Monday Column By Hameed M. Bello, PhD
hamdbelo@yahoo.co.uk
The ideological content of politics in Nigeria is grossly insufficient, at least going by the conduct of politicians and of political parties. Party constitution is not respected, power rotation agreements are broken at the point of conception, and internal democracy is aborted by vested interests and inordinate partisanship. Very rampant is the indiscriminate and infectious switching of parties by unstable politicians, not on the basis of ideological conviction, but rather in search of ‘stomach infrastructure,’ politics for survival or subsistence, thanks to Peter Ayodele Fayose, former Ekiti state governor who popularized this political neologism (a new political coinage now gaining traction). Fayose was Ekiti State governor from 2003 to 2006, and again from 2014 to 2018.
From experience also, it is a cultural practice among our politicians to dump their parties and pitch tents with the party they feel has a chance to form the central government, or the one which has just won a major election. Specifically, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has just won the keenly contested presidential election. Already, politicians who are not sure of delivering for their party on Saturday, or are desperate to align with the government at the centre to avoid remaining in perpetuity on the fringe of power, have been abandoning their parties and declaring support for the president-elect or candidates of his party in the governorship and state houses of assembly elections. This can pass only as ideological laziness or scheming to position for patronage in the power sharing arrangements. Besides, a typical Nigerian politician is not cut out for opposition politics. He is either in power or is out of it, and believes that if he cannot beat them, the only alternative is to join them. The predictable result of this last minute cross carpeting is a bandwagon effect in the Saturday guber and other elections.
Bandwagon effect is simply a term used in sociology to denote the observation that people often do or believe what they think many other people do. It is the tendency for people to adopt certain behaviours, styles, or attitudes simply because others are doing so. More specifically, it is a cognitive bias by which public opinion or behaviours can alter due to particular actions and beliefs rallying amongst the public. The expression has become popular in political circles in Nigeria and refers to a winner takes it all syndrome. In this context, it means that the outcome of an election, or the behaviour of voters is predicated upon the outcome of a similar or previous election that is, though not dependent on it but, indeed tangential to it.
The usually over flogged argument is that there is no permanent enemy or friend in politics, but permanent interest. This is a reason politicians pitch tents where their bread is surely buttered. They don’t want to be on the losing side, or remain in the opposition to nurse their party ideologies for the next four years to be able to win the following election. At the moment, if they cannot partake in the sharing of the main cake on the table, at least they should be able to standby closely to pick the crumps. At all at all na him bad pass, as is usually said in local parlance. This is the difference between democracy in third world or developing countries and those of the advanced democracies in Europe and America, not minding that political governance in any country has some local cultural characteristics.
Instances of such switching were recorded in some states. In Niger State, the PDP governorship candidate in the 2015 and the 2019 elections, Alhaji Umar Mohammed Nasko had reportedly dumped the party for the ruling APC after his presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar lost out. Umar Nasko a staunch PDP chieftain made the switch in Minna, saying that his defection was out of conviction after he was approached by the APC governorship candidate, Umar Mohammed Bago. Bago, while accepting him into the party according to the report, said that they both shared the same vision for the development of Niger state, adding that Nasko will be part of his government if elected – this is the bottom line.
From Birnin Kebbi in Kebbi State, a report said at the weekend that a key chieftain and other supporters of Senator Adamu Aliero of PDP, a Senator-elect, had defected to the APC. The APC chieftain,
Alhaji Kabiru Sani Giant said in an address that many supporters of Senator Adamu Aliero and other groups had switched to the APC shortly after the emergence of Tinubu as president-elect.
Gaint expressed happiness over the high level of the opposition parties losing their supporters to the APC in the State, assuring that the APC will win on the 18th March in the governorship and state assembly elections in the state. Similar defections were reported in Zamfara and Gombe States.
And in the PDP and Labour Party dominated areas where both parties enjoyed relative dominance in the results of the Presidential election, similar defections were recorded. In such places, the APC is in the opposition and similarly lost members to the parties in control of votes in those areas.
As we countdown to Saturday, March 18, the stage is set once again for us to either reconfirm or witness a departure from the likely bandwagon effect which comes about as a political anomaly. Recall that the contest for the governorship and membership of state assemblies will be held in all states, except in some like Kogi,
Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Ondo and Osun which are out of the general time table due to circumstances, including the FCT where the position of governor or state assembly does not exist.
In American democracy which we copy, for instance, the dominance of two-party system makes it all-too-easy to forget that there are actually other parties out there contesting for votes. Although largely overlooked today in mainstream political circles, third parties – or minority parties – have historically held significant influence in national politics of the USA.
Today there are 37 ballot-qualified minority parties in the U.S. (despite its name, the Tea Party is not an official party, but rather a Republican contingent). Only three of them, however, are recognized in more than five states: the Green Party (left wing, environmentalist), Libertarian Party (individual rights) and Constitution Party (staunchly conservative, religious). Each is wholly unique, but they all share a staunch belief in the need for alternatives to the two-party system.
Green Party was founded in 1984 with Jill Stein as presidential candidate, The group generally supports a left-leaning, liberal platform on the American political spectrum with an emphasis on the core tenets of environmental protection, social justice, grassroots democracy and pacifism. The party also supports campaign finance reform to limit corporate political influence and declines corporate contributions. It has ballot access in 20 states.
Libertarian Party which has the slogan of “Maximum freedom, minimum government” is a libertarian political party in the United States that promotes civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism and the abolition of the welfare state. It was founded in 1971. In 2012, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson received about 1.3 million votes, more than any other third-party candidate.
The Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the United States after the Republican and Democratic parties. The group aims to emphasize a commitment to free-market principles, civil rights, personal freedom, non-interventionism, peace and free trade. According to the party, “Our vision is for a world in which all individuals can freely exercise the natural right of sole dominion over their own lives, liberty and property by building a political party that elects Libertarians to public office, and moving public policy in a libertarian direction.”
This is it. Our politicians should learn to remain and build their parties, rather than switching indiscriminately at the slightest excuse. As it is often said, Rome wasn’t built in a day. With time, they can build great parties that can upset the apple cart. Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party almost did it.
