministerial position having been earlier listed.
Another of the coalition’s cast is blinded by desperation for power. He has had to switch parties for about four times to pursue this rather consummate ambition without success. From the PDP, he switched camp to the defunct ANC and ran on its ticket. From there, he returned to PDP, only to jump ship again and pitched tent with the then emerging APC where he again ran for presidential primaries. Having failed to clinch the APC ticket, he ran back to PDP again to pursue the same ambition! No wonder people are no longer taking them seriously. They have no scruples.
This opportunism is all too familiar. It is a hackneyed game. History is about to repeat itself. In 2013 and 2014, former VP Atiku, former Senate President Bukola Saraki, former Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and an ex-National Chairman of the PDP, Kawu Baraje, led other PDP chieftains, including governors, to defect, first to the New PDP, popularly known then as nPDP.
The governors who joined them in the nPDP then were: Aliyu Wammako (Sokoto), Chibuike Amaechi (Rivers), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Rabi’u Kwankwaso (Kano) and Andulfatah Ahmed (Kwara). They later combined forces with other four parties—Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party(ANPP) and a block of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) to form a formidable opposition party — APC, which was the cyclone that swept off an incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, off power.
However, most of the nPDP chieftains, including Saraki, who joined forces with the then emerging APC to defeat Jonathan, later returned to PDP. Only a handful of them like Amaechi are still in APC today.
Most of our politicians of today do not feel any sense of remorse or shame to cross-carpet at any time, because all they are pursuing in politics is bread and butter. No endearing ideologies or principles for which they could be remembered, like many of the first and second republic politicians like the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Mallam Aminu Kano, Chief Ibrahim Waziri, among many others.
Many of these politicians during their time ran for elections so many times and failed many times, but they did not because of that abandon their parties like today’s politicians. Cross-carpeting was, therefore, not common. What was common among them was party alliances to strengthen their chances of victory at the polls, especially against formidable opponents.
In the final analysis, however, while President Tinubu is quietly maneuvering to scale the hurdles being rolled on his path to 2027, let him do so with all sense of responsibility. Let him not completely muffle the voice of opposition. Let him allow the verve of democracy to continue to whirr by resisting the temptation to completely shut the window of people’s choices.
