CONVICTION OR CONVENIENCE: The Reason Behind Political Defection In Benue State

By Orshi Daniel
 
“Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently and all for the same reason.”- Jose Maria de Eca Queiroz.

The defection by members of the Nigerian political class has continued to be a recurring decimal on the country’s political landscape. It is one of the issues bedevilling the democratic experiment and growth of the nation where politics is more of benefits and not ideology and service. However, Benue State has caught my attention because of the popular cliché that ‘charity begins at home.’
During the build up to the 2015 general elections in Benue State, the membership register of the People’s Democratic Party paraded most of the celebrated political heavyweights from Benue. These men and women spared no avenue to send clear signals that Benue State was not prepared for opposition politics and nothing on earth could change that fact. Thanks to Google and Social Media for archiving some of their utterances and declarations. When the Presidential elections came, Candidate Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress defeated the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, President Goodluck Jonathan. Ditto for National Assembly seats where APC won two out of the three senatorial seats and seven out of the eleven House of Representatives seats respectively. The gubernatorial and state Assembly elections were not different. Samuel Ortom of the APC defeated Terhemen Tarzoor of the PDP.
With the official declaration of results by the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, party chieftains and stakeholders, who hitherto carried the badge of the umbrella around and reaped from the PDP government and campaign largesse, started to announce their resignation from the party. After the mass exodus, the victorious APC became destination of choice for these political nomads. Their reception into the party was done with pomp and pageantry like the welcoming of the prodigal son in the Bible by Governor Samuel Ortom. At the numerous defection rallies, speaker after speaker exposed the dark side of the People’s Democratic Party and the injustices suffered in the party. I quickly queried the indecent haste and the pedestrian and self-serving reasons for their defections because most of the defectors were principal beneficiaries of the PDP politics of ‘stomach infrastructure’ and executors of the evils and ills that defined the party’s reign. It was a classic reflection of their desperation to remain relevant within the political calculus and benefit from the politics of ‘POCHO’ as it is widely known in the local parlance. Interestingly, these newly found political prophets foresaw the crushing of the party but decided to be crushed along with it. What a sound application of wisdom!
It is on this note that I offer my unsolicited advice to Governor Samuel Ortom; he should have a rethink and stop honouring defection rallies. Once this is made the practice, we shall witness a decrease in political nomadism. The energies and resources used for defection rallies should be channelled towards the business of statecraft. The party machinery should be allowed to handle such functions. These gales of defection should not pass as a fortification of the APC because the political appreciation of the masses is refreshingly enriching. Equally, it is worth reiterating here that even when these chieftains assembled under the umbrella with foreign currencies in their vaults, the influential Benue masses voted him. What the masses deserve in return is good governance.
Finally, for our politicians, time is ripe to be wary because the masses of today are critically observant and like Eneke, the bird, they too have learnt not to vote political parties but candidates of political parties.