There is still much to expect regarding recent defections by politicians left in the cold following the outcome of the recently held elections. With the conclusion of the much anticipated 2015 presidential elections with attendant shift in configuration of political influence ocasioned by alternation of power at the federal level, the weeks and months ahead promise more intrigues regarding realignment of forces amongst politicians.
Those who have expressed worries regarding the recent gale of defections from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), which has not only wrestled power at the centre, but now enjoys overwhelming control in majority of states across the country, would soon realise they were only in a hurry in drawing conclusions. We are yet to witness the unthinkable and the unimaginable which are in the offing in the weeks and months ahead! Indeed, we have seen nothing yet as more defections would follow the inauguration of a new regime on May 29.
Indeed, those who are conversant with dominant character of politics in our clime; essentially as a business of furthering personal nest and survival rather than serving the interest of the larger society would hardly be amazed with the new turn of event. What has now become the fate of the once dominant and largest political party in Africa could not have been anything otherwise considering what the loss of power at the centre portends for personal interests of politicians rather than collective expectations of the generality of the people.
If the outcome of the presidential elections had been the other way round, the APC would by now have become the shadow of itself with stakeholders left to rue and reconsider allegiance to the party. The coalition of forces that laid siege on the PDP and shook it to its foundation almost a year to the election would have suffered a deafening and if not irreparable disorientation if the PDP had managed to survive the onslaught. It is therefore in the interest of Nigeria and democratic future if defection becomes a consequences even if undesirable rather than a breakdown in the process. A victory for the PDP in the March 28 presidential election would certainly have triggered violence in greater dimension than was the case in 2011. If a do-or-die President and Commander-in-Chief with determination to hang on to power were to be in the saddle, the PDP would have survived with less than three million votes difference. After all said and done, most of those who left the fold of the PDP before the election would have been returning home without hesitation even if unceremoniously.
Without disposition and commitment to dispensing power with moderation, an interim government or even a worst scenario would have been a possible option. The APC now has a huge burden of managing its successes both at the level of governance as well as at frontiers of party politics. Whatever the case, the APC would be putting into advantage lot of lessons drawn from the crises in the PDP, while the PDP is left to confront the inevitable task of rebuilding from the ruins of internal crises. Without doubt, the future of party politics depends on how these two institutions of democracy conduct their affairs. And since there could be no political party without actors, the trend of defection would definitely be a factor in charting a future of the politics ahead. Democracy and governance would, no doubt, be the better for it, on the long run, if such an important outcome as witnessed with peaceful transfer of power at the federal level translates into stronger opposition that would stimulate delivery on governance based on the expectations of the people.
Unfortunately however, what our democracy gained from the peaceful alternation of power at the centre; regardless of whatever reservation anyone has on the conduct of the presidential election would not likely be sustained by politics that thrives on sterile rather than virile opposition. Before the emergence of APC which grew from the coalition of political parties, opposition groups were contented with being champions of their localities or regions of influence with only niggard interest or exaggerated pretention about real contest for power at the centre. It is in the larger interest of democracy and the country that the PDP would not degenerate into such political conclave and not sooner too.
The larger picture of defection would however be fully unveiled by the time the APC is done with experimenting with power of political patronage in the next one year or so. In the meantime, it is however interesting to note that the PDP is already crying wolf over the possibility of a one-party state while the APC on the other hand is embarrassingly scandalised with daily upsurge in the number of defectors into its fold. But the simple truth is that while Nigeria cannot be a one-party state, no political party, in all sincerity, can afford to shut its doors regardless of how much electoral leverage it appears to enjoys in the interim as the future of politics hardly depends or defined by event of the moment. Whatever the case, the immediate future only holds the key to emerging picture of political affiliation in Nigeria.
But if there is indeed no permanent enemy in politics as they say, the lessons of the last two years should be enough to caution that fair-weathered friendship could be injurious to the health of responsible and principled politics if the overall interest of building enduring democracy is what really matters. While the mannerism of erstwhile top ranking members of a political party who defected purely out of the urge to belong to the new camp of power or for fear of insecurity is simply despicable, the whole scenario speak volume of the prevailing character of politics that is largely self-serving and which depicts patent lack of principle. Politicians decamping or defecting following the loss of power by their political party could not be said to be making such move for altruistic reasons. It is most unlikely they would remain in their newly found political camp for long when the full import of the new dynamics of political patronages dawns on them.
If the statement of the president-elect that new political defectors should not expect free ride on the new train is anything to go by, no one should expect that the APC would be without stiff oppositions in some of the states where it has recently won election purely on the strength of the crises in the PDP. And no one can predict that 2019 general election would be a pleasure ride for the APC as a refurbished or rebranded PDP may yet be a handy vehicle for wrestling power. But it all depends on how the legions of political defectors and their supporters reassess the game based on trends that are bound to emerge in the years ahead.