Gale of defections: Why should anyone vote in Nigerian elections? By Olu Fasan

By the end of this year, or even earlier, the All Progressives Congress, APC, Nigeria’s ruling party, may control 30 or more of Nigeria’s 36 state governors. Currently, the party has 29 state governors in its fold. Of these 29, only 21 are APC governors by election, the others are APC governors by defection. The gale of defections has swept away eight of the 12 governors of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and deprived the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, of its only governor. The president, Bola Tinubu, is fully hands-on in his determination to lure and co-opt virtually all opposition governors into his party ahead of his re-election bid in 2027. 

But does anyone, not least the president himself, care about the irreparable damage that the whirlwind of defections is inflicting on Nigeria’s party system and its electoral or representative democracy? Any representative democracy derives its legitimacy from the explicit consent of the governed, and, thus, at its heart are the electoral links between those governing and those being governed. If those links can be so easily and flippantly severed, why then should anyone vote in elections?

Of course, Nigeria is a country where politicians behave with utter impunity, giving not a scintilla of consideration to the consequences of their behaviour. Yet there are consequences for a political system in which party loyalty is so fluid or fickle, in which political parties stand for nothing ideologically and are mere vehicles for capturing the state, and in which politicians frequently change parties after grubby behind-the-scenes deals in a “cash-and-carry” politics defined by corrupt, transactional and patronage-based deal-making, with absolutely no regard for the party system or the electorate. 

The 1979 Constitution expressly makes Nigeria a party-based democracy. It states unequivocally that no one “shall be qualified” for any elective office unless “he is a member of a political party and is sponsored by that political party”. In other words, there’s no room for independent candidacy. While individual personality and popularity matter in any election, it is not personal votes but party bulk votes, representing the explicit will of the electorate, that get people into power. Thus, elected politicians who arbitrarily defect from their party to another party do not only betray the party that gave them their ticket to ride but also insult the voters whose votes gave them their mandate.

To underscore the centrality of the party system, the 1979 Constitution prohibits an elected federal or state legislator from defecting from the party that sponsored them unless the defection is “as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored”. Any legislator who defects without any of those conditions being met must vacate his or her seat. Some countries have stricter anti-defection rules. For instance, in India, legislators are barred from changing parties. Nigeria’s less stringent rules are more sensible, if strictly applied. The problem is: they are not!

What’s more, today’s state governors are not subject to any anti-defection rules. During the Second Republic, from October 1979 to December 1983, the Federal Electoral Commission, FEDECO, as the national election body was then known, insisted that a governor must first resign before decamping to another party. As a result, some principled governors resigned. For instance, Muhammadu Goni of Borno State and Abubaker Barde of Gongola State resigned as governors and left the Great Nigeria People’s Party, GNPP, to join the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, while Abubakar Rimi resigned as governor of Kano State before defecting from the People’s Redemption Party, PRP, to the Nigerian People’s Party, NPP. Unfortunately, under the current dispensation, governors can change parties at the drop of a hat without consequences. Just imagine if, as in the Second Republic, governors must resign from office before they can defect to another party, how many of today’s opportunistic and self-serving defections would have taken place? Perhaps, hardly any! The lesson is simple: where there are no consequences for behaviours, impunity is inevitable. 

But let’s be clear: defections from one party to another happen worldwide. The main difference is that, unlike in Nigeria, where defections are driven purely by ambitions, they are largely driven by ideological splits in most other climes. For instance, over the past few months, five members of the UK parliament have defected from the Conservative party to the new Reform UK party. They believed the Conservative party was not tough enough on immigration and other right-wing issues; so, they joined Reform, a truly right-wing, anti-immigration, anti-diversity-inclusion-and-equality party. 

By contrast, in Nigeria, politicians do not change parties for ideological reasons because political parties are not based on any ideology; rather, they are constellations of constantly shifting elite networks, united by the common goal of capturing power. The APC, even at its formation in 2013, was made up, to a large extent, by defecting PDP leaders.  The PDP itself has been a revolving door for politicians from other parties, particularly the APC. What about the African Democratic Party, ADC? Well, it’s a hitherto dormant party hijacked by disgruntled and/or ambitious former PDP, APC and Labour Party members who are attempting to breathe new life into it in the hope of turning it into an election fighting machine to wrest power from President Tinubu and his party in 2027. So, all the parties are just special purpose vehicles, with no soul, no spirit, no philosophical underpinnings.

Yet, deceptively, Nigerian political parties use meaningless party labels or nomenclature. The most commonly used, yet bastardised, is “Progressives”. For instance, Nigeria’s ruling party calls itself “All Progressives Congress”. But there’s nothing progressive about the party’s outlook, politics and policies. Progressivism is a philosophy based, as John Stuart Mills put it, on the idea of “liberating the human mind and improving the human condition”. In his memoir, A Journey, Tony Blair, a former British prime minister, said that progressive parties always believe that if they have power, “they will use it for the benefit of the people”. But ten years in power since 2015, the APC has deepened poverty, misery and inequality in Nigeria. The so-called “progressives” in Nigeria enjoy entrenched privileges, behave like feudalists or aristocrats, and use the poor as plebs and serfs. Furthermore, while progressives are true democrats who believe in competitive politics, Nigeria’s “progressive” ruling party is using all sorts of inducement, including incumbency and patronage powers, to lure virtually all opposition governors into its fold to consolidate power and win another term in office. 

Recently, while attending the launch of a book on a PDP governor, Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa State, an APC governor, Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, told Fintiri: “My brother, you are working like a true progressive governor, and I dare say you have the APC in your DNA.” Then, brandishing a Tinubu trademark cap, he added: “I have come with a cap just in case His Excellency is thinking of something similar. I can wear this cap on you, and I think we can go ahead.” Of course, that was not funny. First, Sule insulted the voters of Adamawa State, who elected Fintiri into office, by telling the governor in his state to betray his mandate. Second, there’s no progressive party or a progressive politician in Nigeria: it’s all self-interested, transactional, cash-and-carry politics!

Truth is, Nigeria must be a true representative democracy and a genuine multi-party system, with consequences for opportunistic defections. Otherwise, there’s no reason to vote in elections.

*Dr Fasan is the author of ‘In The National Interest: The Road to Nigeria’s Political, Economic and Social Transformation’, available at RovingHeights bookstores.

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