Defection just for political survival – Rep Ogene
As opposition lawmakers and other top figures continue to defect to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the leader of the Labour Party caucus in the House of Representatives, Afam Ogene, said there’s nothing new or surprising about it, noting that it is simply about survival. Given the recent wave of defections from the […]
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As opposition lawmakers and other top figures continue to defect to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the leader of the Labour Party caucus in the House of Representatives, Afam Ogene, said there’s nothing new or surprising about it, noting that it is simply about survival.
Given the recent wave of defections from the opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress, do you see Nigeria descending into a one-party state?
Well, I am not worried because for anybody who has been around, either as a partisan politician or an interested Nigerian who follows the trend of political activities, there is nothing new about what is happening. For different reasons, people try to gravitate to the centre. That has always been at the core of our politics. If you cast your mind back, even under the Obasanjo administration, from 1999 to 2007, several states that were not of his political party, the PDP then, before the end of his first term, began to move into that party.
In the South-West you had Alliance for Democracy (AD) taking charge of the entire region. But before Obasanjo’s second term, the PDP had taken five of them, remaining only Lagos.
In the North-Central, you also had some of those movements. So it has always been a feature of our politics for different reasons. First, once the chief executives of the different states are challenged, in terms of any corruption allegation, the first place to run to is the ruling party. You remember that anybody who didn’t quite align with the president had to face different kinds of persecution, I dare say.
Look at the case of Alamieyeseigha, who was impeached by not up to 10 members of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly – clearly not up to the two-third of members as stipulated by the constitution. So we have a federal structure that is overwhelming. And for men with little faith, at the slightest sign of trouble, they move to the centre. It is curious that once they move to the centre, all their sins are presumably forgiven. You remember that a former national chairman of the APC said so.
So, it remains to be seen, whether the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC’s) moves against former Governor Okowa would be sustained. So it is nothing new. The same PDP at the time had about 25 or 27 governors, even going into the 2015 elections. At the end of the day, they still lost that election. Now, the APC has 22 governors, and I am sure they are going to get more. So, the music is still the same but the dancers on the floor are different.
But I do not envisage a one-party state. They are just looking for a comfort zone. You also know that the PDP imploded, so the APC too is set for implosion because it will not cater for the diverse interests of the current political players that are coming into their fold. Those that will not get the tickets of the party and the desire for running for office would ultimately seek other platforms, including my party, the Labour Party. More are still going. These are times that tempt the faith of men. At the end of the day, all politics is local, so it depends on you and your confluence. So you move because you think you would get a ticket of a major political party or patronage in terms of federal advantage, which could be through contracts and all what not.
At the end of the day, there must always be opposition political platforms because the whole essence of democracy and politics is freedom of choice. The moment that is removed, then we are no longer running a democracy. But I know that we will never get to that day when everybody will be morphed into one political platform.
Do you think the parties have done well in managing their affairs?
No. That’s why I am not even blaming the ruling of APC. It is like a football game – you work on your strengths while your opponent is supposed to work on their own strengths. So, if they field bad players or they’re not able to have a workable game plan, they should not blame their opponents. I am not blaming anybody. Yes, there are crises in the different political parties, but these are also instigated by members of that same political party. However, that is not to say that previous opposition parties have run smoothly. You will remember that the current president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who started as an AD governor, between himself and the wise men of Afenifere, arose a dispute. And so, because he felt he could no longer control the AD structure, he moved over to the then Action Congress (AC), then to the Action Congress on Nigeria (CAN).
They didn’t just make all these moves, it was influenced by crises. It might not have been too open to the ordinary eye, but it was crises that also led to this metamorphosis from AD to AC to ACN before eventually morphing into the APC alongside some other platforms. So it is nothing new.
Is the current situation healthy for our democracy?
Our democracy is evolving, so it is healthy. But I think that part of the problem is when those in charge of the executive want laws to protect themselves. If, for instance, people move for a law that would want to eliminate all segments of transmission of results and state that from the polling unit it goes straight to a central server, you would see that those who are likely to benefit from a malfunctioning system would not allow such a law to come into place.
So the problem is not with our democracy, it is with the fact that anybody who has the opportunity to be at the helm of affairs does not want any other person; he wants the law to be on his side. For instance, the constitution is clear that if you defect from your political party, you lose your seat, but in pursuing that, the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, has also interpreted that according to the law, it is the Speaker or Senate President that should declare the seats vacant. How can a Speaker or Senate President that is warmly receiving defectors to his party be the one to declare their seats vacant?
However, democracy is a work in progress. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; hence the moment you close your eyes and say, ‘well, let them do it,’ they can even take away your personal liberty. But we will remain there to keep reminding them until you begin to get the changes.
What can be done to stem the tide?
It is not a question of being afraid that more people would go. I have already told you that even from my party, the Labour Party, by next week, some people will defect. But that is not to say that the others that are remaining will not carry on the torch. What we will probably do is to firm up the laws. The constitutional review process is ongoing. As I pointed out, the only drawback is that those who think it is in their favour today will not allow radical and progressive change to be made. But we will keep putting it on the agenda. The more we speak about it, the more it begins to get into the consciousness of people. So, even if we don’t get it right now, in the coming years, I am sure that some more victories will be won and democracy will keep thriving.
Some people are saying that the way out for the opposition is to form a coalition, just like APC did; do you subscribe to that?
There is nothing wrong in coalition. As you know, in the past, people tried to do mergers and coalition. In the case of APC, they came together in a merger to form a new party. And in having a coalition, the first step is to remove personal interests. What is the goal? Every politician is after political power. And if you are chasing political power and you make it an individual agenda, then you have failed, even before you begin. That is one. Two, anything that is not founded on justice is bound to boomerang.
The Nigerian constitution stipulates a power sharing formula between North and South. In 2023, the different political parties were supposed to heed to that. What led to the crisis in the PDP today is that they didn’t recognise that sentiment. Somebody from the North was departing after eight years and you wanted another person from the same region to replace him?
So some people in the APC played smart and pandered to the current agitation in the country and went the South, specifically, the South-West. There are three zones in the South – the South-South had power under this Fourth Republic. The South-West has had power under the same Fourth Republic, remaining the South-East. Why didn’t they, as critical stakeholders, go to the South-East? Because they wanted to shortchange an entire zone, they went to the South-West. And the people who did that are the ones crying the loudest.
You would remember that it was former Governor Nasir el-Rufai that led some governors to say it was going to the South. But they stopped short of saying it had to go to the South-East. They went to the same South-West that had the presidency for eight years and the vice presidency for eight years. Even natural justice does not reward any act that is not founded on justice and fairness. There was no fairness in that.
People from the North are crying the loudest because they thought it would be a situation where, ‘having helped you to power, you would share the patronage with us.’ Now that they are not seeing it, they are crying. Why would they cry?
Sure, I vote for the coalition, but what I am saying up front is that such a coalition must be aimed at addressing past injustices. That is the way their case can stand before man and God.