LEON USIGBE examines the gale of defections from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with the 2023 elections inching closer.
The 2023 general election will hold on Saturday 18th February 2023. Therefore, these are hardly good times for a former ruling political party desirous of recapturing power to lose its leading lights to its rivals. The main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is thinning out with its state governors, lawmakers and important members leaving to join the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In the last few years, the PDP has lost to the APC, Governors Dave Umahi (Ebonyi), Ben Ayade (Cross River) and Bello Matawalle (Zamfara). No less than five serving senators have also crossed from the PDP to the APC just as numerous legislators that were elected under the former ruling party have since pitched their tents with the present party in power. Ditto many more former party chieftains at all levels in the country, among who are former speakers of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and Dimeji Bankole; and former Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika (retd).
The latest defections may not be the last as there are strong indications that a few more governors in particular and other party chieftains are still weighing their options under pressure from the APC national leadership led by the Yobe State governor, Mai Mala Buni, to switch allegiance to the APC. The PDP, as a party, recognises this immense pressure the ruling party is applying on its members to jump ship, but appears to be at a loss as to why they would succumb to the lure of a party it believes most Nigerians have seen as a woeful failure in government. For Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, leaving PDP for the APC is akin to leaving a political party down with malaria to another one stricken with cancer.
But Umahi, Ayade, Matawale and the others have their reasons for decamping to the APC. Umahi said he left the PDP because it did not cater well to the interest of the southeast. For Ayade, it was to have the opportunity to support President Muhammadu Buhari on the “good job” he is doing. However, observers wonder why they are only just realising that in their second tenure and with less than two years to leave office. As for Matawalle, having not given any reason publicly yet, the speculated motivation he had for joining the APC is so he brighten his re-election chances.
PDP insiders argue that those who left to the APC have no valid reasons to do so except the fear for their futures. They are of the opinion that some of the defecting governors have had their fingers soiled through the mishandling of public resources that have allegedly been used against them by the ruling party as a point of blackmail. To be protected from future discomfort therefore, they needed no further convincing on the need to switch parties. Matawalle’s defection came despite previously swearing to maintain his membership of the party that brought him to power. “I swear by God, I›ll embark on this journey with sincerity before God. If I ever have the intention of cheating any among you, or cheating this body; the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may God never give me what I›m looking for in this world,” Matawalle had vowed in 2019.
Governor Wike agrees that rather than for a problem within the PDP, the defectors are driven by other considerations especially fear. Hear him: “Unfortunately, from all those who have defected, nobody has given you any cogent or tenable reason that you can believe why they are defecting. Governor Umahi left, what is his reason? What did he say? Ayade left. What did he say? Matawalle just left. What did he say? So, there are different reasons why people leave. With all due respect, they are all my colleagues as governors, nobody has given any tangible reasons why they left. Nobody!” “People are leaving to the ruling party to cover their inadequacies. People are afraid and (saying) let me go to the ruling party so I will be protected. And my question to them is, protection from what? What protection are you looking for as a governor?
“The day President Buhari is leaving office is the day I am leaving office. And if people say that, which of the governors in these states can say they have been intimidated the way Rivers state governor has been intimidated? Which of the governors will say they have faced the kind of election as a governor of a state that I faced? Why will I, based on the kind of Intimidation and the things that happened, not say ‘look, let me go to APC and seek for protection? You are aware in 2015, there was nothing the ruling party did not do to remove me from office. Nothing! That alone, having survived that, that alone would have made to say, ok, I don’t want further problems, let me go and see how I can seek protection. But as a man who has conscience, as a man who believes that…even where you want to get protection, they have no protection. They are merely trying to woo you and expose you at the end of the day.”
The APC though sees it differently. Judging by the remarks of governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, the defections have their roots in PDP’s internal politics. The APC governor believes that the opposition party has become weak but conceded that poaching PDP’s governors and lawmakers is part of politicking that is making the APC a stronger party. “We have been a very strong party and we are doing the best we can to continue to be stronger and the only way we can be stronger is to get more and more people and the right people to get are the leaders of the opposition. That’s what we are trying to do and God so kind, we are doing that,” Governor Sule argued recently. He believes that since Buhari assumed office in 2015, the PDP has become weaker and it is still becoming weaker.
Sule’s assertion goes against the ongoing PDP’s move to reconcile its members and former members to reposition the party ahead of the 2023 general elections. Even though the Bukola Saraki-led reconciliation committee boasts of significant successes in this direction, the continuing defections of PDP members to the APC would seem geared to upend his assignment.
Not all APC stakeholders are comfortable with Governor Sule’s thinking. One of such is the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay, who argued that allowing such defections portrays the APC as an unprincipled political party. His words: “I am extremely dismayed and troubled by that. I am also very displeased with the APC for accepting all these people. These are opportunists who want to use the chance of joining APC to continue to remain in power and remain relevant. They are totally unprincipled people and the APC itself is a highly unprincipled party for accepting people like that. Why should a governor who has contested and won election as a PDP man, why should we allow him to cross over to APC? That is an affront on the majority of voters who voted for him. For me, it is a very bad situation and it is not good for the image of the APC. On each occasion, opportunism will carry the day, the people who have gone out to cast their votes will be terribly disappointed with such developments. I am particularly disappointed in the Yobe governor, Mai Mala Buni, who is the APC caretaker chairman. He was put there to organise a convention. Up till now, he has not succeeded. Instead, he is going about buying PDP people to join APC. That, to me, is unprincipled and it is embarrassing to me as a supporter of APC.”
Despite what seems like flimsy excuses from the defectors, observers say the leadership of the PDP is either complacent or implicitly complicit in the loss of its members to the rival APC so close to general elections. A member of the PDP, suspended member of the party, Kassim Afegbua, blamed its national leadership for the gale of defections. “The events of the last one month and the continuing defection of major PDP stakeholders to the ruling All Progressives› Congress (APC), is a further testimony to the leadership tactlessness and spinelessness of the Secondus-led NWC of the party.,” he said in a statement in which he called for the ouster of the National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus.
The PDP’s spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, rubbished this assertion, as he toed the line of Governor Wike in positing that the PDP has done all that is necessary to keep their governors but those defecting lack the courage to withstand the pressure from the APC. He said: “It is emphatic to say that every requirement to stabilize the party and make our governors to remain in the party has been done to every individual governor. But it takes a lot of courage, it takes a lot of valor for some governors to be able to withstand, to take a stand and speak out against the situation that the nation has been pushed to. Perhaps those that you can find decamping are those who lack the courage to be able to withstand the heat of the APC at this moment.”
Ologbondiyan’s position notwithstanding, the question being asked now is, how will the PDP stem the tide of defection from its ranks with the general elections around the corner? Despite the position of the 1999 Constitution under Section 221 and the pronouncement of the a Supreme Court in the Faleke v. INEC (2016), which affirmed that no law allows elected officials to cross over to any other party with the mandate statutorily given to a political party through the ballot box, the PDP has yet to challenge the recent decampments of its governors and other members. But it has now signalled that it will do so in the case of Matawalle in Zamfara state because it is markedly different from the others. The PDP’s argument for a court case is based on the fact that the court awarded victory to it as a party and not to the candidate (Matawalle) when it voided the participation of the APC in the Zamfara election.
Therefore, the PDP finds it objectionable that Matawalle’s action has transferred its mandate to a political party that did not participate in the election. If the main opposition party does make the court move, observers think, any outcome may impact on elected official’s tendency to switch parties and its chances in the 2023 elections.
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