by Abimbola Adelakun

The PDP has been in office for 16 years and despite its fumbles and foibles, it must have an insight into governance processes in a way the APC that is just going to be familiarising itself with the mechanism of federal power will be learning from now.

By now, the Peoples Democratic Party would have woken up to a new reality: that – to use a Pentecostal lingo – power has changed hands and their opponents, the All Progressives Congress whom they labelled “Janjaweed” and whom they also declared will not last a year has unseated them. While pondering their new fate, some of the party’s “members” have started the migratory habit of Nigerian “politicians” –they are defecting, left, right and centre.

This is a rather worrisome –though not unexpected — development considering that some of the people who voted on March 28 expected actual “change” and not a mere chameleonic transformation.

The euphoria of an All Progressives Congress win should not mean a banishment of the potential for opposition politics and for now, ironically, only the PDP seems well-positioned enough to do just that. I wish it survives the mass defections to come to become a viable opposition party. In just over a week of the APC victory, the party has received a number of fair-weather PDP members into its fold. Give it some months and the APC that won the presidential election on the back of people yearning for change might barely be distinguishable from the PDP that held power for the past 16 years.

Can the APC stem the inevitable re-creation of its identity that will occur when besieged by the PDP politicians by being discriminating of who it accepts and whose membership solicitation it turns down? Or such selectiveness is purely unrealistic given the present constitution of the Nigerian political structure? Numbers win elections but where the numbers are without a thought process independent of “stomach infrastructure”, is Nigeria the better or worse for it?

Apart from the horde of nameless and faceless masses who defect in their thousands every other week, there are known ones like a former Governor of Edo State, Prof. Oserheinmen Osunbor; Kwara State’s Senator Gbemisola Saraki; Governor Sule Lamido’s deputy, Ahmad Mahmud. In Plateau State, the governorship candidates of Labour Party, Ambassador Bagudu Hirse, and that of the Mega Party, Mrs Elizabeth Yilse, defected to the APC. Also in the same Plateau, former Governor Chief Joshua Dariye; a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Gen. Jeremiah Useni; in Ekiti, a PDP chieftain, Ayo Arise, is defecting to the APC too and this is not an exhaustive list of those who are already jumping out of the PDP ship. By the time you conclude this piece, you might have heard of another group of professional defectors who are doing their thing, unconscionable and unashamed. They will not even wait for the ink on the parchment used to draft the PDP political obituary to dry before they cross over to where the grass seems greener.

Going by the reasons they are defecting – from badmouthing the PDP for its failed promises to the noble self-sacrificing task of seeking the welfare of their people — one thread runs through all the reasons they adduce: That they are seeking better opportunities for their constituency. However, we know their true reasons are far from altruistic.

Defection or not, the APC victory on March 28 will also have a domino effect on the elections scheduled to take place this Saturday. If therefore the PDP has a poor outing at these elections, what will the next four years be for “opposition” politics? Will the opposition also be region-based like the South-West was for the APC for years before it acquired a national bent? Will the South-South and the South-East, where the PDP got its highest electoral support be the base of the next centre of opposition politics in Nigeria? With the way some people have been bemoaning the single-mindedness of the Igbo voting pattern and how they have undercut themselves from the geopolitical harvest that accompanies an election, it will be unsurprising to see South-Easterners defecting to the APC so they can be positioned for the “goodies” that will be distributed across zones after May 29.

If, however, they choose the road less travelled, what manner of opposition politics will emerge from them? How will they (re)build alliances across Nigeria, and what configuration will it be beyond ethnicity and religion? Equally importantly, how will opposition politics for this new set of lawmakers affect the legislative arm of government and their conduct? For years, the APC waved the progressives and “opposition” banner but for the most part, lawmakers from various divides agreed with one another more than actually oppose anything! Will the PDP constitute this missing crucial piece?

In reaction to the defection gale hitting their party, the PDP spokesperson, Olisa Metuh, tried to play down the effects of defection. He said, “…only lazy people… will defect one week after losing the election…We need strong and dedicated members that will rebuild the party and win the presidential election. Because we are convinced that the APC lacks what it takes to sustain our democracy, the PDP is not leaving any stone unturned to ensure that it returns to power in the next four years to save the nation’s democracy and re-channel our vision of a greater Nigeria.”

The irony of the PDP’s new position as opposition party battling fickle-minded members who are on the prowl for where the spoils of victory will be shared is almost laughable. Who could have imagined the tides of affairs ebbing for them just a year ago? The question however is, will they learn fast enough and what kind of opposition politics will they provide? Metuh has hinted that their obsession from now on will be to win the Presidency. Apparently, the thinking — and this has been on display with the APC supporters, too — is that the Presidency is the key position for any party to aim at. This is so shallow an aspiration for a political party but also a reality of contemporary Nigerian politics. You are either the party at the centre or you do not exist. The PDP cannot be totally blamed if its zeal, energy and agitation for the next four years are solely dedicated to wresting power back from their opponents. Yet, should not opposition politics be not more than this familiar, yet tenuous route?

The PDP has been in office for 16 years and despite its fumbles and foibles, it must have an insight into governance processes in a way the APC that is just going to be familiarising itself with the mechanism of federal power will be learning from now. Considering that opposition politics is usually contingent on the nature and politics of the government in power, will they use their experience to structure the shape of opposition politics or they want to be mere entertainers, indulging in pettiness with the hope that one day some cosmic forces will align in their favour? Will a political culture where ideology, conviction of words and thoughts, steadfastness in voting records and community engagement be the new opposition slant? Or, will it be the nostrum of brigands as politicians that Nigeria will have?

——————-