If you have not noticed it already, a new
season has dawned in Nigerian politics.
That season is one of carpet-crossing
back to the PDP. About a year ago, there
was a rash of defections from the PDP
to the APC. Nearly 40 legislators left the
ruling party for the opposition. Five PDP
governors also followed suit. But now
the movement is a one-way trajectory in
the opposite direction. APCmembers are
having buyers’ remorse and are making
their way back as prodigal sons to the
PDP.
There are two basic reasons behind this.
One year ago, the APC was the new
party on the block. A simplistic political
calculus led some to the hasty conclusion
we finally have the party that would
dislodge the PDP after 15 years of one-
party rule in Nigeria. So some
people quickly joined the APC
bandwagon. But the more cynical reason
was that the defections were designed
to discourage Goodluck Jonathan
from seeking re-election as president.
The vain hope and expectation was that
Jonathan would see the colossus ranged
against him and throw in the towel.
New realpolitik
One year is a lifetime in politics and
these prognoses have become bankrupt.
A new harsh reality has set in. The APC
is now a shadow of its hype. Since the
initial excitement, it lost Ekiti by a
landslide and scraped through in Osun;
two states presumed to be
APC strongholds. In spite of considerable
arm-twisting, including the nuisance
value of APC Trojan horse Sule Lamido’s
candidacy, Goodluck Jonathan is going to
run on the PDP’s 2015 presidential
ticket.
Short of the shenanigans of Attahiru
Jega and his fictitious 30,000 new polling
units, the APC does not stand a chance
of defeating the PDP in the coming
presidential election. The combination
of these two realities is provoking a no-
holds-barred migration back to the PDP.
As a matter of fact, once Jonathan finally
declares his candidacy and is endorsed
by the PDP, there will be a mass exodus
from the APC to the PDP. Even before
then, those who lose out in the APC
choice of its presidential candidate will
not waste time before making their
way to the PDP. The movement will be
massive all in one direction because in
Nigerian politics the winner takes all.
The one thing politicians are very good
at is in reading the signs of the times.
Timber and caliber
What has happened over the last few
months is that a procession of APC who-
is-who has defected to the PDP. This
includes Attahiru Bafawara, Brigadier-
General Buba Marwa (rtd.), Ibrahim
Shekarau, Femi Fani-Kayode, Ali Modu
Sherriff, Jimi Agbaje, Nuhu Ribadu and
Tom Ikimi. These people have read the
writing on the wall and have discovered
that, by hook or crook, the PDP is not
going to lose the coming presidential
election. Don’t be surprised if by next
year, even Atiku applies to be re-
admitted to the PDP, after he would
have been shut out of the APC.
There were a lot of raised eyebrows at
Nuhu Ribadu’s defection to the PDP. But
what exactly was he supposed to do?
There is no future in the APC for him.
Ribadu served for eight years under the
“hateful” PDP. As EFCC Chairman, he
indicted Tinubu of corruption and
called him a looter of public funds “of
international dimension.” But then he
ended up in Tinubu’s ACN where he was
even comically paraded as the party’s
2011 presidential candidate; only to be
traded off shamefully in a despicable act
of political treachery.
Clearly, Ribadu cannot be APC’s
presidential or vice-
presidential candidate. Neither can the
APC make him governor of Adamawa
State. Since he recognizes that the APC
is headed for defeat in 2015, that means
the offer of a ministerial position in
Abuja is out of the question. Neither can
the APC make him the Nigerian High
Commissioner to the Court of St. James
as a consolation prize.
However, the PDP can offer him all but
one of these juicy posts. So what would
be the point of staying in the APC? None
whatsoever! This kind of cold hard
calculus will become increasingly
evident to other APC politicians; the
closer we get to the 2015 election. Just
you wait; they will soon be jumping ship
to the PDP in droves.
One-party rule
There is still only one political party in
Nigeria at the federal level and that one
party is the party in power. What is
the difference between the PDP and the
APC? Only one; PDP is in power at the
centre: APC is not. Besides that, there is
no difference whatsoever! They are not
even yin and yang. They are Siamese
twins. They are children of the same
ugly mother. They are Jekyll and
Hyde. They are two peas in a pod.
When the APC first emerged, some were
excited that we would finally have a two-
party system. No such luck! For the
longest time, Nigeria will remain a one-
party state. When you truly have a two-
party system, you have two parties with
different world-views. They have two
contrasting and competing ideologies.
Not so in Nigeria. Like people, like
priest! The people are uneducated and
so are the polithiefcians. They have no
ideology, no policies and no vision. It is
all about getting into power to get a
piece of the national cake.
The APC touts Buhari as an anti-
corruption icon. It says PDP is a party of
thieves and robbers. But when did you
hear the APC require those PDP
governors and legislators it welcomed
into its ranks to account for the money
they stole while in the PDP? Never! It
relies on them to bring the money.
Murtala Nyako was impeached for
corruption. Did anybody hear APC
members say anything against his
corrupt practices?
Boko Haram politicians
Suddenly, the APC is making a lot of
song and dance about PDP’s
Bunu Sheriff being labeled by Stephen
Davis as a sponsor of the Boko
Haram. But the same Bunu Sheriff was
in APC for over a year until
recently. Even as APC member, he was
fingered as a possible Boko Harram
sponsor, and the party took no action
against him. Bunu Sheriff was not
kicked out of the APC: he resigned.
At a meeting in the British parliament,
chaired by John Glen, a close adviser to
Prime Minister David Cameron,
allegations were raised that key
members of the APC in Nigeria are
supporters and financiers of Boko
Haram “for ideological and political
means.” Early this year, British MP
Andrew Rosindell questioned Foreign
Secretary William Hague in parliament
specifically on the question of the United
Kingdom’s engagement with the APC
over the Boko Haram insurgency in
Nigeria.
No ideologies
Nigerian political parties are much of a
muchness. If you did not know this, the
rash of defections to and fro is eloquent
testimony. That is why Obasanjo can be
the so-called Baba of the PDP
yesterday, and today be invited by a
high-powered delegation to become
the Navigator of the APC. Kwankwaso
can be elected governor of Kano on the
platform of the PDP in 2011. But
midstream in his tenure in 2013, he
switches to the APC without any change
in policy or ideology.
How many prominent members of the
Labour Party in Britain have we
ever heard defecting to the
Conservatives? How many prominent
members of the Democratic Party in the
United States do we ever hear crossing
the
carpet suddenly to the Republican
Party? Virtually none! The reason is that
those parties stand for something and
their members believe in what they
stand for. However, Nigerian political
parties stand for nothing. They believe
in nothing. All they seek is to feather
their nests while in office.
The PDP makes few principled
pretensions. It is a party of thieves and
robbers. It is a party of “come and
chop!” That actually makes it endearing
in a way. What you see is what you get.
But lately, it has been trying to reform
itself. There is now more
internal democracy in the PDP, making
for fewer spats.
The APC, on the other hand is a party of
dissemblers. It calls itself a progressive
party. But how do you have a
progressive party that makes a point of
collecting the “non-progressives” rejects
of the PDP? How do you have a
progressive party led by certificate
forgers and insatiable land-grabbers
with dubious unexplained wealth?
Political prostitutes
Nigeria political parties are Twedledee
and Twedledum. They may go by the
acronym ECN, or NEPA or PHCN; but the
one constant is lack of electricity. As for
Nigerian politicians, they are nothing
but high-class prostitutes. The principled
and upright ones, like Senator Udo
Udoma of Akwa Ibom, are few and far
between. Neither do they survive for
long in politics. After eight years,
Senator Udoma voluntarily called it
quits. “The beautiful ones are not yet
born.”
But take, for example, the current
Governor of Imo State. He must hold
some kind of Nigerian record for carpet-
crossing. Okorocha was in PDP before he
was not. In 1999, he contested for
governor of Imo under the PDP. In 2003,
he ran for the ANPP presidential
ticket. When that came to grief, he
returned to the PDP as
President Obasanjo’s Special Adviser on
Inter-Party Affairs. In 2005, he was
a founding-member of the Action
Alliance. By 2007, he was back in
the PDP. In 2010, he defected to APGA
and ran for governor of Imo
State. Having become governor, he
decamped to the APC in 2013.
Men like Okorocha who cannot stay in
one place need to be placed under
arrest. Okorocha’s jumps from pillar to
post have one unchanging purpose: his
unending search for politically greener
pastures. If he does not secure the vice-
presidential ticket of the APC at
their coming convention, your guess is
as good as mine if he will remain
one day longer in the party. In short, at
this stage of Nigerian politics, virtually
all our politicians are self-serving. Far
more
than the people they misrule, they are
the ones always looking for stomach
infrastructure.

Long story joor