Greed, eroded ideology, gravitas to defections

Olusegun Obasanjo

Nigerians are a very peculiar people; they carry out their daily activities with certain peculiarity and are unmistakably indomitable in all spheres that they find themselves. Nigeria, is itself a nation of uncommon circumstances, hence the atypical nature of its populace.
It is that special flora of its societies that makes a Nigerian a force to reckon with wherever they find themselves. Nigerians are brilliant, witty, sassy, imaginative, creative and unconquerable. They just survive whatever the circumstance!
Dumping one political party for the other has become the trade in stock of many of the nation’s politicians and as expected, they have always justified their actions by canvassing phrases such as irreconcilable differences and lack of internal democracy in their previous parties as basis.
Unlike Late Sir Ahmadu Ballo, the Late  Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe and  late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the founding fathers of the nation, who were guided by ideologies with which they laid the foundation for the development of their regions and Nigeria at large, many of today’s politicians quickly defect to another political party once their personal and political party.
David Morris, in June 2013, writes on onthecommons.org, stating that: “Contrary to popular wisdom, the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats is not on the size of government but the purpose and goals of government. Both parties believe in taxing heavily and spending lavishly when it comes to national security that protects our nation from external attack. Both parties fervently embrace the Declaration of Independence’s insistence that among Americans’ “unalienable rights” are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. But their conceptions of security and liberty differ radically.
“Democrats believe that governments should not only secure American borders but also advance its personal security. As reflected in recently enacted state laws, that belief translates into policies extending health care access to as many as possible, raising the minimum wage and expanding unemployment insurance.
My understanding of the American system is that the Republicans vigorously oppose the use of government. They insist Americans should not be compelled to be their brothers’ keeper. Of the 13 states that so far have refused the federal government’s offer to pay 100 percent of the costs of expanding health care coverage to millions of their residents, 12 are Republican controlled.
What Democrats see as steps to enhance security, Republicans view as steps that restrict liberty. They assert that government-created health exchanges interfere with the right of insurance companies to manage their own affairs, while the requirement that everyone have health insurance constitutes an act of tyranny. Minimum wage laws interfere with the economic liberty of business and the freedom of the marketplace, take for instance President Obama’s Healthcare bill which has since been code-named “Obamacare”.
Morris in the eye-opening article earlier alluded to writes: “Republicans argue that taxes, especially those that tax the rich at higher rates than the poor, interfere with the people’s liberty to pursue happiness by amassing unrestrained wealth. In the last legislative session Democrat-controlled California, Maryland, Massachusetts and Minnesota raised the income tax rate on millionaires while in the last two legislative sessions, Republican-controlled Kansas reduced such rates by 75 percent.  Legislators in Kansas as well as in Republican controlled North Carolina and Nebraska are openly pushing for the complete elimination of the income tax.”
Whichever way you look at it, the Americans we claim to have copied our democracy from have two major political parties, Democrats and Republicans, which have clearly defined ideological base on which their policies operate. We cannot say the same thing with our own form of democracy. What we have right now is a group of individuals, driven by gluttony for power and guilt of conscience. The ultimate being they be allowed to dip hands into the public treasury at will.
But the politicians of today do not care about ideologies or principles; they are barefaced prostitutes running from one party to the other, depending on the one in power. They are bereft of shame or dignity, and don’t give a hoot about what the public thinks. Their concern is only to swing with the pendulum- the party in power at the center.
Writing in his weekly column, Donatus Okpe, on the Wednesday, April 1 edition of The Graphic Newspaper said: “If Ideology is a body of non-compromising beliefs or principles, in the face of in the face of its decades of systematic institutional failures, Nigeria should not expect miracles from whoever wins March 28th (Presidential) election. She is a country where the past holds the history that is too weak to inspire the present.”
It is funny to read and see that barely days to the emergence of the former opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC), at the center, politicians in Kogi State and other parts of the country are already decamping to the party. It is really nauseating to see a people without principle; without the capacity to endure and nurture their ideals and try to sell it.
The former governor of Kano State who is now the Minister of Education, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, dumped the All Progressives Congress on January 29, 2014 for the Peoples Democratic Party alongside the former Sokoto State governor, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa. The duo had before then described the PDP as the party composed of evil members.
These are individuals who had expressed distaste for the party and its leaders suddenly became bedfellows with the group they described in unsavory adjectives when the atmosphere was no longer conducive for them in their previous parties, they had to swallow their vomit and joined “the evil ones”.
It is adversative because the two former governors, who were among the brains behind the merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria, the All Nigeria Peoples Party and the Congress for Progressive Change to form the APC on February 6, 2013 so as to wrest power from the PDP during the 2015 general elections, feast Nigerians with their reasons for defecting to the PDP.
Announcing his defection after a meeting of stakeholders held in his Kano residence, Shekarau said he left the APC because of the injustice in the party; expect him to say worse about the PDP when he return to the APC, the new party at the center.
Shocked by the defection, a former commissioner in Kano State during Shekarau’s administration, Alhaji Ibrahim Garba, recalled the former governor’s hatred for the PDP when he spoke with journalists, saying: “While we were in government from 2003 to 2011, Shekarau warned us to be careful of PDP because the party is for the devils. And this is why we didn’t follow him to PDP when he was defecting.”
Though Bafarawa dumped the APC for PDP a day before Shekarau, he was protesting the emergence of the current Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Aliyu Wamakko, as the APC leader in the state. His Media Assistant, Mr. Yusuf Dingyadi had claimed that his principal had met with Shekarau a day before the defection.
Nigerians were not shocked when the former governor of the crisis-ridden Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, announced his defection to the ruling PDP because his close associate, Inuwa Bwala, had earlier told journalists before the defection that Sheriff was no longer comfortable with the APC structure and had decided to join the PDP.
Sheriff, who had won elections three times on the platform of the defunct ANPP, justified his sudden love for the PDP, saying he took the decision in the interest of the country. He had said, “Our interest should be on what makes the nation move forward. My decisions will be guided by the interest of the nation first. My thinking of moving to the PDP is also in the interest of the nation.”
Former Osun State Governor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, who had waited long for the PDP to abide by the court judgement nullifying his sack as the party’s secretary, openly criticized the party when he defected to the APC shortly before the August 9 governorship election in the state.
In Oyinlola’s opinion, the PDP on whose platform he contested for the governorship position in 2007 is a party of rogues as his comments suggested during the grand finale of the APC campaign in Osogbo a few days before the Osun State governorship election.
Like the usual characteristics of Nigerian politicians, the presidential candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria and ex-chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, embraced the APC when it was formed, but later dumped the party for the PDP, the party he had described as a disaster and a total failure during his presidential campaign in 2011, to pursue his governorship ambition.
Though it was claimed that Ribadu was under pressure by the Presidency to join the PDP for the purpose of offering him the Adamawa State governorship ticket, which he flew at the 2015 general elections, the anti-graft Tsar purported acceptance of the offer did not go down well with the APC, which described the development as “very terrible.”
Venting his displeasure over Ribadu’s desertion of the party, the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said, “It makes me sad because it is a very terrible thing. It is a confirmation of the level to which our society has degenerated.”
Despite the reservations expressed by Odigie-Oyegun, Ribadu, with his eyes fixed on the Adamawa State governorship seat, had applied to the national leadership of the PDP to grant him waiver to enable him contest the party’s governorship primary on September 6, 2014.