Checkmating The Incidence Of Defection Among Politicians

Political defection is the act of switching loyalty from one political party to another. Whenever there is defection, the losing party always sees the defector as a traitor who has betrayed the trust reposed in him or her.

Defection is not new in Nigeria, neither is it unique to Nigeria. Sir Winston Churchill, the great British statesman, who was a two-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was originally a Liberal Democrat but he died as a Conservative Party man.

The only difference between defection in Europe, North America and other areas, and the Nigerian scenario is that in advanced climes matters of defection are based solely on ideological differences while in Nigeria politicians cross from one party to the other for all manner of flimsy reasons bordering on selfish interests.

The first recorded high profile case of defection in Nigeria was in 1951 and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was the central actor. In their article “Cross Carpeting in Nigerian Politics: Some Legal and Moral Issues Generated”, O. Opadare and J. Agbana wrote “… Yoruba members of the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) were lobbied to cross over to the Action Group (AG) to stop Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo man, from becoming the Premier of Western Region. This heralded the massive cross over to the AG. As the leader of the NCNC, Azikiwe was to be the Premier of Western Nigeria following the elections of 1951 with Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba man and the leader of Action Group, as the leader of the opposition in the Regional House of Assembly. The NCNC won 42 seats out of the 80, but within 24 hours 20 of them had cross carpeted to the AG”.

Since then the country has been experiencing cases of cross carpeting but in recent times, the spate of such defections, including high profile ones, have attained alarming proportions. The dominance of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is due largely to the mass defections from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2013. There was another wave of defections again in 2018 in which the APC almost lost its majority seats in the National Assembly.

The then Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara were among people who defected back to the PDP. Other high profile defectors in the country include Godswill Akpabio, Timipre Sylva, Rotimi Amaechi, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar. Some politicians, like Atiku, have become serial defectors.

For instance, Atiku was a founding member of PDP in 1999; in 2006 following long-drawn disagreement with President Olusegun Obasanjo he crossed over to Action Congress (AC). Again, following disagreement with Bola Tinubu, Atiku abandoned AC for PDP. He later moved to the new-PDP, from where he left for the APC in 2013. After complaining of being sidelined by President Muhammadu Buhari, he left the APC for the PDP after extracting assurance that he will get the party’s 2019 presidential ticket.

More recent defections involved Governors Bello Mattawale of Zamfara, Ben Ayade of Cross River and Dave Umahi of Ebonyi, all crossing over from the PDP to the APC while Godwin Obaseki of Edo State crossed from the APC to the PDP, when it was looking certain he would not pick the APC’s governorship ticket.

No week passes without the media space being inundated with stories of defection. The spate of defections painted the picture that there was no end in sight. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to many when news hit the airwaves on Tuesday, March 8, that Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, ordered the Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi and his deputy, Dr Kelechi Igwe, to vacate their seats for defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress.

Justice Ekwo also sacked 16 members of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly, who joined Governor Umahi in defecting to the APC. Insisting that the court lacked powers to sack him, Umahi has since appealed the case. As if to add impetus to the fight against indiscriminate defections, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday, March 21, sacked 18 members of the Cross River State House of Assembly and two members of the House of Representatives, from the state, following their defection from the PDP to the APC.

Ruling on suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/975/2021 filed by the PDP, Justice Taiwo Taiwo said by dumping the party on whose platform the lawmakers secured victory in the different elections, their seats remain vacated. The court issued an order restraining the defendants from further parading themselves as members of the House of Representatives or as members of the Cross River State House of Assembly.

In the same vein, the court granted an order of injunction restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Speakers of the House of Representatives and Cross River State House of Assembly from according recognition to the sacked lawmakers. The court equally made an order of mandatory injunction compelling INEC to accept from the PDP, the list of its candidates to fill the vacant positions created by the sacking of the lawmakers.

The lawmakers, who are those who crossed carpet with Governor Ayade, seem to have landed themselves in serious trouble because, according to Chapter 5, Section 68(1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), “A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party, (and) he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected.

Chapter 5, Section 68 (1) (g) and Section 109 (1) (g) are exactly the same thing but while the former applies to federal lawmakers the latter is applicable to members of state Houses of Assembly. Both sections provide that defection is permissible only when there is division or crisis in the member’s original party or the lawmaker becoming a member of another party, is as a result of a merger between two or more political parties.

If these lawmakers and those of Ebonyi State, who defected to the APC along with Umahi, are made to lose their seats, it will checkmate the incidence of indiscriminate defections and also serve as a deterrent to other politicians who may be nursing the idea of switching party allegiance because of some flimsy reason.