Amidst the controversy surrounding the emergence of Dr. Bukola Saraki as the President of the Nigerian Senate house, Prof. Niyi Osundare penned a beautiful poem, 'Blues to the New Senate King', wherein he painted Dr Saraki as a betrayer of not just his party and the trust of the Nigerian people, but also as one whose behaviour is not just self centred and egocentric but again another characteristical example of the Biological and genetic possibility of inheritance of an acumen for disdainful acts and irritating sense of uprightness.

Nonetheless, it is the second stanza of the poem which drew me into this piece in particular, wherein he stated metaphorically but emphatically that Nigerian politicians stink equal cum worse than corpses.

While Osundare's logic especially as regarding Saraki and the insane Senate is both understandable and hard to deny, his stand on politicians, their attitude and the general political atmosphere is even more impressive. This is so to me given that this poem came out at a time when I was just ruminating on the nature of carpet crossing in Nigeria, especially in relation to Saraki and the opinion that he may again cross carpets of politics in the nearest future.

Carpet crossing, being the political act of jumping ships from one political party to another is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria, having its root even from the foundation of the Independent Nigeria. In Nigeria, it is the easiest route to political paybacks, securing a previously lost political mandate, making political statements or benefiting and getting one's share of the ''National Cake'' from the ruling party.

One the ground of Legality, Carpet crossing is legal in Nigeria, in lieu of the right to freedom of association contained in Chapter 4, Section 40 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, save of course the 'until there is division in your party' proviso which the courts have given, but that is tantamount to hiding behind a finger, we are just deceiving ourselves.

The truth is that ethically and morally, everything is wrong with carpet crossing. Yeah! Yeah! Some people like to say there is no morality in politics, but I dare say that even among thieves, there is honour, so the amorality of politics as a defence of carpet crossing does not hold water.

First issue to consider is that even in Nigeria with our confusing socio-political system, political parties are founded in line with some serious ideologies or at least some specific aims and objectives of the society. These aims fundamentally form what the party is about,what some people like to call ideology. It is therefore believed that, as political parties are an aggregation of person and other resources for the purpose of securing political power, members of every political party is a believer in the party's ideology. The expectation is for believers and not supporters, the electorates are supporters by way of voting, but members of the party are supposed to be believers, and that is why even when they lose an election and the electorates are no more in support of the party, members of the party are still supposed to be believers in the party and its ideology and remain in the party and work for it and use their various resources to make the electorate support the party again and vote it back into power.

Second issue related to political carpet crossing is that of strength of character. This point is going to generate a lot of argument given that some people may claim that individuals should be allowed to join other political parties when they are cheated in their own party, but I think that is still a show of weakness in Character. The truth is that political parties are voluntary organisations and following my earlier stated point, you are not supposed to join a party unless you entirely believe in its ideology, aims and objectives, otherwise, you are legally free to form your own party, following the extant provisions of the law. But when you have decided to join a party, you should stick to your believe in it as well as you stick to your religious faith. Perhaps it then occurs that you are cheated in your political party, as so often it occurs in Nigeria, it is the duty of the victim of the cheating to consolidate and play his politics well to outsmart the cheats within his party and help the party avoid cheating as a modus operandi or fight back with all the bullets in his political gun till he is successful. This is to the benefit of the person, who would not only emerge stronger, but also confirm him as having the necessary strength of character to carry the party onward. It is also to the benefit of both the party and the country because it would not only rid the party of the insanity within it but also present credible leaders forward to the country for election, a situation which Nigeria has hardly witnessed since the end of the pre-independence regional era.

Also carpet crossing is in itself not only a sabotage of our democracy but also a source of confusion to the electorates. I mean, it allows politicians to benefit from all parties in power without suffering the consequences of their actions while in power, especially because all politicians tend to have an attitude of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" towards carpet crossers and thus fail to bring persons who had been in power previously to justice for their actions on the ground of defecting and carpet crossing. This ends up confusing the electorate because we then do not know what either the crossers or the party to which they have crossed really stand for. And in actual application, this accounts for why a plethora of individuals can never trust men like Atiku, Femi Fani-Kayode, Bukola Saraki, and a host of others. David Mark, Tinubu, Pat Utomi, and some others may not be saints, but we are at least sure of where they stand in the entire political configuration of the country.

Jumping ships for political gains is not really an act depicting honour as a person, it in fact says the person is either greedy or weak or impatient or unpopular, non of which sounds positive or leadership worthy. Of course politics transcends morality, but this my fairytale opinion is really why nobody in particular trust the Nigerian politicians. People may follow them for money, but the truth is that even the followers do not trust them. Of course that is in addition to the disgustingly popular notion,fact and public opinion that Nigerian politicians only go to office for the purpose of self enrichment and never true service.

Before concluding, I would like to add as an aside that it is the height of insanity and unreasonableness for the Independent National Electoral Commission to give any financial aids to political parties to enable them either stay afloat or run for an election. This makes no sense, especially given that these parties are not only voluntary, but a product of the private will of some individuals. The public therefore should not be made responsible for the upkeep or capability of some political parties resulting from the will of individuals. Parties should source for their own funds, they should appeal for public donations if need be, this according to Mahatma Ghandi is in fact the true way to show how public a public organisation is, in this case a political party.

Carpet crossing in Nigeria is disgusting and a direct assault on the intellect of the electorates and the growth of our democracy. In truth, carpet crossing should be criminalised, persons who are dissatisfied with existing party ideologies or principles or processes should feel free as enabled by Law to start their own political party based on their own beliefs. Of course this would require political will and passage or amendment of the Law by politicians who themselves may be guilty of this or may want to keep the option open for their habitual "sharp sharp" shortcut to political mandate. We are therefore faced as usual with another situation that warrants us to as the age-long question "who shall bell the cat?".[/color][color=#550000]

HMMMM

Too long ,