tunjioa@yahoo.com 08036683657
There is a high fever running in the veins of Nigerian political parties at the moment. Here, it’s not the politics of politicians that’s of concern to me. It’s also not the politics of who belongs to which party. Neither is it the politics of which party is in power. For, in Nigeria, all politicians and the political parties they belong to are the same. Parties are mere cover clothes that politicians can change any time. It’s the reason the latest round of defection hasn’t been of interest to me. It holds no excitement, no fascination. How it should excite anyone baffles me. In fact, I tune away from news channels once they start their rounds of news and interviews that centre on who defects to which political party. But I return when the news is about what policy and programme a state governor or the President is pursuing. Policies and programmes have direct effects on the lives of our people. Political parties don’t; especially in our clime where no one seems to know what each party stands for, ideologically.
I don’t just tune away from news channels when they focus on defection stories, I also stay away from where two or three are gathered discussing defection. It beats me how the average Nigerian gets caught up in the high fever of defection much like the political parties.
Well, card-carrying members of political parties can afford to become feverish over who has left and who is staying in their camp. As for Nigerians who reap no direct benefits from political parties, citizens who have no contacts with parties except when they vote during elections, I wonder why defections should bother them. From my own perspective, it’s something else they ought to pay attention. In fact, the heat generated by the issue of who defects to which party is diversionary under the present circumstances. It takes attention of Nigerians away from the more important issue of what politicians in office from whichever party do with the mandate they currently have.
Then, there is the question of what is in it for Nigerians when politicians play cat and mouse game as federal legislators and the executive do at the moment. This last part is where I am heading.
The drama between those two arms reached a climax when security operatives sealed off the premises of the National Assembly recently. That’s the climax, but it hasn’t ended. It shall continue for as long as politicians are the occupants of the legislative chambers. There shall be more climax, suspense and anti-climax. I should know about the relevance of those in both fiction and drama writing of which I am an award winner myself. They are the tools of a good literary piece; take readers to the peak, drop them, pick them up again and reach for more
peaks. Politicians shall continue to engage in this unending game.
They will only stop the day interest is no longer the reason people contest office by joining the party that offers them the best opportunity. I have watched enough of this in our democratic practice not to let politicians’ shenanigans over defection bother me. So, when ordinary Nigerians who are the first victims of the unprincipled politicians whose party membership is dictated mainly by the access to power such affiliation affords them, I’m amused.
Kindly note: I pay attention more to the principle and quality of the persons seeking elected offices than I do the party they belong to. To me, the party of the office holder is as good as the good the office holder does Nigerians. As I have always stated on this page, just one good deed for Nigerians is what a person in power needs for me to become a fan. Service to our people determines which politician carries weight and which doesn’t in my estimation. Who leaves which party and where they go mean nothing to me. This is one reason why in the latest round of defection, I pay more attention to its implication for our democracy, good governance, checks and balances, rule of law, and performance in office, rather than who moves where. It’s the aspect most commentators haven’t paid adequate attention. For there’s nothing new in the manoeuvres by politicians to seek safer political ground. What should be new is in what ways those manoeuvres yield big dividends for our nation? They do yield if we pay closer attention to the details. Has the reader noticed that since 1999, whenever politicians become uncomfortable to the point that they defect, or internal party squabble engulf them, such has often resulted in better performance by especially state governors who want to win the support of the people? Even lawmakers pay better attention to the needs of their constituency when they are confronted with the same situation.
It’s one good thing that comes out of a seeming disorder. The list is long, and I will not go into it. Of course, the latest mass movement across parties in the National Assembly didn’t start today. Nigerians with long memories have a list of who had crossed carpets and who didn’t in the National Assembly since 1999. Every party has gained as much as it lost. Never though has the traditional cross-carpeting affected the configuration of the leadership of the National Assembly as it does in the current dispensation. Now, a politician who has openly defected to the opposition party heads the National Assembly. Of course, new things can happen even before this piece goes to press. But I think that apart from the anger of the political parties involved in the permutations regarding numbers, the current scenario in the National Assembly is interesting. It adds colour, twists and turns to our democracy, and to party politics. It may also yield some good dividends for the people in the constituencies where lawmakers have defected, and this fascinates me a lot.
When one really thinks about it, the current situation in the National Assembly is strange, somewhat bizarre in a democracy, but nevertheless interesting. This is Nigeria. We know in Nigeria anything can happen. Nigerians travel to western countries and they know life and politics out there are somewhat predictable. But such travellers would also be the first to assert: Is it not Nigeria, where anything is possible?
The reader understands the point I’m driving at more than I have the space to expatiate. Now, what if we transfer the negative connotation that such assertion has to the intrigue playing out in the National Assembly? Is the existing oddity in the National Assembly negative for our democracy, for our polity, our nation? I don’t think so.
For the simple reason that I don’t reckon much with political parties that politicians belong to, but the effects of the action of political office holders on our people, I see the situation in the National Assembly more from the perspective of the benefits it has for our people. Why is this important? In some nations, lawmakers have been the reason some leaders rule for three decades and still counting. Out there, lawmakers play a vital role in sustaining in power leaders who think they are the best things to ever happen to their nations. In Rwanda and Uganda, lawmakers have become so pliable that they change the constitution to allow for presidents to continue in office after they have spent the constitutionally-stated term limits. In other countries, lawmakers’ votes cast in their chambers determine how leaders are continuously returned to office, even when most citizens have become disgruntled. This is possible because of some form of extreme party loyalty mixed with ethnic or religious politicking by lawmakers. In Nigeria however, the last time an elected president waved a third term flag, it was on the floor of our National Assembly that it was torn apart. Even his party members in the legislature didn’t show him loyalty when his desire was to attempt to rule forever. Here, the independence of lawmakers, their refusal to exhibit some form of rabid party loyalty based on primordial sentiments have been to the benefit of our democracy and its stability.
To be concluded next week.
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