As the politicians prepare themselves for the next round of elections a little precociously, party defection and rumours of the same continue to fill the political atmosphere. The extent to which party defection or party switching as some would call it, has become normative is illustrated by the fact that it features currently as a strategic calculation with respect to the next presidential race. One of the most talked-about is that of former President Goodluck Jonathan who allegedly is preparing to pitch his tent with the ruling All Progressives Congress, in order to then be offered the presidential ticket to run as a possible candidate of the party. That rumour gained currency a few days back, when following a series of visits to Jonathan by a former minister for aviation, Chief Femi Fani Kayode, the Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, revealed that Fani-Kayode has now returned to the APC from where he defected shortly before the 2014/2015 elections.
In Nigeria, don’t forget, most political events first begin as speculations which are of course denied, only for them to be confirmed strikingly some months or years down the line. This may be another way of confirming the well-known wisecrack that there is hardly any smoke without fire. Beyond speculations, only a few months back, the Governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umahi, in a well-publicized party switch, defected to the APC, joining the list of party defectors such as Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio; Senator Elisha Abbo, a former governor of Oyo State, Christopher Alao Akala; a former governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva and current Edo State governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki. The profile of defectors indexes the extent to which party switching has become the means to acquire plum and juicy positions as well as exemption from prosecution or persecution from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Indeed, a former chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, once famously canvassed on the ousting that once their opponent joins the ruling party, their slate of offences will be wiped off freeing them to begin life on a new slate altogether.
As this columnist has often argued, there is nothing like exceptional Nigerian political culture contrary to the well-known saying in public discussion that ‘it is only in Nigeria that so and so happens’. Really, when you look at it carefully, you find out that hardly anything however reprobate happens only in Nigeria. So, developed democracies such as the United States, Britain, Australia, have their own list of party switchers. In the US for example, that roll includes a former president of the country, Ronald Ragan, a former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and a former Vice president, Mike Pence and the immediate past president, Donald Trump. Though few and far between party switching occurs in what may be regarded broadly as matured democracies. To illustrate the paucity of defections, there were only 20 defectors in the US in the 50 years between 1947 and 1997, according to one source. Rare too, are cases of party switching in other industrial democracies. What is more common, however, are former party members running as independent candidates or leaving their parties to found minority parties usually on the grounds of principle.
Locating the Nigerian predicament in this direction, is not to argue that party switching occurs only in Nigeria but to emphasise that its occurrence is so pervasive that it has almost become a strategy of winning or retaining power and the juicy morsels, to borrow Chinua Achebe’s formulation, associated with it. To the extent to which a society gets the kind of government it deserves, to that extent it can be said that party switching flourishes because the political elite rewards, indulges, and glorifies it.
One of the dark sides to the poisonous cancer of party switching is that it is never in Nigeria about principles or policy differences but overwhelmingly about getting a piece of the action or joining the ruling or favored party in order to brighten one’s chances of accessing the honey pot. What we have here therefore is a striking confirmation of what Francophone scholar, Jean-Francois Bayart, famously described as Politics of the Belly. At any rate, considering that most of our parties, if we chose to call them that, lack intellectual and ideological souls, quitting them would never have been about policy differences since the parties are not formed in the first instance on discernible policy departures. That apart, there are serious and depressing consequences of raising party defection to the level of a directive principle of state policy.
It makes nonsense of the entire party structure since it is hard to say who and who would remain in what party by the next election season. Several politicians, it will appear, are currently contemplating defecting from one party to another in the search for material advantages in a shadow jostle for positions in the forthcoming election season. If we truly desire a coherent and meaningful party architecture, which does not make nonsense of the concept of political parties, then we must somehow find a way to reduce party switching to the barest minimum. There is a sense in which a country’s democracy is only as healthy as its political parties; hence, a situation in which party defection reduces political competition, to an “alawada” display subverts the very idea of electoral competition and sanctity.
The issue also relates to the integrity of our political elite given that nobody who has switched parties too often should be trusted with the governance of a serious nation since no one can predict what the person may do the next minute. Unpredictability or sudden swings of direction is a weakness in any human being, in a political leader it may spell disaster for both individual and the nation afflicted by it. One of the indices of maturing democracies is political party stability conceived as parties with clear niches, direction, and sense of purpose. To attain this height, it is important to outgrow or live down widespread party switching. In this respect, we can borrow a leaf from a country like Russia which, frustrated by years of intolerable party defections, actually passed a law against it.
Consequently, party defection is considered illegal, hardly tolerated by the political elite in the ‘Duma’ or parliament, party defection can lead to compulsory resignation of the defector and other consequences. The point here is that political cultures cannot change by rhetoric alone or by verbal condemnations. Sanctions must be meted out in order to compel compliance. The other way to reduce party defection is to introduce value setting examples through for example, the ruling party not tolerating it much less endorsing it as a tool of political gain. For as long as politicians see party switching as a road to glory and are welcomed by the rolling out of drums so long will they indulge in it. We should stop idolising what should be condemned while being truthful about what and what reduces the value and worth of our democratic practice.
Therefore, it is advisable that policy, ethics, law, and practice should converge to reflect national distaste rather than adulation of the poisonous virus of widespread party defection.
