Preparatory to the 2015 general elections, political permutations have thrown up an unprecedented trend of defections from one political party to the other. Thirty-seven members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the House of Representatives were the first to cross-carpet to the All Progressives Congress (APC), while eleven other PDP senators are angling to switch to APC. Some members of APC have also defected to Labour Party and PDP, respectively.
This defection blues presently rocking the political space is not new in Nigerian politics, but it has kept tongues wagging. The motives behind defection vary from one person to another. In fact, I can say without any fear of contradiction that most defections these days were borne out of ulterior motives and self-serving agenda of the defectors.
Defection opens a floodgate of exodus of party members who rightly or wrongly felt aggrieved, short-changed or disenchanted with the way their party was being run, especially in the Second Republic. Politicians who know their onions translate their movement to other parties into victory and success, while others who fail are doomed politically and consigned to the dust bin of history.
What is the mind of the Constitution and the Eeectoral laws on defection as it continues to dominate public discourse and raise so much legal and political dust? What impact will this development create in our democracy? The law made it clear that a candidate who is elected on a platform of a given party and defects to another ceases to be a member of that political party. It is, therefore, at the discretion of a jettisoned party to either declare his seat vacant or not. The PDP and APC adjudged to be the strongest today are mostly immersed in this defection fever with the PDP threatening to declare the seats of the defectors from the party vacant.
The laws of the land should be applied across boards on all defecting elected politicians in accordance with the constitution and the electoral laws. The court should also prove that sentiments have no place in law. If this happens now and justifiably too, a precedent will be established and the issue of defection will be laid to eternal rest.
It should be noted that the provision for declaring the seat of a defected member of the legislature or executive vacant was to discourage political nomadism. Elected representatives defy the law and defect because the 2010 Electoral Law as amended is not applied accordingly.
The mass media which should hit the nail on the head has been shy or rather pretentious on this matter. Instead of providing information, education and direction to the most appropriate perspectives on the issue, the fourth estate of the realm decided to throw the issue to the public domain for judgment. So many phone-in programmes and vox pop have been carried out without any of such efforts pin-pointing the exact application of the law. They rather left people more confused than they were before the issue came up. The Nigerian Bar Association is equally standing aloof on this matter.
In this case, those who should be the drivers of the decision-making process and opinion-moulding have turned out to be pretentious onlookers. An analyst once said that for the fact that one has converted to either Christianity or Islam does not make him or her righteous or guarantee him heaven at last. The character and attitude of the defectors, if not changed, will make no difference in their sojourn in their new parties.
Sunday Onyemaechi Eze,
Abuja
