Nigeria’s democracy is a dangerous precipice. The opposition members are setting fire to whatever is left of the ailing political enterprise. They have abandoned their duty of putting the ruling party on its toes and providing hope for the people and are indulging in debasing defections to the All Progressives Congress for personal reasons, including survival and fear of investigation by anti-graft agencies.
The queer political melodrama reached a ridiculous head recently when the Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori; his predecessor and vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 elections, Ifeanyi Okowa; the Deputy Governor; and the state structure defected to the All Progressives Congress.
An elected public officer can defect if there is a crisis in his party.
Okowa cited the need for Delta to belong to the centre in the interest of the people as the reason. His excuse is spurious.
If Delta, one of the states that receives the largest allocations, can manage its resources, why would it need the centre?
Why did Okowa not need the centre as governor of the state for eight years? There are speculations that Okowa is seeking an escape from his investigation by the EFCC over the alleged diversion of N1.3 trillion Delta funds, while Oborevwori is playing second-term politics.
Delta’s defections, described by Vice-President Kashim Shettima while receiving the defectors as “a political tsunami of unimaginable proportions that has never happened in the history of the South-South and the history of Nigeria”, have lit a match that may consume multi-party democracy.
With the defection of the Delta State governor, three of the six South-South states – Cross River, Edo, and Delta – are in the grip of the APC. The remaining three states, Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom, though still in the PDP, may be consumed by the lingering politics of survival.
If the South-South, described as the stronghold of the main opposition PDP, is overrun, the opposition is dead.
Political pundits argue that most first-term governors are warming up to join the defection bandwagon to secure a second term, while some in their second term are in the race to escape arrest and prosecution by the anti-graft agencies upon leaving office.
Media reports say Akwa Ibom State Governor, Umo Eno, has been singing the defection tune, obviously to secure a second term and save his political family.
Jumping political ships for selfish reasons is a common tactic of the opposition in the Fourth Republic.
After concluding his term as the governor of Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio defected to the APC to reportedly escape his alleged N108 billion case with the EFCC. His sins were forgiven, and he was rewarded with the Senate Presidency.
With the APC winning the 2024 Edo governorship election and the Delta tsunami, the APC currently controls 24 states, the PDP 10, the Labour Party one, and the All Progressives Grand Alliance one.
As more states are being gripped by survival politics and are warming up to deliver their political machinery to the APC, the number of APC-controlled states may increase.
The Senate is not spared by the defection fever. From 59 seats after the supplementary elections, the APC now controls 64 states. It may shoot to 66 in the weeks ahead as it is waiting to receive two senators into its fold.
The PDP has 33, LP five, SDP two, NNPP two and APGA one. With the APC currently controlling 64 of the 109 seats in the Senate, it gives the ruling party the majority status. It only requires nine seats to hit the 73 mark to control the two-thirds majority, with which it would not require the opposition to pass bills.
If the Delta tsunami happens in more states, the APC may comfortably hit the mark even in the House of Representatives. This is dangerous for multiparty democracy.
The last tier of government – the local government – is also in the pocket of the APC as it won more than 20 states in the local council elections conducted so far, after the July 2024 Supreme Court judgement that granted autonomy to LGAs and mandated elections into councils as a condition for releasing funds to them.
These major political structures, comfortably in the hands of the APC-controlled government, will signal the death knell for multiparty democracy. This is dangerous for a multi-ethnic, federalist state like Nigeria.
The frivolous defections thrive because Nigeria’s politics is devoid of ideology and principle. The politicians play politics of selfishness with scant regard for service and accountability, thus confirming the position of French President Emmanuel Macron: “When politics is no longer a mission but a profession, politicians become more self-serving than public servants.”
Although deft political moves by the APC may partly account for the ongoing political fait accompli, the accusations by the PDP and some of the opposition parties that the APC is behind the disaffection in their parties and the massive defections are simplistic.
The opposition parties should stop the blame game, put their houses in order and render their services to the people. The opposition parties must redirect the ominous political tide.
The Presidency has pontificated that Nigerians who are migrating to the APC and expressing support for Tinubu are doing so of their own freewill, based on the belief that the reforms being executed are in the interest of Nigerians and the unborn generation.
The admittance of politicians facing corruption charges into the ruling party, and the harrowing economic and shattering security indices point to the contrary.
The World Bank says 75.5 per cent of rural dwellers live below the poverty line, while 41.3 per cent of urban dwellers live in poverty.
The country ranks sixth in the 2025 Global Terrorism Index. Therefore, President Bola Tinubu and the ruling APC should stop giving themselves a ‘false sense of performance’ and face governance realities.
With hindsight, mass defection without principle or a sound ideological footing can only be ephemeral.
The defection led by then President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, to join the APC, led the protagonists and their followers into the political wilderness.
The ex-Governor Olusegun Mimiko movement that birthed the Labour Party government in Ondo State was a product of a moment. Such has been the fate of all defections across the country.
Democracy thrives when the government in power is put on its toes by a strong and virile opposition that provides robust alternatives at elections and governance.
Nigeria experienced this scenario in the Second Republic when the Unity Party of Nigeria, led by the late Obafemi Awolowo, gave the ruling National Party of Nigeria under the late President Shehu Shagari a run.
Then, there was the politics of ideology and principle. The country must return to this enviable political track.
The ongoing frivolous defections are founded on no known political principle. They will consequently end up in a worse political whirlwind.
With about two years to the next elections, the opposition parties must find their lost souls, politicians must regain their “mission” and redirect the tide of frivolous defections, while the National Assembly should make the ongoing constitutional and Electoral Act review credible, for huge political capital for the country.
