It is mocking that politicians in Nigeria have continued to lay claims to their fundamental rights to freedom of association as a means of moving in and out of political parties at will. The members of the State Houses of Assembly, House of Representative Senate and even the governors share in this whole mess and the excuses adduced by the defectors is are lame ones.
In the last this present republic, Nigerians have witnessed several movements or abandonment of politicians from political party that vehicle them to power for another and the reasons they give have ranged from impunity, inadequate reward, harassment and undemocratic impositions by their former political parties who now perceive them as political enemies.
If it were in sane clime, those involved, whether common or uncommon defectors should have simply gone to the court to challenge the unfair or undemocratic behaviour by their former political party. Because, in good politics, defections must be as a result of change in ideological principle of the politician.
Provisions were made in the 2010 Electoral Act as safeguard against indiscriminate cross carpeting from one political party to another, which spelt out conditions under which an elected officer can defect, but the inherent loopholes in the safeguards were today still being exploited by politicians.
The 1999 Constitution is clear on what constitutional grounds a serving lawmaker could switch political party without loosing his or her seat. Section 68 (1)(g) of the constitution (as amended) provides, that “a member of the senate or of the house of representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if; being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected; (but) provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or faction by one of which he was previously sponsored.”
Standardly, joining a political party should be based on the party’s ideology and defection should also be based on change ideology.
For example, Liberalism and Socialism are the two most ancient and principal ideologies that had influenced politics and political party formations.
Liberalism strongly believes that the market forces should determine who gets what, how and when in the society and Capitalism is the instrument to achieve the good society; thus, government or the state does not partake in the production and distribution of goods and services while Socialism believes that the government or state has a role to play in the production and distribution of goods and services in the society and its instrument is the bureaucracy or the workforce of the state.
Therefore, in Politics, it is left to the individual to chose the ideology that tallies with his or her vision of a good state and this is what informs joining or voting for a particular political party.
Defection thus, can occur when the political party begins to deviate from its ideological stand or principle.
In all these cases of Nigerian political party defections, it has nothing to do with part deviations from ideological principle. Their reasons are thoroughly selfish, not ideological.
Therefore, the solution to Nigeria’s political leadership shame and mess is to first of all totally ignore the current crop of political leadership, raise a new set of political leaders who know what politics is and how to go about it for the common good of the society.
Such leaders must have integrity, intellectualism, patriotism and the fear of God with which they can insist that the right things must be done.
