POLITICAL PARTY FORMULATION AND COSMETIC DECAMPING: A TRUE REFLECTION OF THE CHARACTERS OF THE POLITICAL CLASS OF NIGERIA by SHABA MAFU.

We were taught that for a political party to be so-called, it must have a defined ideological leaning upon which it is built, possibly as a capitalist, Marxist, socialist or welfarist in orientation. The Nigeria political parties do not define this crux, and unfortunately, both the political class and its ardent followers do not care about whether the political parties they belong to are guided by any principles or any ideological beliefs. To the followers, what matters to them is the mechanical support given to the “knowledgeable and deified” godfathers who belong to same political parties with them. This stance makes almost every political party supporter in Nigeria an elitist urchin. For instance this bandwagon politics played out so conspicuously for several years in Kwara State politics whence wherever the late Dr. Olusola Saraki, the then godfather and ‘director-general’ of Kwara politics swung his hands to, the followers would swerve rabidly to that direction like chickens tumbling after some corns thrown around randomly. No one asked questions, no one cared about the party’s ideology and operations. Whichever party he chose to follow at any point commanded the gullible followership pronto.

The politicians have cashed on this prevailing primitive political background and orientation of the country to cross-carpet or decamp to other political parties at will, basically not because they were not comfortable with the non-existent political ideologies of their former political party nor because of the absence of internal democracy within their political parties as they always claimed, but because of their greed, selfishness and for the ultimate realization of their political ambition; and to create a favourable ambience for looting while savouring the followers with the crumbs of the loot that fell from the political table. The ‘ideology’ guiding most of these politicians is the political desperation to win at all costs, with looting of the public treasury as their intrinsic driving force.

The former Vice-President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is one of the many politicians that deploy this arsenal of decamping at his slightest inconvenience in the party he belongs to. Due to his expertise in this sort of migration and political prostitution, he has been able to reproduce the likes of himself, though may not be deliberately. He was one of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He ported thereafter to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) when he discovered that what was pursuing him in PDP was mightier than him. From ACN, he went back to the PDP when he felt that the masquerades after his political ambition may have finally taken their roost at the grove. Later, he found his way from PDP again back to All Progressives Congress believing he was going to defeat the then co-presidential aspirant, General Muhammadu Buhari in the primary elections that brought President Muhammadu Buhari ultimately to Aso Rock, after winning the 2015 general elections. Unconfirmed rumours are currently  flying that the former Vice-president may again  return to the PDP following the resolution of the lingering crisis by the Supreme Court a few days ago. But Atiku himself, through his media aide, has since denied the alleged clandestine move.

The Peoples Democratic Party has been engulfed with internal crisis for some time now. Instead of adopting a political solution to resolve the crisis, both contending parties have resorted to legal option. The legal option had telling effect on the political party which had once controlled thirty of the thirty-six states of the federation and had boasted it would rule Nigeria for sixty years, only to be defeated in the 2105 general elections.  The two feuding champions of the party, Alhaji Ali Modu Sherrif and Alhaji Makarfi, had climbed the podium of international embarrassment to pull their muscles. This stance sank the party terribly.  Makarfi had insisted that instead of him to succumb to the judgment of the Appeal Court affirming Modu Sherrif as the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, he would rather go ahead and form another political party to be known and called Advanced Peoples Democratic Party (APDP). Obviously, all these moves have been put to an end due to the celebrated Supreme Court judgment affirming Alhaji Markafi as the Caretaker Committee Chairman of the hitherto boisterous party, thereby sacking the Alhaji Sheriff’s leadership of the party. Markarfi was obviously on his way to form a new political party. Can you now see my ‘angst’ against these political hoppers? This was the same route the ruling APC also took just few years back. They had adopted different names, and metamorphosed into several nomenclatures just to accommodate some political opportunists, so as to wrest power from the then ruling PDP. Some politicians were like the cattle egrets which lurched along with the political party, primarily to realize their ambitions under the platform of a popular party. These politicians obviously have no sense of direction. The interest of the people they claim to represent is secondary in their thought. The ideology of a political party ought to be the guiding principle to determine the card-carrying membership or otherwise of any member of the political party.

Just recently, the former Senior Special Assistant on Media to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, a known staunch member of the PDP, decamped to the ACCORD Party. His reason might be because his former party, the PDP was in serious disarray. But the truth of the matter is that he might be nursing great political ambition and the only avenue to actualize this dream is to defect to a smaller party where his influence could be overwhelming. To him, the former party may consist of people too powerful to contend with, so the issue of realizing his political ambition in the PDP may be a mirage. He did not decamp because of any ideological conviction or to serve his people better. No! The ACCORD Party, like any other party in Nigeria has no ideological leaning as well. No party in Nigeria is guided by any ideology.

Nigeria is not practicing participatory democracy. What Nigeria practices is political-partyism and electoral politics. This is to mean that the politicians use the political parties as platforms to realize their political ambitions while the electorates cast their votes during elections and thereafter remain permanently mute. In a participatory democracy, the electorates are actively involved in the governance of the country even after the elections. They hold their representatives accountable throughout the political dispensation. They monitor closely the developmental strands of their constituencies in line with the campaign promises of the elected leaders. They place high premium on the social contract they have entered into with their elected representatives to the extent that the politicians cannot decamp without wide consultations and inputs from his constituencies.  If the electorates are actually active in the governance of this country, political grasshoppers and their activities would be tamed.

 The desperation of these politicians is exhibited when they lose elections. They protest violently at the expense of national peace and tranquilty. They do not realize that sovereign power belongs to the electorates who have the right to be guided by their political convictions. But because these politicians are themselves not guided by any document of ideological directions, they felt that it is their exclusive right to be voted into power as long as they had done the needful of ‘palliating’ the electorates during campaigns. To these losers, it does not matter to them if the whole nation is set ablaze, so long they satisfied their political revenge of loss. When there is a political ideology, the electorates can make informed decisions on which party they are to vote into power.
Whenever an estranged politician decamps to another party, he is usually accepted hastily and heartily by the new party without scrutinizing the profile of the decampee. They believe that such a decampee has fortified the numerical strength of the party. This is the rottenness of the system.  In Nigeria, the population strength of a political party is the measuring tool to determine how successful a political party is. This is against what is obtainable in saner climes where the success of a political party is determined and known by the delivery of the dividends of democracy to its people. The success of a party, therefore, is not determined by the swollen population of political fraudsters and decampees. Though it is known that politics is a game of number, but that should not be when the number is swelled by people with questionable past and fraudulent present. Nigeria’s political parties, without mincing words, are not guided by ideological principles.

All political parties in Nigeria are one and the same, no matter the differences in their names and membership profile. No one of them has any ideology, none has any conditions to accept decampees, none talks about political morality, and none genuinely fights corruption. They all fight corruption back as intense and as subtle as they can. All members are not genuinely interested in the delivery of the dividends of democracy. Their primary interest is anchored on exploitation, and looting of the public treasury.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must, as a matter of urgency, compel the political parties in Nigeria, to not only submit their names and manifestos; they must also PRESENT AND SUBMIT documents of their ideological persuasions along, before being allowed to contest for political power. This is the main crux of the matter, else we will continue to rigmarole. Until we mature to this practice of participatory democracy in Nigeria, we will continue to suffer what Late Fela Anikulapo Kuti called ‘akunakuna’ - the senior brother of perambulation.